Am I eating right? 5 Tips

Here is a simple way of deducing what you are eating. Clients ask me all the time about diets and nutrition. I've come up with 5 simple and easy to remember steps. In this order, ask yourself:

1. Where are my Carbohydrates and what kind are they - simple or complex? Simple is like fruit, candy... Complex is like whole grains, rice, potatoes.... Carbs are stored in the muscle, blood and liver. Your body stores very little of this energy source and it has to be obtained from outside sources. In fact, carbs is the basis for human movement, so why would you want to cut them out? It fuels the kreb's cycle where fats are burned. Fats burn in a carbohydrate flame. Google it. Carbs have 4 calories/gram and takes ~24% of the calories from carbs to convert it to fat. The more carbs you have (to a certain point), the more fuel you have to perform work. The more work done, the more calories burned. More calories burned, the higher your resting metabolic rate is (calories burned at rest). More calories burned, the more weight loss will occur (as long as more calories are burned than consumed) or the better athletic performance you will have. Also, 1 gram of carbs holds on to 3 grams of water - helps prevent cramps and dehydration.

2. Where are my Fats and what kind of fat? Poly unsaturated like olive oil or saturated like a hamburger. You store fat under your skin (subcutaneous - aka yellow fat) and around your organs as (visceral - aka brown fat). It provides energy for along period of time - that is as long as carbs are present. If carbs are not present, then the body breaks down muscle/protein and converts that into carbs (glucose) to be used for energy. It is a very inefficient energy system and is used as a last resort. There are 9 calories/gram of fat and only takes ~3% of fat calories to be converted to human fat. Now, compare that with carbs. You are what you eat. There's a reason why the leanest countries in the world eat the most carbohydrates (Japan, China, Indonesia, India...) and the fattest eat the most protein (US, Britain, Germany...).

3. Where is my Protein and what kind - animal, cheese, dairy, nuts...? Is the source lean (i.e. fish) or is fatty (i.e. red meat)? Protein is used to rebuild/repair tissues, produce hormones and enzymes. Notice it is not an energy source. Proteins have to be converted into carbohydrates (glucose) in order to be used as a fuel. You can think of it this way - carbs are protein sparing. If you are an endurance athlete or a pro bodybuilder, remember that. Also, protein has an "insulin like" factor so it helps pull glucose into the cell. It's always good to have a little protein with a carbohydrate (i.e. some fruit with a hand full of raw almonds). It will help prevent an insulin dump (aka sugar drop) and help maintain blood glucose levels.

4. Is there a wide variety of colors? The more colors there are, the more nutrients there is (in theory - depending on the food source and no, Skittles can not be counted as a food source).

5. Is it as close to nature as you can get? The closer to nature the food source is, the better chance that you will have to enzymes to break it down and chances are it will be a lot healthier. We were meant to be nomads living off the land. We were not designed to eat things from a lab.