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Introduction

Welcome to my new series! The posts over the next few days will describe in sections the journey towards a broad goal of fitness. This is aimed at the beginner, who assumingly does not know much about nutrition or training. These posts will help you to become a healthier, stronger, and better version of yourself. Needless to say, veterans can still gain some knowledge from the posts. The guaranteed three parts of the series will go as such: Nutrition, Training, and then Miscellaneous. I hope you guys can take something away from these blogs as the days go on. This is in no means a full and complete guide, but rather a reference point and starting area for those seeking to improve their health. Without further ado, lets get started!

Now, you must be a bit curious on why I started on nutrition instead of training. This is because fixing your diet and what you put into yourself will have the most immediate effects. Arguably, you wouldn't even need to train to have a massive impact on your health. As the common adage goes, it all ends in the kitchen. Approaching nutrition, it all might seem a bit daunting at first. Micronutrients, macronutrients, cooking, sticking to a diet, fixing deficiencies, meal prep, the whole nine yards. This post will help to walk you through that a bit. Lets start with the immediate things you can do to fix your diet. Down the post, I'll begin to describe all the things I mentioned before.

Fast Food 

Eliminating fast food from the your diet can be one of the quickest ways to secure a healthier way of living. You see, there come three inherit disadvantages to fast food.

1. Its pricey.
2. Its unhealthy.
3. Its difficult to track macros.

What do I mean by all of that? The first and second point are easy enough. When compared to cooking at home, fast food is simply very expensive over the long term. Sure, taco bell might be throwing out an insane deal on it's new special item, but trying to eat healthy at convenient fast food stores is going to cost you a pretty penny. For a majority of places that you eat at, the food simply isn't nutritious. Your recommended sodium intake will be shot by the preservatives used in their ingredients. Its very hard to justify a healthy fast food existence. Its impossible to justify cheap and healthy fast food.

For the last point, when I talk in macros I mean Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins. We'll get to that in a bit. What you need to know now is that if you're on any meaningful diet, you're going to be tracking how much you eat of those three things. While some restaurants are required to display their caloric information, they most often do not display fats, carbs, or proteins. If you take the hassle to look it up online, they are most likely going to grossly violate your diet. Many places use excessive oils and fats for their food, which will most likely breach any diet you're trying to hold.

Meal-Prep

Ah, the dreaded meal prep. When mentioned, a lot of people think of rows of tupperware containers with the exact food lined up. Yes, this is meal preparation, but to a very stringent and high level. Meal preparation can be as simple as cooking yourself eggs in the morning, making a sandwich at noon, and cooking spaghetti for the night time. The general rule that I push is that if it fits your macros, you're good to go. When cooking, you're always free to do whatever you want - a lot of people crunch the numbers and create rows of identical meals because its easier in the long run. Again, up to you.

Dread cooking? Me too. Sooner or later, though, it is best that you learn. I'm looking to create a series on basic meal preparations in the future. For now, it doesn't necessarily have to be hard. There are plenty of "shortcuts" you can use to lead to a healthier diet. Instant oatmeal on the microwave gives you quality carbohydrates. By pre-packaged meat from the supermarket, slap it together with some cheese and whole wheat bread, and suddenly you've got a makeshift sandwich. Dinner can be as simple as slapping chicken on the stove and cooking rice for forty five minutes prior. Elaborate meals don't have to be a thing if you're not willing.

Macronutrients: Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins

You definitely have heard of these, and you may know exactly what they mean. Regardless, I'll give you a quick summary of each one. Fats used to be the primary source of energy for homo-sapiens before the agricultural revolution. We'd pick animal carcasses clean and retrieve the copious amounts of fat and protein from them. Now, we don't use them primarily - and as such we don't need nearly as much. Fats are essential for bodily function and maintenance, which is why we eat them. Examples of fat can be cooking oil, cheese, mayonnaise, nuts, et cetera. Carbohydrates are our primary source of energy for the body. Thus, we need a lot more of it. Carbs are classic in the human diet: breads, rice, potatoes, starchy plants, beans, and more. Finally, proteins are used for building and maintaining muscle mass. They are mostly found in meats, nuts, and plants.

When you see calories, they are actually referring to these three macros. Each macro contains a certain amount of calories, which is a measurement of energy. Fats contain NINE calories. Carbohydrates and Proteins contain FOUR. This is why on many nutrition plans the fat is low - simply because it yields much more energy that their counterparts. I've compiled a small list of example items that you can eat for these three categories. All of them are healthy, a quick cook, and readily available at the supermarket.

Proteins:

Egg (Egg Whites)

Chicken Breast

Almonds

Protein Powder

Low Fat Cottage Cheese

Fats:

Avocado

Almonds

Walnuts

Butter

Cooking Oil

Carbs:

Oats

Black Beans

Brown Rice

Quinoa

Sweet Potato

Fruit (Grapes, Apples, Bananas, Oranges)

Micronutrients

The little things that count. We're talking Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Iron, Magnesium, and plenty more. In order to get all your micronutrients that you need in a day, you're going to have to consume a lot. Said foods will also have to be a wide array of different vegetables, fruit, carbs, and meats. While this may be a great excuse to widen the range of food that you eat, for many its impractical and expensive. A much better (and cheaper) bet would be to fill your micronutrient requirements through a multi-vitamin. That is all I've got to say on micronutrients.

The Next Step & Conclusion

Alright, ctbutters, you've given me some information. Now what?! Again, I'm not trying to throw everything at you at once. Taking the first step to switching your foods will be a big step in and of itself. Plenty of guides online are available for cooking basic things such as eggs, oatmeal, chicken, rice, and vegetables. The amount of food that you want to consume entirely depends on your goals. If you are intentionally gaining weight (IE bulking), you'll be needing to eat a lot more of the previously mentioned foods than someone who is losing weight. Again, a plethora of already written guides exist on suggested macro plans for both losing weight and gaining it.

One thing that I will reccomend to do is stay away from the fad diets. Plenty seem to rise out of the woodworks over the years, claiming little legitimacy of their own with big promises. Nevermind the claims to grandeur, plenty of these diets are extremely restrictive in what you can possibly eat.

 The goal is to ease your lifestyle into healthy and beneficial choices, not shell-shock your system into a radically new way of processing foods. In my experience, reducing fat and carbohydrate intakes for dieting has given me great success - at the condition that you stick with it. No diet or health plan will ever be effective without persistence. That is why nutrition and successful weight modification is admirable, because it takes a lot of work. Nothing will ever be handed to you easily. Certainly not fad diets.

The next rendition of the Fitness guide will focus on training and taking the first steps into the world of exercise. You might be new to it, you might be a long time gym rat; either way I believe you can take benefit. I hope to see you all then! 

If you took anything away from this guide, please drop a comment below. Would love to see what you guys think. All images used in this post are from Pixabay and Google Images (search setting set to Reuse for Commercial). Thanks for reading!