Balancing Macronutrients For A Healthy Lifestyle

When discussing your dietary needs, there are Micronutrients which are things like vitamins and minerals, sodium, etc.  Then there are Macronutrients.  This group consists of carbohydrates, fats and protein.  In order for your body to function properly it is important to balance your Macronutrients.

First, you need to know that carbohydrates and proteins each carry 4 calories per gram, and fats are 9 calories per gram.  This is important to know when figuring your percentages of daily calories.

In a previous post I wrote a lot about the importance of carbohydrates in your diet.  I said that you should get 45-65% of your daily calories from carbohydrates for things like fueling your energy and good brain function.  If you'd like to read that post, click here.  I won't rehash that post, and I'll just leave it at that...45-65% of your daily calories should come from carboyhdrates.

Additionally, you need protein.  Protein is important because it does things like tissue repair, preserves lean muscle mass, source of energy when carbs are not available, immune function and more.  According to an article by McKinley Health Center (University of Illinois), your daily diet should consist of 10%-35% of your daily calories in proteins.  If you do the math, someone with a 1800 calorie per day diet should be eating between 45g and 157.5g of proteins per day.  That is a very big range.  If you look at a chart produced by the Institute of Medicine Food and Nutrition Board, an "Adequate Intake" for most women is 46g per day, and the AI for most men is 56g per day.  However, if you are doing exercise, your requirements for protein would be higher.  I am a 41 year old female, and I do light to moderate exercising a few days a week (when I'm being good ;) and my nutritionist advises me to eat at least 60g of protein per day.  If you work out at a gym, you may get a gung ho trainer who insists you have to have the full 35% of daily calories in protein to repair and build your muscle as you are working out.  I am not going to say that's wrong.  I am just going to say that sometimes they are a little over zealous in the recommendation to eat protein and eliminate carbs.  But I know some of you are on very high protein and very low carb diets.  If that's what is working for you, your doctor or nutritionist recommends it and you can maintain it for the long term, then keep at it.  (If the math confuses you, here is the formula... Total daily calories (times) x% and then that number divided by 4.)

Then there are fats.  There are good fats and bad fats, but let's talk first about fats in general.  Fats come from things like butter, oils, seeds and nuts, poultry, meat, fish, and dairy.  The recommended daily allowance of fats for most adults (men and women) is 20%-35% of your daily calories.  (That would be Total daily calories (times) x% and then that number divided by 9.)  According to the American Heart Association you should have no more than 7% of your daily calories be from saturated fats!  Trans fats should be less than 1% of your daily calories.  And most of your daily fats should be poly- and monounsaturated and should come from things like vegetable oils, fish, nuts, seeds and plants like avocados.

All of this sounds like it would be very difficult to keep track of.  But if you read my post called "The Most Valuable Weight Management Tool Available" then you will know that I am a BIG advocate of Fitday.com.  This website is free and will easily tell you in a simple little pie chart under your daily food log what your percentages of macronutients are.  Then there is a little table that breaks the numbers down for you and even separates out the types of fats and their percentages.  It couldn't be easier, and, in my humble opinion, leaves no excuse to not keep track of these types of things for a balanced daily diet for a healthy lifestyle.  Here is a pic of one of my daily charts/graphs so you can see what it looks like (and you can click for a larger view).

(My carbs were a little higher than my target 180g this day. ssshhhhh...don't tell my nutritionist! :)

The last thing is:  How much fiber should I be getting a day?  Well, in an article by The Mayo Clinic, they break it down very simply.  Men up to age 50 should get 38g per day.  Over age 50 they should get 30g a day in fiber.  Women up to the age of 50 should be getting 25g per day, and those over 50 should get at least 21g a day in fiber.  Why is fiber important?  The obvious one is that it helps maintain good function of the bowels.  It also does things like lower cholesterol levels, helps control blood sugar levels, and it could help with weight loss.  You can get your soluble fiber (dissolves in water) in things like oats, apples, peas, beans, barley and more.  Insoluble fiber can be found in things like whole wheat flour, nuts, and vegetables.

The point is, your diet is not just how much protein you eat, or how many carbs you eat, or how many calories you eat, or how many points you have.  A balance of macronutrients is essential for proper body function, and should be considered and calculated when trying to maintain an overall healthy lifestyle.

I hope this information has been helpful for you.  Please remember...I am not a professional.  I simply do a lot of research, and you can also find a ton of information on this topic simply by Googling "macronutrients".  I recommend looking at the source of information, though, to make sure you are getting it from a reputable place for the most accurate information.  Hopefully the links I have provided here will give you a good start if you'd like to do more of your own research.

I hope I didn't completely bore you with this.  It is important information, though.  If you'd like to leave a comment, please do!  Or, you can always contact me directly at happyfairylove@live.com.

Happy days!
Lisa

Not All "Healthier" Ice Cream Is On My Recommend List (Product Review)

One thing I miss terribly from my "eat whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it" days is McDonald's chocolate shakes.  Oh, how I love them.  I have to admit, on the rare occasion that I get my kids each a small chocolate shake from McD's, I have to take a little taste.  Just a small one.  And then I'm satisfied.  I can taste it and go on with my day.  Not like before when I'd down a medium shake in like 10 minutes.  Do you know how many calories and carbs are in a McDonald's chocolate shake, btw?  A 16oz cup is an enormous 710 calories, 21g fat, 13g saturated fat, and OMG 115g carbs!!!

But a McDonald's shake is not what I'm here to talk about today.  I had an emergency where I needed a chocolate shake.  Trying to be good, I went for a healthier alternative.  I found Skinny Cow "Slimited Editions" (cute, huh?) Double Chocolate Crumble Shake-Stirs.  Doesn't the name of it sound simply divine?  Yes, I thought so too.  Here's what it looks like:

I was really leery about buying it at first, because it's really not very big (8.1 oz) and packs in at 230 calories (and then add the milk that you put in it on top of that), and it has 40g carbs (not including the milk).  But, I tell you, it was an emergency!!! :)  When you open it up it's just frozen ice cream with cookie crumbles in it with a well down the center.

Then what you do is add 1/3 Cup milk and let it sit for a minute.

Then after a minute or two you stir it up and it's more like soft serve ice cream than it is a shake.  And it's very messy.  When I stirred it I couldn't easily get to the bottom without all the ice cream on top spilling over the sides.

Here's the nutritional information for one of these Shake-Stirs:  230 calories, 2.5g fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 40g carbs, 6g fiber, 7g protein.  So, all in all it is a WAY better option than a McDonald's milkshake.  But I have to say, I thought the taste was a little flat and bland.  By the name "Double Chocolate Crumble", I expected TONS of chocolatey wonderfulness.  It tasted good, but not great.  I was left feeling cheated out of a big 230 calories from my daily calorie budget.

The better option is definitely the Skinny Cow Chocolate Fudge Brownie single serve ice cream cup that I reviewed a few posts ago.  You can read that here.  The chocolate flavor is much better, and even though it's a smaller serving, it has way less calories (150) and it actually lasts longer than the bigger Shake-Stir.  I think that's because it takes longer to savor it and let it melt in your mouth since it's frozen, rather than the soft-serve of the Shake-Stir that melts easily and gets swallowed quickly.

Yes, it tasted good, but not good enough to warrant "spending" 263 of my daily calories on it (230+33 for my 1% 1/3 cup milk that got added in).

btw, talking about the Skinny Cow single serve ice cream cups, I tried the Strawberry Cheesecake, and it was marvelous!  So rich and creamy.  I wish I had one of those again instead of the Shake-Stir.

Eat Wisely,

Lisa
happyfairylove@live.com

Information on the Big Carb or No Carb Debate

It all gets very confusing.  Low carb / high protein; low fat / low carb; counting calories; counting points; everything in moderation; and so on.  But which one is correct?  I'm all for the one which you can maintain for the long haul.  There are some things I'm kind of against, though, and I'll tell you why.

My doctor said for me to not have more than 20g carbs per day that aren't vegetables.  20g.  That's it.  My mouth just kind of dropped open as I stared at him blankly.  That's less than 2 pieces of regular sandwich bread (about 24g).  That's less than my 1/4 c oatmeal, 1/2 c milk and 2 tsp of stevia in the morning (which comes to just 23.5g).  I did Atkin's for a few months, and I lost a lot of weight on it at first, but it was absolutely impossible for me to maintain, which didn't do me any good.  For some people, like my doctor, it works very well.  For me, not so much.  And that's the key to this whole lifestyle change...what can you do now and maintain later?

And, his recommendation didn't jive at all with the research I had been doing on the internet about how many carbs I should be having a day for a diabetic and heart healthy lifestyle.  Actually, it was very different.  According to an article written by the Mayo Clinic (I try to use highly reputable sources for my information btw), carbs are essential to your body's function.  First, understand that carbs come from fiber, starch and sugar.  You should get your carbs mostly from fruits and vegetables, legumes and beans and low fat dairy.  You should get carbs from starches that are whole grain, such as brown rice.  And then you should limit those things with added or refined sugar.

Additionally in this article (link above), and also backed by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and here by the American Diabetes Association you should be eating 45-60g carbs PER MEAL, and your daily carbs should be about 45%-65% of your total calories.  As an example, if you eat 1500 calories per day, and each gram of carbs is 4 calories, then 50% of your carbs would be 187g carbs per day.  (1500 x 50% = 750 calories / 4 calories each g carb = 187g carbs)

When I finally got my nutritionist, who specializes in healthy diabetic lifestyles and is also a life-change coach, it matched with exactly what she told me...45g carbs per meal (men should have a little more at about 60 per meal) and 15g carbs per snack.  So if I have 3 meals a day (and you should distribute your carbs as evenly as possible between meals) and 3 snacks a day, that would be 180g carbs per day.

Why should you have that many carbs a day?  The article I referenced above by the Mayo Clinic goes into more detail, but it says that carbs are essential for many of your body's processes such as providing energy (especially to the brain and nervous system), protecting against diseases like cardiovascular problems, and healthy carbs can also help people maintain their weight. 

In the end, low carb diets are not more effective for weight loss than a diet monitoring calories.  A low carb diet will help you lose weight more quickly initially, but over the course of a year the weight loss evens out between the two. (Harvard School of Public Health)

For me, based on what my professional nutritionist advises and by highly reputable sources on the internet agreeing with the exact numbers she gave me, it is best that I have about 45%-65% of your total daily calories in carbs.  Not 20 like my doctor suggested.

As for counting points, I'm not that familiar with it personally.  I did do Weight Watchers briefly a long time ago, but I don't remember much about it.  I will have to do more research.

Along with keeping my carbs in check I count my calories.  After all, weight loss (and gain) comes down to a very simple fact...if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight.  If you eat less calories than you burn you will lose weight.  I try to keep my calories around 1400 per day.  If I stick to it, it will give me a weight loss of about 1 lb per week.  More on this another day, but if you'd like to start counting calories more easily and get an idea of how many calories a day you are burning and should be eating, check out Fitday.com.  It is free to register and use and it is an awesome website.  I wouldn't have been able to lose my 46 pounds so far if I didn't have that tool.

So, if you decide to keep up with my blog, you will see that the recipes I post and products I review will probably have carbs in them.  But they are at a healthy level, and that's the key for me.  What is healthy and what can I maintain for the long term?

Thoughts, anyone?  If you'd like to reach me I am at happyfairylove@live.com.  Please don't send me hate mail though...I am not saying that people on a low carb diet are wrong or bad.  I'm saying that a diet with carbs is just as good, and maybe even better for many people because of the fact that it is easier to keep up with for a long time since it is less restrictive.

Be well,
Lisa