Ernährung für Anfängerinnen – Teil II

The second part of our article "Nutrition for beginners" informs about the number of foods you need for a sustainable muscle building and about the best sources of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. We also want to inform about the use of apps and fitness trackers for nutrition. In the first part, we listed how many nutrients we need per day if we calculated a total calorie requirement of 2,600 calories per day. We learned that the total calorie requirement is calculated by total metabolic rate + work metabolic rate + TEF (energy expenditure for digestion) and that the nutrient requirement for the athlete is divided into 30 percent protein, 50 percent carbohydrates and 20 percent fat. We have calculated that in grams we need to consume about 33 grams of protein, 54 grams of carbohydrates and about 10 grams of fat in our diet to meet the daily requirement. In the following, we will now use some examples to show what you need to eat per day so that you reach the required gram numbers of the individual nutrients.

Protein

We have calculated that we need about 33 grams of protein per meal for the daily calorie requirement, so that we can supply the muscles with sufficient protein during an intensive weight training. If we want to meet this requirement, we have to find out from the food list which and how much nutrients are included in each food.
Example poultry meat: If you now want to eat poultry with a meal, you now know in advance that you must eat at least 33 grams of protein per meal. So you first look at the total number of grams of chicken meat and the specified nutrient content. For the required 33 grams of protein, you need about 85 grams of chicken.

Carbohydrates

For carbohydrates, we have calculated that we need 54 grams of this nutrient per meal to cover our needs. To calculate the carbohydrate requirement, we must also take into account the side dishes in our poultry meat example, which often contain a lot of carbohydrates. In this case, again, we have to analyze exactly from the food list the selected foods, comparing and calculating the calorie count and the included nutrients. So if you have chosen rice, fruit or vegetables as a side dish to your poultry meat, don't forget that the sum of all the side dishes must add up to the total sum of 54 grams of carbohydrates.

Fat

According to our calculation, the nutrient fat should occur with about 10 grams per meal. With fats, however, it is not enough that we know how much fat we need for the necessary calorie requirement. With the nutrient fat, we must also distinguish between healthy and unhealthy fats. Healthy fats are, for example, olive oil or sesame oil, while margarine or even butter belong to the less healthy types of fat. There are also fats in most foods, which you must take into account in your calculation.

Fruit and vegetables

Fruits and vegetables contain very few calories and can therefore be integrated into a meal without much calculation method. Above all, fruits and vegetables contain a lot of vitamins, minerals and trace elements and should therefore always be included in every meal as a side dish or salad. Fruit is also important as a healthy sugar substitute and helps especially in situations where you feel like something sweet. In this way, chocolate can be gallantly bypassed. Of course, vegetables also contain some protein, but this is not interesting as a pure source of protein. For this we recommend fat-free meat, poultry, fish, eggs or nuts.

Daily control via apps and fitness trackers

Anyone who wants to lose weight or control their diet must be very disciplined and consistent. It is not important that the calculated data about the daily calorie requirement corresponds exactly with the actual consumption. If you want to get an accurate picture of your calorie consumption, you can use one of the many apps that can provide the user with a huge list of all foods in advance. With these apps, you simply enter your upcoming meal and within seconds the app calculates exactly what you need based on the data you entered. The app can be accessed at any time via your smartphone, so you can get your needed information in advance at any restaurant. The new fitness trackers also offer an accurate analysis for calculating daily calorie consumption with their information on actual calorie consumption. Especially for weight reduction, a fitness tracker is perfect, as the information about calorie consumption and meters walked per day can be perfectly integrated into a long-term diet plan. Smartphone and fitness tracker can thus be perfectly considered for the diet and weight reduction. The daily fluid intake also plays a significant role in the calculation of daily calories, if particularly much Cokes or fruit juices are drunk. All drinks except mineral water often contain a lot of calories, which must be included in a calculation of daily calorie intake. This is especially true for all alcoholic beverages and also for milk, which plays an important role especially in protein shakes.