This chapter was very interesting to read due to me having a great understanding and knowledge on nutrition to try to gain as much lean muscle mass as possible. I think that not only in this class but in life nutrition is a very important topic to have knowledge on and understand how the right nutrition affects your body. People who have certain goals to achieve whether it is losing weight, gaining weight or muscle it is all very relative. In the sense that nutrition is 80% of the focus no matter what the goal is.
Something that I do daily is track my macronutrients which consist of taking in the right amount of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. I track them each day using Myfitnesspal , which is a very user friendly app that allows you to keep on track due to the wide range of food that they have for selection. Something that I think people overlook is water consumption, “The human body consists of 50 to 70 percent water by weight”(P.182). This being said it means that you have to intake large amounts of water to have the body function properly, and healthy. Something that i focus my attention towards is protein consumption, I put myself around 250-300 grams of protein a day to maximize muscle growth. This chapter focused on the benefits of protein being “Proteins are the key elements of antibodies that protect us from disease, of enzymes that control chemical activities in the body, and of hormones that regulate body functions”(P.182). This is something you should take into consideration because of the coronavirus pandemic right now. A healthy diet is only going to help your chances of fighting the disease off if you do develop symptoms.
The final topic that I wanted to discuss was the essential nutrients Fats. Which so many people misunderstand they think that if they are trying to lose weight cut of fats completely which isn’t the case. When losing weight you should monitor your fats and try to consume more healthy fats such as Avocados, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, etc. and limit the saturated fats that your body intakes which are found in a lot of unhealthy non nutritional foods.”The AMDR for fats is 20 to 35 percent of calories, with 5 to 10 percent coming from essential fatty acids. Within this range, we should minimize our intake of saturated fats”(P.188). This being said I weigh around 230lbs and my daily caloric intake is around 4000 calories I should have 20-35 percent of my calories being fats, which comes out to around 90-110 grams of fat. Which seems very high but you have to take in the essential fats that our body needs to stay healthy.
Overall this chapter was very beneficial for I think everyone in our class to read and learn about because as all of our goals are different we all need to take into affect all of these things to provide our bodies with essential nutrients to have a healthy and happy life. This week has been a little draining and tough as I feel myself getting bored and not as motivated to workout as it isn’t the same at home as it is at the gym. I miss the environment of everyone in there working to better themselves but this is a test I guess to see who really is looking to achieve there goal because it is very easy to skip the gym or a workout when you are at home and you could stay in bed instead.
