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Health & Fitness: Fundamentals of Nutrition Part III - Carbohydrates and Proteins Carbohydrates
Fiber in the Diet Other
carbs that must be consumed are fiberous carbs such as vegetables and
fruits. These are an absolute must regardless of whether you are eating
a low carb diet or not. The benefit of consuming high amounts of vegetables
and/or fruits is: Protein If someone is trying to gain weight but still would like to look good, I suggest eating more calories of quality foods. For instance getting in your fair share of protein, 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight is essential to provide your body with what is required to support the type of training you are doing. Again, note that I mentioned it is a pound of LEAN body weight.
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I
know it is possible to control and condition our metabolism to do what
we want it to do. Burn fat, carbohydrate or muscle. Of course we would
never want our bodies to metabolize muscle as energy, but if your not
eating properly you could very well be doing this. It has almost everything
to do with our diet and exercise pattern. The Glycemic index is an index
that rates the insulin response of carbohydrate based foods. In general
the lower the glycemic response in your food the more level, low and steady
your insulin levels are going to be. This is a great thing because at
the same time this keeps fat storing enzymes at bay. The lower the fat
storing enzymes the fewer calories you are likely to store as fat. When
you eat highly glycemic foods (simple sugars) it has an effect on insulin
levels. Your insulin levels will spike and at the same time so will fat
storing enzymes. I feel there is a close relationship between this and
what your metabolism burns as an energy source. Controlling the amount
of fat you burn has a lot to do with controlling the amount of sugars/
highly glycemic foods you consume. The moral of the story is control insulin
levels. The more level you keep you insulin secretion the more likely
your body will burn more fat and store less of it! The more sporadic your
insulin levels the more likely you will store fat and burn sugars and
possibly muscle as energy. The way in which we can control our insulin
levels is by controlling the intake of carbohydrates and the type of carbohydrates.
Low glycemic carbohydrates are for instance are: My staple starchy carbohydrate
sources: old fashioned oatmeal, brown rice, wheat pasta, yams and sweet
potatoes. 
Remember
you are feeding the muscle the protein, not the fat. Keep in mind that
excessive calories are converted to fat, regardless of what form they
enter the body in. All you body has to do is reconfigure the molecules
to be stored in a fat cell.
I
don't remember where I heard this but, eating protein can also help to
increase ones production of hormones in the body as well! It has been
shown that restrictive calorie diets high in branch chained amino acids
(quality protein) results in a greater loss of body fat. Low calorie diets
often encourage your body to burn muscle as energy, thus resulting in
eight loss. The problem is that it is often the wrong kind of weight loss
i.e. loss of muscle. The moral of the story here, is to eat plenty of
high quality sources of protein (which means eating chicken, turkey fish,
steak and egg whites).