Health Part 1: Nutrition
This is the first in a three part series on Health, the principles, behaviours, and foundations essential to making the most of your physical life outside of the gym.
Very few bodies of discourse have more conflicting data, models, or practices than nutrition. If you find yourself bewildered by what, how much, or when to eat (Or, more frequently, not eat), I promise that you are not alone.
Even more frustrating is that the seeming complexity of the topic puts off many from even trying to get a handle on it, despite its outsized effects once mastered. So fundamental is a good nutrition practice to Health & Fitness that CrossFit places it at the foundation of their theoretical hierarchy of development; "The quality and constituent elements of an athlete’s diet influence metabolism and therefore the molecular foundations of muscle, bone, and the nervous system. For this reason, any training system that does not consider and duly correct an athlete’s diet will be suboptimal. Long-term training depends upon a solid base of nutritional support."
These conflicts exist mainly at the fringes of the body of knowledge. What appears to be cutting edge today is often outdated within a few years, with new discoveries or approaches given too much weight too quickly. This tendency of giving the new thing an undue amount of focus, attention, and effort is now amplified by social media, with Instagram charlatans making their name by offering nutrition “hacks” that have scant or oversold evidence.
Fortunately the principles and methods that stand the test of time give us a solid foundation upon which to build our Nutrition practice. What you build on that foundation is up to you, which is to say that there is a broad range of behaviours, approaches, and plans that we can employ to achieve desired outcomes. These principles underpin many of the most well known diets in the wellness industry, though they're often presented as a new discovery or paradigm.
This post outlines two of these foundational principles, calorie balance and macronutrients. Given the broad scope of potential nutrition topics (Including but not limited to environmental, psychological, social and physiological considerations), for clarity we will cover only the training, recovery, and body composition (Or physique) implications here.
Principle 1: Calorie status affects body weight.
We have three fundamental caloric states.
Isocaloric: Calories burned are within a range of calories consumed, resulting in a stable bodyweight.
Hypocaloric: Calories burned are less than calories consumed, resulting in weight gain.
Hypercaloric: Calories burned are more than calories consumed, resulting in weight loss.
The body prefers an isocaloric state, and assuming no significant changes in activity level the longer you stay in a hypo or hyper caloric state the less pronounced the effects of weight gain or loss become over time, eventually becoming Isocaloric. Put another way, you can neither gain nor lose weight forever. Your body adapts and once it does you have to make a change to continue progress.
The calorie model of nutrition is by no means perfect and as such is not without critics, but these criticisms can be largely dismissed once we account for and adapt to the limitations.
The main criticism is that calorie measurement is imperfect and labels can be inaccurate. This is true, calorie labels can be off by as much as 20%, but the consistency of our actions and the results are more important than the accuracy of the counting itself. If I want to maintain my weight but inaccurate calorie measurements result in a gain the outcome isn’t affected by the accuracy of my counting; I reduce the number of calories regardless. It doesn’t matter if I reduce from 3500 to 3100 or from 2500 to 2100, the numbers don’t really matter in and of themselves, they’re simply a measurable input.
Our nutrition coaching employs the calorie model as it satisfies our criteria of being observable, measurable, and repeatable in the same way that our training can be logged, tracked, and used to guide progress. The more data we have the more informed our choices become.
This doesn’t mean that you have to painstakingly weigh everything you eat to the gram, it simply means that you have something consistent that you can adjust . Every act of taking food from the fridge to the plate involves some kind of measurement, whether it’s a serving spoon or measuring cups. If you’re doing this anyway why not make it something you can turn to your advantage? Calories do count, whether you count them or not.
Principle 2: Macro distribution affects body composition
Macronutrients are categories of food that have different roles in the body.
Protein: The building block of muscles, as well as tendons, ligaments, hair, nails, and the majority of organs. This is the most important macronutrient to be mindful of. To be deficient in protein is like arriving at a building site only to find there are no bricks and mortar. It doesn’t matter how many labourers you have, nothing is getting built. Aim for 1.6grams per kilo of bodyweight as a minimum.
Carbs: Stored in the muscle and used in short, high intensity bouts of work, of the sort that is most common in our training. As such we can quite easily dispense with the idea that low carb interventions are an effective tool for active individuals. They are not, unless your goal is to negatively impact your training performance, in which case it’s a very effective way to sabotage yourself.
This macronutrient is also the primary delivery method of fibre and micronutrients, vitamins and minerals, via fruits and vegetables. Aim for 800g of fruits and vegetables daily. Don’t overthink it by adding variables like cooked vs uncooked, the answer is just yes.
This speaks to the quality vs quantity dichotomy, which is to say that one cannot subsist on protein bars and coffee alone, even if it does “fit your macros”, as you will lack the nutrient density of fruits and vegetables. That said, once minimum numbers of nutrient dense carbohydrates are met we can allocate our remaining calories to foods we enjoy such as chocolate, pizza, etc, so long as they don’t exceed the number of calories appropriate for our goals.
Fat: Just as protein is the building block of muscle, fat is the building block of the hormones necessary for optimal health. Think testosterone/oestrogen, growth hormone, insulin etc. It’s also what our brains and nerves are made of, so a deficiency can affect us at the level of Skill acquisition. There are also vitamins that can only be transported through the body via fatty acids in the bloodstream.
Most importantly fat is DELICIOUS, especially when combined with carbs.
The astute among you will have noticed a link between the vocabulary of Nutrition and that of Stamina, namely that carbohydrates and fat are major categories in both. For this reason adequate amounts of each macronutrient are essential to both good health and effective training.
Popular diets have two key traits:
1. They are frustratingly synonymous with weight loss; the most effective nutrition strategies include periods of maintenance or controlled, responsible weight gain which result in Strength and Stamina progression.
2. They dress up their calorie deficit as a unique “feature”.
Intermittent fasting = Eat during a limited window, resulting in fewer calories consumed over the day, resulting in weight loss.
Low carb = Fewer total calories consumed, resulting in weight loss.
Paleo (Recently repackaged as eating "Clean", whatever that means) = Eat only whole foods which are more filling, resulting in fewer calories consumed, resulting in weight loss.
The principles of calorie balance and macronutrient distribution are immutable, foundational, and essential to leveraging the best possible outcomes from your nutrition, but they only scratch the surface of potential topics within Nutrition.
We run a Nutrition Masterclass every January and September where we cover these fundamentals in much more depth, along with goal setting, metabolic adaptation, making these principles work in everyday life, eating out, alcohol, environmental and behavioural considerations.
If you want to get started before then hit “Book Free Intro” to talk to one of us about 1:1 nutrition coaching. We'll get you on track as quickly as possible, arming you with the information and actions you need to navigate the nutrition landscape yourself. It generally only takes a few sessions to get dialled in.
Below are some excellent resources to learn more, covering each of these topics in depth.
The Renaissance Diet: Mike Isratel
A great intro to calorie balance and macros.
Built to Move: Kelly & Juliet Starrett
The 800g of fruit and veg prescription is contained here.
