Pexels. CCO Licensed.Whether you’re exercising to lose weight, build muscle or simply improve physical performance in a chosen sport, it’s important that you’re getting the right nutrition into your diet. Below are a few tips on how to get the right nutrients for your workout goals.
Start by considering calorie intake
First you need to work out how many calories you should be consuming. Calories are essential for providing us with energy for our workouts, but it’s important to only consume as many as we are likely to burn. This is because any unused calories are likely to be stored as fat.
To lose weight, you need to be burning more calories than you’re consuming. This typically involves reducing daily calories or upping one’s exercise. It’s worth using a total daily energy expenditure calculator to work out how many calories you’re consuming and burning.
When it comes to gaining muscle, you typically need to consume more calories than you’re burning in order to put on weight. If you’re doing enough strength training, these calories will convert into muscle rather than fat. Most people need to be eating at least 100 to 200 extra calories per day when bulking up.
Pack in your protein
Protein is important whether you’re losing weight or bulking up. This is because it helps to both repair muscle and control hunger. Most people working out heavily should aim for about 150 grams of protein per day.
What are the best sources of this protein? Poultry, fish, eggs and dairy are all good sources of complete protein. You can also get protein into your diet via nuts, seeds and grains. Many people also help to boost their protein intake via supplements as found at this site’s home page. Protein shakes are a common way to take these supplements. Limit processed sources of protein such as processed meats and processed cheeses.
Take care with fat
Fat helps us to absorb vitamins, and so is an essential part of our diet. Of course, you don’t want to eat too much fat so it’s important to keep an eye on your intake.
If you’re trying to lose weight, you want to keep your fat intake down, but not eliminate it completely. You should aim for about 0.3 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight (if you weigh 200 pounds, aim for no more than 60 grams of fat per day).
If you’re gaining muscle, you have freedom to eat more fat, but should still try to keep a cap on it. Instead aim for 0.5 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight (so about 100 grams if you weigh 200 pounds).
Sources of fat should ideally be healthy and not via processed foods. Healthy examples include fatty fish, whole eggs, avocados, dark chocolate and cheese.
Consume more clean carbs
Carbohydrates are our many source of energy. You can get carbs from many different types of foods. To ensure that your carbs are being used as energy and not automatically stored as fat, it’s important to stick mostly to clean carbs – particularly when losing weight.
Clean ‘whole’ carbs include the likes of potatoes, beans, whole grain rice, oatmeal and corn. Unhealthy ‘refined’ carbs typically include things like pastries, sweet breakfast cereals, candy and white bread.
Carbs should make up roughly 30% to 50% of your daily calories – the rest being protein and fat. Calculate how much calories you’re consuming via protein and fat and aim to consume the rest via carbs.
Don’t overlook vitamins and fiber
Fruit and vegetables are still important within your diet. These will help to provide you with vitamins and fiber for the rest of your body’s daily needs. You should bear in mind that fruit and vegetables can contribute to your carb, protein and fat intake. For example, bananas are full of carbs, spinach contains a lot of protein and avocados contain a lot of fat.
Speak Your Mind