Not all calories are created Equal - focus on protein and Calories

The most important rule is still calories in and calories out CICO.

CICO

What is CICO? This is the amount of calories you consume versus the calories you burn metabolically.

When attempting to workout your basal metabolic rate (BMR) or of your Daily Caloric Intake you can estimate based on your body mass (Weight) in kg, your Height in cm and Age in years. Then You can use a multiplier based on your activity levels to work out maintenance calories.

if you want to lose weight you eat less than your maintenance calories and if you want to add weight you eat more calories.

Then the question becomes by how many calories do I alter my caloric intake? I use the rule of adding or subtracting approximately 250 to 500 calories from your maintenance calories.

How accurate are these calculations. From experience they are generally pretty accurate. It really does depend on how accurate you are in eating the right amount of foods to make up the right amount of calories.

Hidden Calories

What are hidden calories? These are calories that are added that are not accounted for in the eating plan. They are hidden because when people record their food they generally don’t see it necessary to add the extras.

What are the extras? Things like sauces and oils are the most common extras.

Most times you add your meat and vegetables and carbohydrates but forget to add the sauces you added to the meal or the extra oils you added to cook the meals.

Once you account fo all the calories then we can focus on how you construct a diet.

Protein first

Why do we look after protein first?

1. We want to lose fat not just weight. We want to retain lean tissue which is generally why protein is important.

2. Protein provides the greatest saiety or meal satisfaction when eating and that is important for adherence to a nutrition plan.

3. Protein is the only macronutrient that cannot be stored as energy. Fat and Carbohydrates can be stored and it’s not important to eat them at every meal.

How many protein meals and how often?

The best practice for protein is to eat 4 to 5 serves per day and approximately every 4 hours.

How much protein per day and per

meal?

The amount of protein per day can vary depending on activity levels and goals. I suggest based on current science that you eat around 1.5 to 2.5g per kg of bodyweight. This can vary depending on how much body fat you have and whether you want to add muscle or just lose fat.

The amount per meal can be calculated by taking the total protein for the day and dividing it by the number of meals.

If you need 200g of protein per day and you have 5 meals then you divide 200g of protein by 5 and you have approximately 40g per meal. Protein Sources

There are a few ways of measuring the protein quality based on the amino acids the protein contains and how much of the essential aminos acids. Essential amino acids are the ones the body cannot manufacture and needs to consume.

Generally, animal sources have proven to be the best in terms of protein quality and they also contain more calories from protein. You are much better off consuming lean sources if you can to avoid extra calories.

if you are vegan or vegetarian then the consumption of mixed legumes and nuts will help to get enough protein and enough of each of the essential amino acids.

Fats and Carbohydrates make up the rest

The only rule I have for fats is that I keep fat calories at 20% (not grams) of total calorie intake.

Fats are important are for hormones and to create the structure of cells.

Carbohydrates make up the rest of the calories.

It is not rocket science.......