Counting, counting, and more counting. It seems to never end.
Tracking the number of grams in this, the number of calories
in that is a meticulous, time consuming and most of all, mind
boggling experience. Although, the nutritional labels help,
many of us fail to realize exactly what it is saying and how
important the information is!
To help those lost souls looking
for the answer, in this article, I will talk about the things that
have helped to make my life easier while dieting. I will hopefully
provide information that helps you when determining what is good
for your diet.
What inspired me to write this article is my wife
is preparing for her very first bodybuilding competition. Many of
the questions she continually asks are related to dieting and how
to calculate correct portions based on the nutritional values of
foods. It has made me really understand how much knowledge I have
gained and how much I still need to learn. As I begin to write this,
I reflect back to the time I was given a diet that stated that my
overall proportion of carbohydrates, protein, and fat should be the
following:
- Protein = 50%
- Carbohydrates = 20%
- Fat = 30%
Man, was I confused. How could I figure out what my total caloric
intake was? I mean, I had previously read that the easiest way to
calculate your total caloric intake for losing, maintaining, and
gaining weight was by multiplying your current weight by 12 to lose
up to 2 pounds per week, by 15 to maintain your current weight, and
by 20 to gain up to 2 pounds per week. At the time I weighed 195 pounds
and needed to lose 20 lbs to compete as a Middleweight.
Question
was, "How can I do that and what was the proportions above telling
me"? What I discovered was how simple it really is. Given that
you can bring all the pieces of the so-called pie together and
understand what each piece means. So, in theory, if I wanted to
lose up to 2 pounds per week, all I needed to do is multiply my
current weight by 12. Doing so gave me a resulting total calories
intake per day of 2340.
Now, the question was, "How do I determine
the proportions of carbohydrates, protein, and fat based on the total
caloric intake?" It seems easy right? Based on the numbers above,
if 50 percent of total calories should come from protein, 20 percent
from carbohydrates, and 30 percent from fat, that translates into
1170 calories from protein (50%), 468 calories from carbohydrates (20%),
and 702 calories from fat (30%). Problem is that all nutritional
labels usually provide the values of protein, carbohydrates, and fat based
on grams! The answer to the madness is also on the label, however, it
requires a little mathematical equation to figure it all out. At the bottom
of the label, you will find information that is extremely beneficial
when performing the needed calculations. It states the following:
- 4 calories per 1 gram Protein
- 4 calories per 1 gram Carbohydrate
- 9 calories per 1 gram Fat
As you see, this information is very important when determining the
amounts in grams of each of the previous nutritional components.
With this information, we can now conclude that, for a 2340
total calorie diet, the number of grams of protein is determined by
the by performing a calculation like the following:
1170 calories/4 calories per gram = 292.5 protein grams
Similarly, for carbohydrates, I use the following:
468 calories/4 calories per gram = 117 carbohydrate grams
Finally, for fat, I will use:
702 calories/9 calories per gram = 78 grams
So based on the 50-20-30 ratio for a 2340 calorie diet, I was able to
calculate the total grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fat! Easy right?
You'd be amazed how many enthusiast like yourself have not yet figured this
out. Once you do, it is simple to determine any part of nutritional facts
into something useful. The generic statement, "Percent Daily Values (DV)
are
based on a 2,000 calorie diet.", becomes much more understandable and less
intimidating. Many of us don't have a need to understand the low level
details
and never do.
In addition to performing the preceding calculations to determine portions,
I strongly urge and suggest that you also keep a units converter handy as
well.
Most times we are told to eat 8 ounces of this, 2 ounces of that, a 1 ounce
of those.
Unfortunately, when reading nutritional labels, they often indicate serving
sizes in
terms of, for example, 1 teaspoon or 5 grams. So, say you are suppose to
take 1 ounce of
something yet the serving size says a single serving equals 1 teaspoon or 5
grams.
How do you translate this into what you are required to do? Simply find a
unit converted
and make your life easier. A unit converted will provide the necessary
formula
to convert ounces to grams (multiply ounces by 28.34957). The amount of
precision is
up to you and how much you want to punish the brain. A good unit converter
provides
many different formulas for converting capacities, weights etc... I have
found it
very useful indeed!
Things to remember during and after calculations are: 1) Be very careful!
I've said this before and it is very important
to remember that "Size Does Matter!". I'm talking about serving size for
all you whose
minds just hit the gutter. Often we find out "after the fact" that a
container held
multiple servings, however, the nutritional label provided facts based on
only a single
serving! 2) Always know what your goal is. This is important information,
for example,
as I had mentioned previously, I needed to lose 20 pounds in order to
compete as a
middleweight. If I were to adjust my caloric intake to 2340 to lose 2
pounds per
week, I would need to begin dieting 10 weeks from my competition to achieve
my
goal. 3) Always, always, remember that when focusing on fat values,
"saturated
fat is the bad guy!". Just because something may have 17 grams of fat
doesn't
always mean its bad. Peanut butter and Olive Oil usually have approximately
17 grams
of fat per serving, although, most of the fat is in the form of
polyunsaturated and
monounsaturated fats, "good guys".
Well, to those of you who have already figured this all out, I apologize for
consuming your time. For those of you who hadn't, it has proved to be
very, very valuable information to myself and my wife during contest
dieting!
Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail by clicking here!
Once again, thanks for your time and I'll be back soon!
wnbfprofessional@aol.com
Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here!
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