Nutrition for Weight Loss, Part I
By Damon Moschetto
It is important to begin this series of articles with a basic understanding of nutrition. I want to begin this article with information about macronutrients, which are carbs, protein and fat. Micronutrients are made up of vitamins and minerals.

Carbohydrates are the primary energy source the body uses. One gram of carbohydrate yields 4 calories. Carbohydrate has been a dirty word lately; the media has vilified this macronutrient without merit. As we will discuss later on in the series you will see that carbs are not the reason for society’s growth at the waistband. Examples of carbs are whole grains, rice, bread, and pasta. We all know that making good choices in our diet is key to healthy living; there are definitely good and bad choices when it comes to your carb intake. A good choice would be a bread or pasta that is high in fiber and unprocessed such as whole grains; fiber helps us with the process of elimination and has been shown to help prevent some types of cancer. Highly processed “sweets” like cakes and cookies are the obvious bad choice. Whether having a meal or a snack, it is best to pair your carbs with proteins and fats making the meal balanced. The reason you eat a cookie and then feel like you can eat the whole bag is because these simple sugars don’t take long to break down within the body. Balancing your choices will help satiate you for longer periods and then you will feel the need to eat less.

Lets discuss these low carb diets that are so popular. First let’s break down the word, carbo-hydrate, you will immediately see that a lot of the time you will hear the word carb, without the hydrate. We all know that hydrate means water. The instant gratification that on gets when practicing a carb-less diet is the immediate loss of water from the body, not fat, WATER! That is one of the reasons that people start to feel tired and irritable after being on one of these plans, the body is mostly water, and we need water for healthy muscles and brain tissue.

By cutting out carbs we are depriving the body of its primary energy source. When consumed, carbs are broken down into glucose to be used as energy or stored as glycogen in muscle tissue to be used at a later time. When we cut carbs, the body does not immediately go into your fat storage and use that for energy, the first source your body will choose for energy after carbohydrates (glycogen) is MUSCLE!

Bottom line, we need good carbs in our life, and we need to make sure our diets are in balance to be healthy. Next month, I will continue this article with protein, the building block for muscle tissue, connective tissue, and organs.