This post is in continuation with
1) 3 most important aspects of living
2) No. 1 Misconception about great health
So till now, we have learnt about ageing, anti ageing, the language of exercise, misconceptions about exercises etc.
Out of the 3 pillars of our life, the #1 pillar, that is health is divided in to 2 parts-
Exercise and diet, until now we have learned basic things about the exercises, also you must have read what do I do when I fall ill?, if not then do read.
So now comes the diet part. We will definitely learn more about exercises, but exercises and diet go hand in hand so let's learn some basic things about the diet.
One of the advantage of learning about the diet is to become free from the misconceptions about the diet, like many people or organisations make big claims about their crash diet course, follow our diet plan and lose this much pounds or lose inches etc. Many times there person following these crash diets do achieve the targeted weight loss or weight gain or inch loss or fat reduction, whatever.. But his or her body sustains to much fatigue and many times fall ill and in the process of recovery from the illness returns to the point where he or she started and realises the waste of money, time, mental piece etc. Or even if he or she doesn't fall ill, sooner or later reverts to the original condition, wiping out any achievements in weight loss or gain or inch reduction etc.
If you really want to achieve the good physique then you must understand how your body works, how to feed it, how to keep it healthy. You yourself should care about your body, if you don't care about your body then how can anyone else care? How can you hand over your body to someone else just like that?
The hard fact is the people running the slimming centres are not doing it for charity. They are doing it for money, the slimming centre is their business. They are doing it because people think they need it and hence approach them. Slimming centre people themselves must be aware of the fact that they are not actually helping people becoming healthy but its a tough world out there, if they don't show results quickly, their customers will go to the next slimming centre which gives quick results in whatever way possible. And there will always be a next slimming centre, if not there now then sooner or later it will be there.
People generally go after INSTANT GRATIFICATION, that is we want instant reward for our actions, if there is no instant reward then we get discouraged and start finding other instantly rewarding options. But we must remember what investment legend Warren Buffett said-
You can not get a baby in one month by making nine women pregnant.. Some things just takes time...
You must be thinking why I am quoting investment legend in the post about diet? This is because there are some basic rules or we can say models which are common to all fields. And delayed gratification is one of them. We will talk about these models also known as mental models in future posts for sure.
So back to the topic, as the second world war was ending researchers at the University of Minnesota began a legendary experiment on psychology and physiology of human starvation. The subjects were 36 people with different body types. They were semi starved, given a diet of 1600 calories per day of typical European diet consisting of whole-wheat bread, potatoes, cereals and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage and a little amounts of meat and dairy for 24 weeks. Only 17% calories coming from fats, what todays nutritionists will consider low calorie and very low fat diet.
What happened to these people is very interesting, it is also a lesson for is to understand the working of our body. It will crack the assumption of the proponents of crash diets to lose weight, or the weight loss advice which simply neglects the presence of hunger.
As per the study-
The men lost an average of a pound of body fat a week over the first 12 weeks, but averaged only a quarter-pound per week over the next 12, despite the continued deprivation. And this was not their only physiological reaction. Their extremities swelled; their hair fell out; wounds healed slowly. They felt continually cold; their metabolism slowed.
More troubling were the psychological effects. The men became depressed, lethargic and irritable. They threw tantrums. They lost their libido. They thought obsessively about food, day and night. The Minnesota researchers called this "semi-starvation neurosis." Four developed "character neurosis." Two had breakdowns, one with "weeping, talk of suicide and threats of violence." He was committed to the psychiatric ward. The "personality deterioration" of the other "culminated in two attempts at self-mutilation." He nearly detached the tip of one finger and later chopped off three with an ax.
After the period of starvation ended, they were allowed to eat more, but then again in controlled manner, groups were formed to assess the effect of increased calories intake, one group was allowed to eat as much as they want, the people of this group ate huge amounts of food, they consumed up to 10,000 calories per day. They recovered their weight and fats very rapidly. And after 20 weeks they amassed 50% more body fats than what they had at the beginning. Researchers call it 'Post Starvation Obesity'.
Ok, so the simple thing is that it is often harmful to go for instant results. It is not good to neglect our hunger, if we starve ourselves then our bodies physiological response will be the stronger, unsurmountable feeling of hunger. That is why I always say, our body is a Complex Adaptive System, our body wants to survive and reproduce, and it prompts us to do whatever is necessary. So we must first ensure and fulfil what it wants and provide it in suitable ways.
As you must have understood from the University of Minnesota experiment, weight reduction or inch reduction is not a one time job. Whoever followed crash diets, his or her body thinks there is deficiency of food in its environment, so the bodies response to this situation is a strong feeling of hunger, day and night, so that the person can eat as much as possible. Along with this our body also reduces our metabolism rate, that is the rate of chemical reactions happening in the body which are responsible for repair, growth, heat generation etc. Our body starts saving more and more calories we consumer and amassing it as fats under the skin and around vital organs(which is dangerous). This response remains for extended periods of time after the crash diet or the starvation has ended.
So how to do it then? You must be asking.๐
As I have just said, it can be done by understanding our body, it's needs and fulfilling those needs in a proper way. Maintaining a healthy body is not just a one time job, it is a way of living life, exercise and diet are part of a healthy lifestyle, so the earlier you incorporate them in your life the better. Further just incorporating exercise and diet is not enough, you must know why and how they work otherwise you may damage your own body.
You must have heard many times in the ancient scriptures about the rules of life, the basic rule is-
Know thyself...
Or Atm-Gyaan...
This rule is there in almost every holy scriptures all around the world.
So you must understand how your body works, what it needs, and you must supply what your body needs. This is the basis of the right diet.
What nutrients our body need?
The nutrients we need can be classified as follows- (as you are reading this blog,I assume that you are not illiterate, you must have gone through school, where you must have learned the basic nutrients our body needs, so this is just the revision.)
1) Carbohydrates- (Also known as Carbs)
These are the polymeric form of sugars (the sugar we use for sweetening the food is chemically known as sucrose), when sugars gets attached to each others forming a chain, it is called polymer. The sucrose is a dimer, that is made up of 2 sugar molecules.
The biggest source of carbohydrates is the grains, tubers etc. As you just read, carbohydrates are the polymeric form of sugars. They must be broken down in to individual units before they can be used by various cells of our body or even the absorption by our digestive system is only done when they are broken down in to individual units. Depending on the complexity of their molecule, they take different amount of time to get broken in to individual units of sugars by the action of digestive juices. As they get broken down, they get absorbed by the digestive system. Depending on the time they take for digestion, carbohydrates are classified as Fast carbs or Slow carbs. Fast carbs generally have individual units of sugars present in them, for example fruits have individual units of sugars present in to them, so they get absorbed in to our blood readily and can be used directly as an energy source directly, without the need of any chemical processing. While slow carbs are digested slowly, therefore they provide a sustained stream of carbohydrates to the blood for hours after consumption. Wheat provides slow carbs while rice is a source of fast carbs. Some instant energy drinks contains fast carbs, they readily get absorbed by the digestive system and provide instant energy. But my thinking is that, use of such instant energy drinks should be avoided because they mask the real problem, that is fatigue, why we had fatigue and felt the need to consume instant energy drink? Further they also reduce the bodies own stamina to avoid fatigue.
Anyways, The excess carbs are converted in to a polymeric form known as glycogen by the liver and are stored by the liver, these reserves are used whenever required. The famous hormone Insulin governs this process and keeps the required level of sugars in our blood stream.
Carbohydrates are used as a primary source of energy by our body. Carbon dioxide, water and energy are the aerobic oxidation products of carbohydrates. (Aerobic means- with oxygen) When anaerobic oxygen happens, then lactic acid as an added product is formed, which is mainly responsible for muscle fatigue.
Our brain can only use sugars as an energy source. Almost all other cells can use fats as an alternative source of energy.
Almost all the food items we eat contains carbohydrates, so there are generally very rare chances of lies consumption. Rather patients having high blood sugar needs to control the intake of carbohydrates.
My purpose of writing here is to tell you the normal working of our body, if your body is not working normally because of some reasons, then you have to find those reasons and bring it to the normal. Many times we ourselves knowingly or unknowingly interfere in the working of our body thereby resulting in to a disease.
As Warren Buffett says-
Whenever you find yourself fallen in to a pit, the first thing you should do is, stop digging..
Again I am quoting this greatest capital allocator on earth because many psychological rules are applicable in any field of our life.
2) Minerals-
Our body needs different kind of minerals like calcium, zinc, iron etc. for various activities in the body. For example calcium is needed in the construction of bones and cartilages in the body, then iron is needed in carrying and storage of oxygen, other minerals are part of different hormones which govern different chemical reactions in the body or they even participate in certain chemical reactions occurring in our body.
As you go towards artificial ways of living like eating food grown on chemical fertilisers, grown from hybrid or genetically modified seeds, drinking RO purified water etc. makes our diet deficient in minerals. (when you start increasing the yield of crops by forcing them to yield more by some ways like hybridizing or genetically modifying or application of enzymes etc one must ensure the supply of all nutrients in right proportion which is seldom done, usually what farmers does is, they supply only the yield increasing nutrients through chemical fertilisers, and not the other nutrients which have less effect on the yield of crop, this scenario makes the yield more in quantity but less in quality, that is less in nutrient content.)(RO filters filters out all the dissolved minerals in the water, making it pure but simultaneously reducing the mineral content.) Drinking water is the biggest source of calcium apart from dairy and meat products. (RO also filters out all the pathogens from drinking water, thereby reducing the ingestion of pathogens, resulting in to less infections, resulting in to less action for immune system, resulting in to weak immune system, such people quickly catch infection when they consume normal water.)
The more you are closer to the nature the less are the chances of mineral deficiency and catching of infections.
3) Fats-
Fats or vegetable oils or various kinds of animal oils are fats. They have very high calorific value, almost double the calories than carbohydrates. They are used as an energy source and a kind of protective covering to insulate our body from atmospheric temperatures and physical shocks. Some Viral organs like kidneys, liver etc. also have a covering of fatty tissue (adipose tissue) to protect it from mechanical shocks.
Fats cannot be used by brain cells (neurons). Mainly fats are burnt by our skeletal muscles for their energy needs. The muscle repair and growth mechanism mainly used fats as a source of energy, this is a very long lasting process and consumes large amount of fats.
Muscles performing aerobic activity also starts burning the fats when supply of carbohydrates starts diminishing. (aerobic activity means, repeated movements, like cycling, walking, jogging, aerobic exercises etc.)
Now a days we eat to much of fast food or snacks, which are very rich sources of fats. There is a good news for the readers of this blog- You have very less chances of fats deficiency ever happening in your life...๐
This is because educated people are generally ingesting much more amount of fats than they can metabolize. Therefore fats starts accumulating over the vital organs(which is very dangerous), below the skin, in the blood, the cholesterol level increases which is a kind of low density fat, ask this resulting in to various diseases like- obesity, fatty liver, heart disease, heart attacks, choked blood vessels, joint pain(as they are unable to bear increased body weight, psychological stress because of their looks, you can imagine others..
So as far as carbohydrates and fats are concerned we educated people don't have to worry about their deficiency. Rather we need to keep check on their intake or make sure, they get metabolised in our body as soon as possible.
Fats play a major psychological role in our diet. Fats give us the satisfaction or the feeling of full stomach. That is why we feel full very quickly while eating deep fried food items.
4) Vitamins-
Vitamins are vital amines, amines means proteins, vital means very necessary. Three are special kind of proteins which are necessary for normal functioning of our body. They act as special molecules necessary to bring about certain biological reactions in our body. They act as catalyst for different biological reactions, our they are part of different hormones our enzymes. There are different sources for different vitamins.
There are two classes of vitamins- water soluble and water insoluble. As the name suggests, the water soluble vitamins are soluble in the water while water insoluble are not soluble in the water. Just remember that there are two classes of compounds, polar and nonpolar, polar have positive charge at one part of the molecule and negative on the other part of the molecule. While nonpolar do not have any charge on any part of their molecule, that is they are neutral. Polar compounds can dissolve in polar compounds only, for example water is polar and sugar is polar therefore sugar dissolves in water, similarly salt is pillar so it dissolved in water, but oil or fats are nonpolar so they don't dissolve in water or water don't dissolve in oil or fats, but different fats or oils may dissolve in each other.
Similarly, water soluble vitamins are double in water while water insoluble vitamins are soluble in fats or oils. We can ingest vitamins in dissolved form only, so the simple logic is we get water insoluble vitamins through oil or fat containing food and water soluble vitamins through water containing food. Simple isn't it?
These water soluble vitamins can't be stored in our body. The excess quantity is continually lost through urine. Therefore we need to ingest these vitamins every day.
Whereas fat soluble vitamins are stored in the fat tissue to some extent. And they are supplied to the place where needed in dissolved state in the fats.
Water soluble vitamins are B group of vitamins and vitamins C. Vitamins C is present in mainly citrus fruits, like lemon, orange etc. While B group is present in most of the raw fruits and vegetables. I said raw because this B group of vitamins degrade quickly at moderately high temperature. Therefore no B vitamin is present in the cooked food.
There is one another source of vitamin B- there are millions of bacteria living in our intestines, these are friendly bacteria, they digest some amount of food which we can't digest, and convert it into useful and absorbable products. One of such product they make is vitamin B. These useful bacteria gets killed when we consume antibiotics. At such times we quickly develop vitamin B deficiency. We must need to take vitamins B complex pills or eat more raw fruits till those useful bacteria are grown again.
5) PROTEINS-
Protein is the most important nutrient, proteins are the building blocks of our body. If we consider the total amount present in the body then protein comes just after the water. Proteins are there in every cell of our body, DNAs and RNAs of cells which contains all the hereditary information are made up of proteins, the antibodies that our immune system makes are special kind of proteins, all hormones are also made of proteins, all receptors (sensors of our body) are made up of protein molecules. Proteins are everywhere in our body. Our muscle fibres because of which we can do various movements are made up of proteins. Our heart muscles are also made up of proteins. We burn the fats in the structure made up of proteins. Proteins can also be used as a source of energy.
So as we are now aware of the importance of proteins, let's get to the sources of proteins-
We hear a lot about the protein content of different ingredients of food or the protein content of the different food items itself. But there is one more parameter related to the nutritional value of this protein content. Even if a particular food item we eat have protein content then it is not possible to our digestive system to digest all the protein content in the food we ingest. Further there are different kinds of proteins our body needs, apart from these proteins, there are other proteins present in the food, some of which we can convert in to usable proteins, others we can do nothing about. There are also some proteins which are readily absorbed in our body and used directly without any processing.
Amino acids are the basic units of proteins. Proteins are made up of combination of different amino acids. We need the amino acids in a particular ratio. So the food items can be ranked our evaluated with this amino acid composition and digestibility.
Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) is a method of evaluating the protein quality based on both the amino acid requirements of humans and their ability to digest it. The PDCAAS rating was adopted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) in 1993 as "the preferred 'best'" method to determine protein quality.
Now I think we have learnt which are the nutrients needed by our body and what function di they perform.
Now let's discuss about how to get them -
How to formulate the best diet for yourself?
You have to formulate your own diet for yourself because you yourself have to eat it, taste it, bear with it, enjoy the nutrition it provides our not provides, and stick with it. You can also change it as per your requirements our taste. The 'taste' and 'satisfaction' are a very important parts of the diet as we have learnt about what happened to the subjects of University of Minnesota. So it is vicarious learning for us.(learning from others experience). We must not do the mistakes done by others.
Now you must have understood that proteins are the most important nutrient our body needs. This is the clue to formulate the best diet you can. We have to formulate our diet around the protein, because the food items containing proteins generally have vitamins(because vitamins are a special types of proteins), fats, minerals, carbohydrates etc. Therefore we don't need to worry about the other nutrients. (in case you are an athlete and taking sports supplements, like whey protein isolate, then you must take other ingredients in your diet) But for a normal person who is doing exercises for maintaining good health sticking with the protein is a good idea.
The easiest way to formulate your diet is search the internet for protein content of your favourite items, which are readily available. And make a list starting from the food item with highest proteins(also consider protein digestibility, because some items like pulses have low digestibility, like pulses generally have around 50% digestibility, that is only 50% of the protein available in some pulses gets digested, while raw egg have 93% protein digestibility.)
My take is I prefer eggs and meat, their digestibility scores are around 70% to 90%. But the other days I like eating peanuts, or dishes made with peanut, cheese, other dairy products etc.
For a normal human protein requirement per day is around 50gm, but for persons doing workout our for athletes the protein requirement can be 1.4 to 1.6 gm per kg of body mass. But with such people, some protein is also used as a source of energy, therefore the total protein requirement can go as high as 2.2 gm per kg of body mass.
Our bodies adaptive response-
There is one interesting thing about the food we like- Our brain have a mechanism which decides our liking for food items. Our brain accesses our need of nutrients, it also assesses the nutrient content of various food items. Whenever there is deficiency of certain nutrients in our body, our brain automatically develops liking towards the food items which have those nutrients. It prompts us to consume those items and rewards is with the feeling of pleasure and happiness when we consume those food items.
Because of this process even if we don't like certain food items because of their taste, once we consume them in sufficient quantity so that our brain registered their nutrient content, we start liking it whenever we need those nutrients. Generally we need proteins in large quantity so we like those food items which have more protein content.
So even if you don't like certain protein rich food items, just east them for a while and you will start liking them. To give my own example,I never liked egg in my childhood but when I started exercising and studying I understood that chicken eggs are the most complete source of all the nutrients, if eaten in raw form then we get all the above nutrients and they are readily absorbed in our digestive system and then in blood and then used where needed without any chemical processing by gastric juices or liver.
Order of eating-
Other important thing is whenever we feel hungry, it is the sign that our gastric juices are ready. Our stomach secrets acid which is necessary in the breakdown of proteins in to the amino acids which are then absorbed in the intestine. The supply of this acid is the most when we are hungry and gets consumed as did is digested. Therefore if we eat protein rich food items of our diet in the beginning then, they get digested easily and with more efficiency, and the items we eat in the later part of the lunch gets competitively less quantity of acid for digestion. Therefore you should arrange the eating order of food items accordingly.
Water-
Water is the most essential ingredient our body needs. It imparts flexibility to our body cells, it performs the function of carrier of nutrients, it is the medium of digestion, it is the medium for almost all chemical reactions happening in our body, it performs the role of temperature regulation, it performs the role of medium for excretion (urea and other waste compounds formed in the body are excreted via urine in the form of aqueous solution.) Without water we can't live for long, in the deserts we can't even live for one day without water.
Water management system of our body-
Our body is expert in the water management. It had sensors sensing the water content of the body, prompting us to drink water through the feeling of thirst.
There is a hormone called Vasopressin, which regulated the water reabsorption in the kidneys.(our blood is first ultra filtrated, the resulting aqueous solution contains too much quantity of water and some other nutrients which have small molecule size, like salts, some proteins, glucose, vitamins B other than urea and creatin, out of these compounds the useful one's are reabsorbed when the solution goes through a long capillaries along with water.) The quantity of water to be reabsorbed is decided by the concentration of vasopressin in the blood. More the vasopressin, more the reabsorption of water and concentrated will be the urine. That is why we see dark coloured urine when do not drink enough water or conversely we excrete water white urine when we drink excess water.
How much water you should drink and when?
It is a debatable topic of how much you should drink water in a day. Some prescribe drinking large quantities of water, even prescribing large quantities of water while having lunch.
But I am of the opinion that by drinking large quantities of water, you are overloading the reabsorption mechanism of kidneys which reabsorbs the nutrients from the ultrafiltrate. Secondly you are not using the mechanism of water retention, that is the secretion of vasopressin hormone. As you must have understood that our body is an adaptive system. So it responds to the situation of abundant water by getting rid of it as soon as possible. Therefore the person who has habit of drinking more water will be in trouble if he don't get water for some time, because his body will quickly excrete the water because of the habit. You can experience this condition easily, just drink a lot of water about one and half day and then stop drinking it. You will urinate a lot even after you have stopped drinking water and will soon start feeling sleepy or energyless in just one to two hours. You can quickly recover from this condition on drinking water and again feel normal.
So I am of the opinion that drink as much as water as you feel like drinking and when you feel thirsty. Because our body knows what it needs and when it needs. Just listen to your body.
How much water should we drink while having a meal?
A simple point is, water reduces the concentration of food along with gastric juices. Chemical reactions usually have higher speeds at higher concentrations, some reactions can only take place above certain reactant concentrations only. Therefore it is necessary to keep the concentration of reactants high so that the chemical reaction can take place easily. And digestion of food involves various chemical reactions. So think about it yourself.
Another point is, water reduces the concentration of any water soluble compounds, reduced concentration means less osmotic pressure(osmotic pressure is the tendency of dissolved compounds to move from higher concentration towards lower concentration.)
Further water occupies space in the digestive system until it gets absorbed. So this place is unavailable for the food which results in less consumption of food itself.
That is why I am of the opinion of ' Do not drink water from half an hour before having the meal to an hour after having the meal(may be one or two gulps after the meal to clean the throat and food tube.)'
How many times in a day should one eat?
Some people say you should eat something every two hours.
I think it is better to eat two to three times a day. Some special operations commandos only eat once in a day. Trust me I have tried it without any bad effects, for first few days you feel hungry but then your body adjusted with it. But it looks odd and everyone notices it. So I eat three times a day.
You may say that gym trainers, fitness trainers told us that you need high amount of nutrition so you must eat after every two hours. But it doesn't really matter how many times you eat, what you eat and how much you eat, how much you digest, that really matter. Our body adjusted with house many times we are eating. If we are eating after every two hours then if we skip one meal then we start feeling weak and hungry, but if you are eating only once or twice per day and still following your workout then you won't notice any change in your energy level even if you are 2 to 3 hours late in having your meal or even skip a meal.
Your body develops endurance, which is very important to good health.
I have seen many gym goers drinking energy drinks and protein drinks, eating energy bars while doing their workout, our even drinking a lot of water. I don't understand what is the use? On one hand you are doing exercises to increase your strength, toughness, stamina, endurance, and then on the other hand you are trying to help the supporting systems. If the supporting systems are not strengthened along with your muscles then how can your muscle perform when the need arises?
Think about it..
See you later..
Till then have a great day, also have a great diet...๐
Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.
1) 3 most important aspects of living
2) No. 1 Misconception about great health
So till now, we have learnt about ageing, anti ageing, the language of exercise, misconceptions about exercises etc.
Out of the 3 pillars of our life, the #1 pillar, that is health is divided in to 2 parts-
Exercise and diet, until now we have learned basic things about the exercises, also you must have read what do I do when I fall ill?, if not then do read.
So now comes the diet part. We will definitely learn more about exercises, but exercises and diet go hand in hand so let's learn some basic things about the diet.
One of the advantage of learning about the diet is to become free from the misconceptions about the diet, like many people or organisations make big claims about their crash diet course, follow our diet plan and lose this much pounds or lose inches etc. Many times there person following these crash diets do achieve the targeted weight loss or weight gain or inch loss or fat reduction, whatever.. But his or her body sustains to much fatigue and many times fall ill and in the process of recovery from the illness returns to the point where he or she started and realises the waste of money, time, mental piece etc. Or even if he or she doesn't fall ill, sooner or later reverts to the original condition, wiping out any achievements in weight loss or gain or inch reduction etc.
If you really want to achieve the good physique then you must understand how your body works, how to feed it, how to keep it healthy. You yourself should care about your body, if you don't care about your body then how can anyone else care? How can you hand over your body to someone else just like that?
The hard fact is the people running the slimming centres are not doing it for charity. They are doing it for money, the slimming centre is their business. They are doing it because people think they need it and hence approach them. Slimming centre people themselves must be aware of the fact that they are not actually helping people becoming healthy but its a tough world out there, if they don't show results quickly, their customers will go to the next slimming centre which gives quick results in whatever way possible. And there will always be a next slimming centre, if not there now then sooner or later it will be there.
People generally go after INSTANT GRATIFICATION, that is we want instant reward for our actions, if there is no instant reward then we get discouraged and start finding other instantly rewarding options. But we must remember what investment legend Warren Buffett said-
You can not get a baby in one month by making nine women pregnant.. Some things just takes time...
You must be thinking why I am quoting investment legend in the post about diet? This is because there are some basic rules or we can say models which are common to all fields. And delayed gratification is one of them. We will talk about these models also known as mental models in future posts for sure.
So back to the topic, as the second world war was ending researchers at the University of Minnesota began a legendary experiment on psychology and physiology of human starvation. The subjects were 36 people with different body types. They were semi starved, given a diet of 1600 calories per day of typical European diet consisting of whole-wheat bread, potatoes, cereals and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage and a little amounts of meat and dairy for 24 weeks. Only 17% calories coming from fats, what todays nutritionists will consider low calorie and very low fat diet.
What happened to these people is very interesting, it is also a lesson for is to understand the working of our body. It will crack the assumption of the proponents of crash diets to lose weight, or the weight loss advice which simply neglects the presence of hunger.
As per the study-
The men lost an average of a pound of body fat a week over the first 12 weeks, but averaged only a quarter-pound per week over the next 12, despite the continued deprivation. And this was not their only physiological reaction. Their extremities swelled; their hair fell out; wounds healed slowly. They felt continually cold; their metabolism slowed.
More troubling were the psychological effects. The men became depressed, lethargic and irritable. They threw tantrums. They lost their libido. They thought obsessively about food, day and night. The Minnesota researchers called this "semi-starvation neurosis." Four developed "character neurosis." Two had breakdowns, one with "weeping, talk of suicide and threats of violence." He was committed to the psychiatric ward. The "personality deterioration" of the other "culminated in two attempts at self-mutilation." He nearly detached the tip of one finger and later chopped off three with an ax.
After the period of starvation ended, they were allowed to eat more, but then again in controlled manner, groups were formed to assess the effect of increased calories intake, one group was allowed to eat as much as they want, the people of this group ate huge amounts of food, they consumed up to 10,000 calories per day. They recovered their weight and fats very rapidly. And after 20 weeks they amassed 50% more body fats than what they had at the beginning. Researchers call it 'Post Starvation Obesity'.
Ok, so the simple thing is that it is often harmful to go for instant results. It is not good to neglect our hunger, if we starve ourselves then our bodies physiological response will be the stronger, unsurmountable feeling of hunger. That is why I always say, our body is a Complex Adaptive System, our body wants to survive and reproduce, and it prompts us to do whatever is necessary. So we must first ensure and fulfil what it wants and provide it in suitable ways.
As you must have understood from the University of Minnesota experiment, weight reduction or inch reduction is not a one time job. Whoever followed crash diets, his or her body thinks there is deficiency of food in its environment, so the bodies response to this situation is a strong feeling of hunger, day and night, so that the person can eat as much as possible. Along with this our body also reduces our metabolism rate, that is the rate of chemical reactions happening in the body which are responsible for repair, growth, heat generation etc. Our body starts saving more and more calories we consumer and amassing it as fats under the skin and around vital organs(which is dangerous). This response remains for extended periods of time after the crash diet or the starvation has ended.
So how to do it then? You must be asking.๐
As I have just said, it can be done by understanding our body, it's needs and fulfilling those needs in a proper way. Maintaining a healthy body is not just a one time job, it is a way of living life, exercise and diet are part of a healthy lifestyle, so the earlier you incorporate them in your life the better. Further just incorporating exercise and diet is not enough, you must know why and how they work otherwise you may damage your own body.
You must have heard many times in the ancient scriptures about the rules of life, the basic rule is-
Know thyself...
Or Atm-Gyaan...
This rule is there in almost every holy scriptures all around the world.
So you must understand how your body works, what it needs, and you must supply what your body needs. This is the basis of the right diet.
What nutrients our body need?
The nutrients we need can be classified as follows- (as you are reading this blog,I assume that you are not illiterate, you must have gone through school, where you must have learned the basic nutrients our body needs, so this is just the revision.)
1) Carbohydrates- (Also known as Carbs)
These are the polymeric form of sugars (the sugar we use for sweetening the food is chemically known as sucrose), when sugars gets attached to each others forming a chain, it is called polymer. The sucrose is a dimer, that is made up of 2 sugar molecules.
The biggest source of carbohydrates is the grains, tubers etc. As you just read, carbohydrates are the polymeric form of sugars. They must be broken down in to individual units before they can be used by various cells of our body or even the absorption by our digestive system is only done when they are broken down in to individual units. Depending on the complexity of their molecule, they take different amount of time to get broken in to individual units of sugars by the action of digestive juices. As they get broken down, they get absorbed by the digestive system. Depending on the time they take for digestion, carbohydrates are classified as Fast carbs or Slow carbs. Fast carbs generally have individual units of sugars present in them, for example fruits have individual units of sugars present in to them, so they get absorbed in to our blood readily and can be used directly as an energy source directly, without the need of any chemical processing. While slow carbs are digested slowly, therefore they provide a sustained stream of carbohydrates to the blood for hours after consumption. Wheat provides slow carbs while rice is a source of fast carbs. Some instant energy drinks contains fast carbs, they readily get absorbed by the digestive system and provide instant energy. But my thinking is that, use of such instant energy drinks should be avoided because they mask the real problem, that is fatigue, why we had fatigue and felt the need to consume instant energy drink? Further they also reduce the bodies own stamina to avoid fatigue.
Anyways, The excess carbs are converted in to a polymeric form known as glycogen by the liver and are stored by the liver, these reserves are used whenever required. The famous hormone Insulin governs this process and keeps the required level of sugars in our blood stream.
Carbohydrates are used as a primary source of energy by our body. Carbon dioxide, water and energy are the aerobic oxidation products of carbohydrates. (Aerobic means- with oxygen) When anaerobic oxygen happens, then lactic acid as an added product is formed, which is mainly responsible for muscle fatigue.
Our brain can only use sugars as an energy source. Almost all other cells can use fats as an alternative source of energy.
Almost all the food items we eat contains carbohydrates, so there are generally very rare chances of lies consumption. Rather patients having high blood sugar needs to control the intake of carbohydrates.
My purpose of writing here is to tell you the normal working of our body, if your body is not working normally because of some reasons, then you have to find those reasons and bring it to the normal. Many times we ourselves knowingly or unknowingly interfere in the working of our body thereby resulting in to a disease.
As Warren Buffett says-
Whenever you find yourself fallen in to a pit, the first thing you should do is, stop digging..
Again I am quoting this greatest capital allocator on earth because many psychological rules are applicable in any field of our life.
2) Minerals-
Our body needs different kind of minerals like calcium, zinc, iron etc. for various activities in the body. For example calcium is needed in the construction of bones and cartilages in the body, then iron is needed in carrying and storage of oxygen, other minerals are part of different hormones which govern different chemical reactions in the body or they even participate in certain chemical reactions occurring in our body.
As you go towards artificial ways of living like eating food grown on chemical fertilisers, grown from hybrid or genetically modified seeds, drinking RO purified water etc. makes our diet deficient in minerals. (when you start increasing the yield of crops by forcing them to yield more by some ways like hybridizing or genetically modifying or application of enzymes etc one must ensure the supply of all nutrients in right proportion which is seldom done, usually what farmers does is, they supply only the yield increasing nutrients through chemical fertilisers, and not the other nutrients which have less effect on the yield of crop, this scenario makes the yield more in quantity but less in quality, that is less in nutrient content.)(RO filters filters out all the dissolved minerals in the water, making it pure but simultaneously reducing the mineral content.) Drinking water is the biggest source of calcium apart from dairy and meat products. (RO also filters out all the pathogens from drinking water, thereby reducing the ingestion of pathogens, resulting in to less infections, resulting in to less action for immune system, resulting in to weak immune system, such people quickly catch infection when they consume normal water.)
The more you are closer to the nature the less are the chances of mineral deficiency and catching of infections.
3) Fats-
Fats or vegetable oils or various kinds of animal oils are fats. They have very high calorific value, almost double the calories than carbohydrates. They are used as an energy source and a kind of protective covering to insulate our body from atmospheric temperatures and physical shocks. Some Viral organs like kidneys, liver etc. also have a covering of fatty tissue (adipose tissue) to protect it from mechanical shocks.
Fats cannot be used by brain cells (neurons). Mainly fats are burnt by our skeletal muscles for their energy needs. The muscle repair and growth mechanism mainly used fats as a source of energy, this is a very long lasting process and consumes large amount of fats.
Muscles performing aerobic activity also starts burning the fats when supply of carbohydrates starts diminishing. (aerobic activity means, repeated movements, like cycling, walking, jogging, aerobic exercises etc.)
Now a days we eat to much of fast food or snacks, which are very rich sources of fats. There is a good news for the readers of this blog- You have very less chances of fats deficiency ever happening in your life...๐
This is because educated people are generally ingesting much more amount of fats than they can metabolize. Therefore fats starts accumulating over the vital organs(which is very dangerous), below the skin, in the blood, the cholesterol level increases which is a kind of low density fat, ask this resulting in to various diseases like- obesity, fatty liver, heart disease, heart attacks, choked blood vessels, joint pain(as they are unable to bear increased body weight, psychological stress because of their looks, you can imagine others..
So as far as carbohydrates and fats are concerned we educated people don't have to worry about their deficiency. Rather we need to keep check on their intake or make sure, they get metabolised in our body as soon as possible.
Fats play a major psychological role in our diet. Fats give us the satisfaction or the feeling of full stomach. That is why we feel full very quickly while eating deep fried food items.
4) Vitamins-
Vitamins are vital amines, amines means proteins, vital means very necessary. Three are special kind of proteins which are necessary for normal functioning of our body. They act as special molecules necessary to bring about certain biological reactions in our body. They act as catalyst for different biological reactions, our they are part of different hormones our enzymes. There are different sources for different vitamins.
There are two classes of vitamins- water soluble and water insoluble. As the name suggests, the water soluble vitamins are soluble in the water while water insoluble are not soluble in the water. Just remember that there are two classes of compounds, polar and nonpolar, polar have positive charge at one part of the molecule and negative on the other part of the molecule. While nonpolar do not have any charge on any part of their molecule, that is they are neutral. Polar compounds can dissolve in polar compounds only, for example water is polar and sugar is polar therefore sugar dissolves in water, similarly salt is pillar so it dissolved in water, but oil or fats are nonpolar so they don't dissolve in water or water don't dissolve in oil or fats, but different fats or oils may dissolve in each other.
Similarly, water soluble vitamins are double in water while water insoluble vitamins are soluble in fats or oils. We can ingest vitamins in dissolved form only, so the simple logic is we get water insoluble vitamins through oil or fat containing food and water soluble vitamins through water containing food. Simple isn't it?
These water soluble vitamins can't be stored in our body. The excess quantity is continually lost through urine. Therefore we need to ingest these vitamins every day.
Whereas fat soluble vitamins are stored in the fat tissue to some extent. And they are supplied to the place where needed in dissolved state in the fats.
Water soluble vitamins are B group of vitamins and vitamins C. Vitamins C is present in mainly citrus fruits, like lemon, orange etc. While B group is present in most of the raw fruits and vegetables. I said raw because this B group of vitamins degrade quickly at moderately high temperature. Therefore no B vitamin is present in the cooked food.
There is one another source of vitamin B- there are millions of bacteria living in our intestines, these are friendly bacteria, they digest some amount of food which we can't digest, and convert it into useful and absorbable products. One of such product they make is vitamin B. These useful bacteria gets killed when we consume antibiotics. At such times we quickly develop vitamin B deficiency. We must need to take vitamins B complex pills or eat more raw fruits till those useful bacteria are grown again.
5) PROTEINS-
Protein is the most important nutrient, proteins are the building blocks of our body. If we consider the total amount present in the body then protein comes just after the water. Proteins are there in every cell of our body, DNAs and RNAs of cells which contains all the hereditary information are made up of proteins, the antibodies that our immune system makes are special kind of proteins, all hormones are also made of proteins, all receptors (sensors of our body) are made up of protein molecules. Proteins are everywhere in our body. Our muscle fibres because of which we can do various movements are made up of proteins. Our heart muscles are also made up of proteins. We burn the fats in the structure made up of proteins. Proteins can also be used as a source of energy.
So as we are now aware of the importance of proteins, let's get to the sources of proteins-
We hear a lot about the protein content of different ingredients of food or the protein content of the different food items itself. But there is one more parameter related to the nutritional value of this protein content. Even if a particular food item we eat have protein content then it is not possible to our digestive system to digest all the protein content in the food we ingest. Further there are different kinds of proteins our body needs, apart from these proteins, there are other proteins present in the food, some of which we can convert in to usable proteins, others we can do nothing about. There are also some proteins which are readily absorbed in our body and used directly without any processing.
Amino acids are the basic units of proteins. Proteins are made up of combination of different amino acids. We need the amino acids in a particular ratio. So the food items can be ranked our evaluated with this amino acid composition and digestibility.
Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS) is a method of evaluating the protein quality based on both the amino acid requirements of humans and their ability to digest it. The PDCAAS rating was adopted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) in 1993 as "the preferred 'best'" method to determine protein quality.
Now I think we have learnt which are the nutrients needed by our body and what function di they perform.
Now let's discuss about how to get them -
How to formulate the best diet for yourself?
You have to formulate your own diet for yourself because you yourself have to eat it, taste it, bear with it, enjoy the nutrition it provides our not provides, and stick with it. You can also change it as per your requirements our taste. The 'taste' and 'satisfaction' are a very important parts of the diet as we have learnt about what happened to the subjects of University of Minnesota. So it is vicarious learning for us.(learning from others experience). We must not do the mistakes done by others.
Now you must have understood that proteins are the most important nutrient our body needs. This is the clue to formulate the best diet you can. We have to formulate our diet around the protein, because the food items containing proteins generally have vitamins(because vitamins are a special types of proteins), fats, minerals, carbohydrates etc. Therefore we don't need to worry about the other nutrients. (in case you are an athlete and taking sports supplements, like whey protein isolate, then you must take other ingredients in your diet) But for a normal person who is doing exercises for maintaining good health sticking with the protein is a good idea.
The easiest way to formulate your diet is search the internet for protein content of your favourite items, which are readily available. And make a list starting from the food item with highest proteins(also consider protein digestibility, because some items like pulses have low digestibility, like pulses generally have around 50% digestibility, that is only 50% of the protein available in some pulses gets digested, while raw egg have 93% protein digestibility.)
My take is I prefer eggs and meat, their digestibility scores are around 70% to 90%. But the other days I like eating peanuts, or dishes made with peanut, cheese, other dairy products etc.
For a normal human protein requirement per day is around 50gm, but for persons doing workout our for athletes the protein requirement can be 1.4 to 1.6 gm per kg of body mass. But with such people, some protein is also used as a source of energy, therefore the total protein requirement can go as high as 2.2 gm per kg of body mass.
Our bodies adaptive response-
There is one interesting thing about the food we like- Our brain have a mechanism which decides our liking for food items. Our brain accesses our need of nutrients, it also assesses the nutrient content of various food items. Whenever there is deficiency of certain nutrients in our body, our brain automatically develops liking towards the food items which have those nutrients. It prompts us to consume those items and rewards is with the feeling of pleasure and happiness when we consume those food items.
Because of this process even if we don't like certain food items because of their taste, once we consume them in sufficient quantity so that our brain registered their nutrient content, we start liking it whenever we need those nutrients. Generally we need proteins in large quantity so we like those food items which have more protein content.
So even if you don't like certain protein rich food items, just east them for a while and you will start liking them. To give my own example,I never liked egg in my childhood but when I started exercising and studying I understood that chicken eggs are the most complete source of all the nutrients, if eaten in raw form then we get all the above nutrients and they are readily absorbed in our digestive system and then in blood and then used where needed without any chemical processing by gastric juices or liver.
Order of eating-
Other important thing is whenever we feel hungry, it is the sign that our gastric juices are ready. Our stomach secrets acid which is necessary in the breakdown of proteins in to the amino acids which are then absorbed in the intestine. The supply of this acid is the most when we are hungry and gets consumed as did is digested. Therefore if we eat protein rich food items of our diet in the beginning then, they get digested easily and with more efficiency, and the items we eat in the later part of the lunch gets competitively less quantity of acid for digestion. Therefore you should arrange the eating order of food items accordingly.
Water-
Water is the most essential ingredient our body needs. It imparts flexibility to our body cells, it performs the function of carrier of nutrients, it is the medium of digestion, it is the medium for almost all chemical reactions happening in our body, it performs the role of temperature regulation, it performs the role of medium for excretion (urea and other waste compounds formed in the body are excreted via urine in the form of aqueous solution.) Without water we can't live for long, in the deserts we can't even live for one day without water.
Water management system of our body-
Our body is expert in the water management. It had sensors sensing the water content of the body, prompting us to drink water through the feeling of thirst.
There is a hormone called Vasopressin, which regulated the water reabsorption in the kidneys.(our blood is first ultra filtrated, the resulting aqueous solution contains too much quantity of water and some other nutrients which have small molecule size, like salts, some proteins, glucose, vitamins B other than urea and creatin, out of these compounds the useful one's are reabsorbed when the solution goes through a long capillaries along with water.) The quantity of water to be reabsorbed is decided by the concentration of vasopressin in the blood. More the vasopressin, more the reabsorption of water and concentrated will be the urine. That is why we see dark coloured urine when do not drink enough water or conversely we excrete water white urine when we drink excess water.
How much water you should drink and when?
It is a debatable topic of how much you should drink water in a day. Some prescribe drinking large quantities of water, even prescribing large quantities of water while having lunch.
But I am of the opinion that by drinking large quantities of water, you are overloading the reabsorption mechanism of kidneys which reabsorbs the nutrients from the ultrafiltrate. Secondly you are not using the mechanism of water retention, that is the secretion of vasopressin hormone. As you must have understood that our body is an adaptive system. So it responds to the situation of abundant water by getting rid of it as soon as possible. Therefore the person who has habit of drinking more water will be in trouble if he don't get water for some time, because his body will quickly excrete the water because of the habit. You can experience this condition easily, just drink a lot of water about one and half day and then stop drinking it. You will urinate a lot even after you have stopped drinking water and will soon start feeling sleepy or energyless in just one to two hours. You can quickly recover from this condition on drinking water and again feel normal.
So I am of the opinion that drink as much as water as you feel like drinking and when you feel thirsty. Because our body knows what it needs and when it needs. Just listen to your body.
How much water should we drink while having a meal?
A simple point is, water reduces the concentration of food along with gastric juices. Chemical reactions usually have higher speeds at higher concentrations, some reactions can only take place above certain reactant concentrations only. Therefore it is necessary to keep the concentration of reactants high so that the chemical reaction can take place easily. And digestion of food involves various chemical reactions. So think about it yourself.
Another point is, water reduces the concentration of any water soluble compounds, reduced concentration means less osmotic pressure(osmotic pressure is the tendency of dissolved compounds to move from higher concentration towards lower concentration.)
Further water occupies space in the digestive system until it gets absorbed. So this place is unavailable for the food which results in less consumption of food itself.
That is why I am of the opinion of ' Do not drink water from half an hour before having the meal to an hour after having the meal(may be one or two gulps after the meal to clean the throat and food tube.)'
How many times in a day should one eat?
Some people say you should eat something every two hours.
I think it is better to eat two to three times a day. Some special operations commandos only eat once in a day. Trust me I have tried it without any bad effects, for first few days you feel hungry but then your body adjusted with it. But it looks odd and everyone notices it. So I eat three times a day.
You may say that gym trainers, fitness trainers told us that you need high amount of nutrition so you must eat after every two hours. But it doesn't really matter how many times you eat, what you eat and how much you eat, how much you digest, that really matter. Our body adjusted with house many times we are eating. If we are eating after every two hours then if we skip one meal then we start feeling weak and hungry, but if you are eating only once or twice per day and still following your workout then you won't notice any change in your energy level even if you are 2 to 3 hours late in having your meal or even skip a meal.
Your body develops endurance, which is very important to good health.
I have seen many gym goers drinking energy drinks and protein drinks, eating energy bars while doing their workout, our even drinking a lot of water. I don't understand what is the use? On one hand you are doing exercises to increase your strength, toughness, stamina, endurance, and then on the other hand you are trying to help the supporting systems. If the supporting systems are not strengthened along with your muscles then how can your muscle perform when the need arises?
Think about it..
See you later..
Till then have a great day, also have a great diet...๐
Sumit
The POWER is when,
You use ODDS,
To get EVEN.
