What about Protein?

The next lesson is going to be about protein.  This isn't a very long lesson, but it is good to know why we need it and how the body uses it.

Protein comes in three forms: animals, animal products, and some vegetable/grains.  As most of you already know, meat is protein.  Beef, chicken, pork, fish, etc.  are the animals.  The animal products are milk, cheese, and eggs.  The vegetable/grain sources are beans, nuts, seeds, and some grains like wheat.

Proteins contain all the amino acids that we need to rebuild our body.  Protein is needed for healthy skin, nails, muscle, hair, and for repairing and growing.  Only animal sources contain ALL the amino acids that we need and are called complete proteins.  Plant based sources don't have all the amino acids and are called incomplete proteins.

The Physiology of Fat

In order to understand why America is filled with people who are overweight, we must understand why we are overweight. This particular lesson will deal with the physiology of fat. How to do we get fat, and what causes weight gain. Since this is meant to be a type of health class/health coaching site, we will be discussing a lot about food, nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and just good nutrition in general. I have personally seen food heal people, and I have seen food kill people. It amazes me that if we all just ate better, we would have a lot less sickness.

The first thing I want to talk about is the macro nutrients. There are 4: Carbohydrates, Fat, Protein, and Fiber. We will discuss the first 3 in detail, the last one not so much. The first one I would like to talk about is carbohydrates. What are carbohydrates? There are good carbs and bad carbs. The good carbs are vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds. Bad carbs are things like cakes, cookies, chips, sugar, candy, and most snacks. There are some carbs that are kind of in the middle like bread, pasta, oatmeal, quinoa, and rice; if eaten in moderation.

What is the purpose of carbohydrates? They are the body's main energy source. They get broken down to glucose, which is food for our cells. Kind of like fuel for our body. The problem is that we are not that active anymore. Our body doesn't need all that fuel, so it stores the extra glucose by turning it into fat, so we will have it if we need it. If we eat carbs all day, which is a typical American diet, we will have a lot of extra fuel that our body needs to turn into fat, because it doesn't need it.