Nutrition: Protein and Carbohydrates

We must study our nutrition. Food is the fuel that allows us accomplish all that we do throughout the day. Often times, this is one of the first things to go when we get busy. It's hard to get on a schedule for eating food and choosing the kinds of meal you have, but once that's accomplished, the results can be amazing.

When it comes to muscle building, there are two core elements: protein and carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are processed by the body into glycogen and is used to fuel the body's cells. Without this fuel, you could not sustain a weekly exercise routine without feeling tired all the time. Although current diets try to take carbohydrates away, complex carbohydrates, carbs from plants, can be extremely healthy for you.

Protein is the other ingredient to building muscle. Proteins are made up of amino acid chains that are the basic building blocks of muscle. After a work out, the body needs time to recover and rebuild muscle. This is when protein is used to grow muscle. If there is not enough muscle in a person's diet, then the body will use protein from sources in the body to maintain daily maintenance. This means the body will eat away at muscle and make it harder to grow muscle.

The average person needs to eat about half their weight in protein grams a day. So a person weighing 130 pounds can eat 65 grams a day of protein to maintain their weight. It is safe to have about a 1 to 1 ratio of protein to carbs. So this same person would eat 65 grams of carbs a day. That's not a lot of carbs since everything seems to have carbs in it but very little protein. An athletic person needs to eat their weight in grams of protein. So a 130 pound athlete would need to eat 130 grams of protein and 130 grams of carbs to maintain their weight.

I definitely know it is not easy since I am still trying to get my diet in order. However, when I was counting my protein and carbs, I lost weight the fastest and had a solid physique. Now, I am trying to gain weight, and that's hard when you're trying to stick with the 1 to 1 ratio. Here's a website I use to help figure out what's in the food I'm eating: http://www.nutritiondata.com/

Keep up the effort!