nutrition coaching
Success in fitness is achieved through a combination of effective exercise and high quality dietary habits. failing to meet your body's requirement for adequate fuel can result in lackluster performance during exercise and, in turn, limit results. At logic fitness club, nutrition coaching is an integral part of our personal training programs. along with a highly detailed meal plan, clients receive a myriad of tools to monitor food intake and improve nutritional efficacy, week in and week out. below are a few of the important elements of nutrition, addressed in our programs.
Caloric Intake
Calories are simply a unit of measure of energy. Your total caloric intake is the sum of all calories consumed across all three macronutrients. While manipulating your total daily intake of calories can have a general impact on energy levels and overall health, each individual’s requirements will differ, with some needing more or less than others based on factors light height, activity level and fitness goal.
The calories you consume are generally thought to have the largest impact on weight management, however, science has proven that an individuals propensity to gain or lose weight can be a bit more complex than intake alone. Specifically, we have identified that the impact on energy levels is the most useful factor to consider with regard to your total daily intake of calories, not weight management.
Macros
Macronutrients, commonly referred to as “macros” are the 3 pillars that make up our total caloric intake. These pillars consist of Carbohydrates, Fats and Protein. Each macro has its own multiplier used to calculate the total calories we receive from that particular macronutrient type. It is important to acknowledge that all foods have some combination of all three macronutrients. When we refer to something as being a “Carb”, for example, we are acknowledging that the food item in question has more grams of carbohydrate present in its macronutrient profile than it does of the protein and fat macronutrients.
Macronutrient composition expressed in grams does not necessarily reflect the dominant source of energy provided by a particular food item, this is where the multiplier comes in. The multiplier for Carbohydrate and Protein is 4 (that is, 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate and 4 calories per gram of protein), while the multiplier for fat is 9 (9 calories per gram of fat). This means that a dish consisting of 5 gram of carb, 4 grams of protein and 3 grams of fat, still receives the bulk of its calories from the fat macronutrient with 20 calories coming from carbs, 18 calories coming from protein and a whopping 27 calories coming from fats.
Supplements
The goal is always to achieve your dietary requirements from whole and natural food sources alone. Lifestyle factors and pre-existing health conditions, may introduce the need for the use of supplementation at some point, for most individuals. By definition, the goal of supplementation is to complete or enhance the nutritional qualities in our diet. Dietary supplements are most useful when deployed to achieve specific end goals, like filling in macronutrient gaps.
Protein supplements, for example, exist to help to fill in the macronutrient gap created by an individual’s inability to meet their daily protein requirement. Multivitamins, on the other hand, aim to fill in micronutrient gaps that exist when we lack adequate levels of vitamins and minerals present in a variety of whole foods. Many factors contribute to the need for supplementation, as such, special care should be taken to choose the right supplementation strategy for your health and fitness needs.
Meal planning
The primary function of a meal plan can be defined as the overall strategy for nutrient distribution. While total caloric intake, macronutrients and supplementation are all critical building blocks to an effective nutrition plan, we can’t consume all of our required nutrients all at once. Over consumption of any one macronutrient in a meal can produce a negative health and fitness result. This is precisely why the average human being has become accustomed to three square meal a day approach to energy consumption.
Depending on a dynamic range of factors like a change in your level of activity or a change in your fitness goal, you may need your calories distributed across more or less meals to maintain a healthy metabolism. For example, an athlete training two times a day with a goal of maintaining his or her weight learns very quickly that fitting in all of their needed calories requires a strict schedule of spaced out meals at precise macronutrient ratios for proper energy management.
