What is Nutrition? The Bare Essentials You Need to Know to Change Your Body!

What is Nutrition – The Bare Essentials You Need to Know to Change Your Body!

What is Nutrition? A question many people ask so allow me to explain the basics. Spend Less time learning about the body you want and more time earning the body you want!

This quick nutrition primer will give you the essential facts you need. It is not intended to be a medical paper with vast amounts of detail that’s useless, just simple, clear information that will get you up to speed as quickly as possible.

Topics covered on this page:

The Three Food Groups (Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat)
Calorie Value of each Nutrient
Protein, Carbohydrate and Fat Foods

The Three Food GroupsAll foods are classified into three groups, protein, carbohydrates and fats. Each food group has a unique role in the body and different attributes. Check out this reference table for a quick overview:

Nutrient	Calories per Gram	Role in the Body

Protein	4	Builds and repairs body tissues such as muscle Transports nutrients through the body Hormone production Creates new cells
Carbs	4	The bodies preferred energy source Ensures protein is used for repairing muscle tissue and not used for energy which is not efficient
Fat	9	Hormone metabolism Healthy skin and hair Tissue Repair Protecting internal organs

As you can see each group has a different calorie value per gram, this means that each nutrient has a different amount of calories per gram.

10 grams of protein = 40 calories
10 grams of carbs = 40 calories
10 grams of fat = 90 calories

You will note that fat is the most calorific nutrient, this is why a diet high in fat can make you put on weight. It does not mean that you should not have fat in your diet, as you will see from the table above your body needs fat to be able to carry out essential bodily functions.

Here’s a handy food list that shows you examples of foods rich in each nutrient.

Protein

Eggs
Dairy
Meat
Legumes
Fish

Carbs

Oats
Bread
Pasta
Rice
Fruit
Vegtables
Sugar

Fat

Nuts
Butter
Meat
Oils
Junk Food

That’s it! The basics covered, now you can move onto the more exciting stuff!

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SBI!