The past weekend, I was was nutrition seminar put on by a local graduate of the Institute for Integrated Nutrition. her name was Rebecca Johns ~ Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach.

It was at a local Tai Quan Do facility for the athletes their; I went with my good friend Michele Katz.

I had just finished a great bike ride and was ready to get filled up with some exciting insight, not to mention to my surprise… her homemade Protein Bar. This isn’t just any protein bar and certainly not junk packed as “health food”.

Here’s Rebecca’s recipe for “protein bites”.

Ingredients:

• 2C Raw Oatmeal
• 1c Protein Powder
• 1/2c flax seed, ground
• 1/2c wheat germ
• 2c trail mix – almonds, cashews, dried fruit, etc
• 1/2c ground walnuts
• 1/2c coconut
• 1c honey
• 2c peanut butter

Procedure:

• Mix all ingredients together and press in a baking pan. Cut in 24 bars
• Calories 310
• carbs 31 g.
• fiber4.2g
• protein 11g

I want to share of the best insights she focused on that day.

In the recipe above, when you look at the quality of the ingredients you know you are getting a Nutrient Rich Food and the information provided from calories to carbs, to fiber, to protein is just plain straight forward.

So to that extent, reading the nutrition data on the label is useful.

When it is not as useful is when you are reading a label for nutrition data about ingredients that you can’t spell, or decipher. That’s when nutritional data is often misleading. “Net carbs”, “real carbs”, serving sizes, calories, definitions, sodium, type of fat etc; there is so much label manipulation that goes on, it would boggle your mind.

You can learn all the ins and outs of label reading here; the guru is Jeff Novick of the National Health Association.

The first and most obvious question would be, are you eating predominantly nutrient rich calories or nutrient poor calories? The difference in terms of the consequences in your body is huge, not just in terms of weight, but in terms of your health your ability to function and perform well.

See the Food Class System to see the difference between a nutrient rich food and a nutrient poor food and remember this, it’s not just the calories that count; it’s not even just the nutrients that count, it’s the quality of the nutrients that count!

Are you eating, health promoting protein, real food carbohydrates, essential fat…?

What’s the point of eating whey protein or huge amounts of animal protein, or synthetic vitamins… if these sources of nutrients are of a poor quality?

Despite the nutrition data, the quality of nutrients from those foods and the negative impact they can have on your system if eaten in significant quantities, are bound to have negative health consequences.

In this seminar, Rebecca was talking about pre workout and post working meals, because she was talking to an athletic group of people. I thought her points were incredibly authentic… here we just a few that I am paraphrasing.

1. It’s not just the nutrition data, it’s the quality of the ingredients that matter.
2. How do you feel when you eat one food versus another?
3. Do you know that you can feel and perform allot better when you are eating real food and food that promotes your health in an optimal way? You’ll know once you make transition.
4. Hydration comes from water, but also from the food you eat. Eat allot of fruits and vegetable and you’ll be drinking all day.
5. Coconut water, is one of nature’s best re hydrants
6. Managing your personal energy level is incredibly important to being able to take care of yourself and perform and we’re not just talking your food energy, but your vital energy.
7. Food Matters – she played this video, and I suggest you watch this video online.
8. Make the Protein Bites above!

This is so exciting to see the Nutrient Rich food revolution taking such a hold, in martial arts dojangs to the mainstream. And one of the lessons in this food revolution in this… food quality is everything.

Nutrient Rich is not a specific diet you have to stick to, it’s a quality standard you maintain… more on that in my next post.

Nutrition Data must start with food quality first, if the food quality is there, you can be sure that the nutrition data is actually true.

As weight is gained all 3 components vary according to several factors; the most common include genetics, the personal energy level, diet quality and activity level, and environment.

If a persona has a predisposition to gain weight relatively easily, their personal energy is low (burn out), food energy intake is too high, physical activity is low and the time its taken to gain weight is over a longer term, as much as 90% of the excess weight will be made up of mostly extra fat stores. However, a small percentage of any gain will comprise lean weight and water.

When weight gain is short term, all other lifestyle factors aside; it’s not just the food, it is the affect of the food that really makes the difference. This is a major diet trap.

For example, a gain in water weight is often due to an increased daily sodium intake.

Sodium in the body is mainly found in the fluids that surround the body’s cells, such as the blood and lymph fluid. When sodium intake exceeds the amount the body can handle it builds up within the interstitial areas and the kidneys have to work extra hard to excrete a constant rise in daily sodium intake. A build up may cause the body to hold extra fluids in the blood and around the cells which contributes to increased blood pressure and also excess weight gain from water.
Daily sodium intake will always be high in the standard western diet.

The average diet in the western world is commonly made up of fast, packaged or convenient foods with long shelf life due in part to preservation affects of sodium. These typically nutrient poor foods, typically again, consist of high levels of salt and salt contains sodium. If a diet is mainly composed of high sodium foods then naturally the sodium intake also rises thus extra weight is gained quickly as the body holds onto water. It has been estimated that many people in the UK and USA may be carrying up to 5 pounds of extra weight due to the effects of a high sodium intake.

The opposite effect also happens when an individual reduces food intake in order to lose weight quickly. A percentage of the loss will be water because a reduction in high sodium foods means a reduction in daily sodium intake which results in water loss as the kidneys have a chance to finally rid the excess sodium from the body. This also helps partly explain why a dieter may experience the yo-yo effect when dieting, water weight is lost with food reduction or a temporary change in food quality, but quickly regains the weight when old eating habits are back to normal and daily sodium intake rises once more.

Here’s the reality.

Just because you eat a food that has 200 calories for example, does not mean if you were overeating, you would gain .057 lbs of weight – 200/3500 calories (the amount of calories in a pound).

If that food is very high in sodium, and depending on how your body reacts, you could gain many pounds as your body holds excess water to keep the excess sodium away from negatively affecting the function of the cells. This throws many people off, particularly those who eat packaged diet foods, or unknowingly eat less of foods that are very high in sodium.

According to Joe Fuhrman M.D. we don’t need more than 1000 mg of sodium per day, (which would probably increase if you were an athlete); basically, the amount of sodium you would get eating a 2000 calorie nutrient rich diet, full of nutrient rich foods that have natural sodium levels approx, 1/2 mg per calorie.

If you are eating a nutrient poor diet, and not eating for health, it’s not uncommon to be eating foods that take your sodium intake upwards of 2000 – 3000 – 5000mg of sodium and that’s is a formula for major weight gain, even if the excess calorie intake does not equal the amount of pounds gained.

It’s not just the food and its calories, it’s the quality of the food and it’s affects on the function and performance of your body, that often determines weight gain and of course, your health.