Top 5 Tips To Get Your Nutrition On Point
5 ways to supercharge your gains by harnessing your nutrition before the summer
Have you ever seen people that go to the gym frequently but the results are slow to appear? Have you been in this spot before? The cause was most likely your nutrition.
You’ve certainly heard phrases like:
Abs are made in the kitchen!
Well, I have a slightly different version of it:
Abs are made in the gym, but revealed in the kitchen!
However, this expression is not only about abs but your fat levels in general. When you focus on building a lot of muscle or losing as much weight as possible, you don’t necessarily narrow down on fat levels. But at one point or another, you’ll want to tone up, and that’s where these tips and tricks come into play, to adjust your body fat as you wish.
As you probably read in one of my previous articles, any goal you have relies on this:
Calories in vs Calories out
Whatever goal you have, you need to play around with this report and find the ideal split between them. If you might think you already do that but still don’t see the desired results, then you are more likely eating calories you don’t know about, or having a poor tracking system.
This is why today, I am talking about 5 tips that you can play around with when it comes to nutrition, that will allow you to take control of your caloric input, such that you can safely work towards your goals.
#1 — Stop frying in Seed Oils
There have been multiple studies on the effects oils have on your health. And while olive oil and avocado oil have been linked to very good fat absorption and metabolizing, some other oils have been deemed the bad guys when it comes to your cooking base.
- Some of these are rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, and vegetable oil.
- Some of the good ones are olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil.
However, my tip for you is to enjoy your fries, or chicken healthily and don’t fall trap to hidden calories by using an Air Fryer.
While the oven is also an option, it is more likely to get stuck to the tray and you will also need some kind of oil. Even if you use the good ones, it’s still around 100 kcal that you add to your meal.
An air fryer also provides a much quicker cooking time than the oven, being a great option for meal prep, or having very quick healthy meals. (Yes! You can eat quickly and also healthily!)
Out of all the options I have seen online, you don’t need anything fancy. This one from Amazon will do the trick just fine. Use my affiliate link here to buy it!
#2 — Focus on non-processed foods, buy the option with the fewest ingredients
One of the most valid advice that is circling the internet is the war against processed foods. Why would you eat food that has been through as many chemical processes as the clothes you wear or more chemical processing than the fuel you put into your car? You are not eating those, so why eat salami, frankfurters, ham, or hormone-filled chicken?
This doesn’t mean to go and roam the forest for fruits and hunt your protein. Unless you are into that kind of thing, then you do you!
But you can still reduce your processed food intake significantly, by just paying attention to the ingredients of the products you buy. Allocate 30 more minutes to your supermarket weekly trip and read the ingredients on the packaging.
Then choose the option with the least amount of ingredients! Especially ones you’ve never heard about and can’t directly eat.
#3 — Always track your food
This is the most important hack that you can do to harness your nutrition. There are indeed people who are eye-balling their macros, or perform intuitive eating, but one thing to remember is that these people had years of tracking before they could be able to do that.
To be on the safe side, I recommend tracking everything you eat. A chicken with salad meal might seem light, but if you cook the chicken in oil that you don’t track and drench your salad in olive oil, the calories might even be double the amount you estimate.
What I use, is free, and I wholeheartedly recommend, is the MyFitnessPal app. It has a huge database of food, and in over 2 years of tracking, I didn’t find any kind of food that I could not add there.
However, to properly use it, you need to know the exact proportions of your food, so you need to weigh it. Please find below a cheap food scale on Amazon with my affiliate link:
#4 — Calculate your macros according to your goals and set your caloric intake accordingly
There are different types of physiques, different types of people, and different types of metabolism! So you can’t copy the process of someone else and expect the same results. You need to experiment for yourself, on your body, and monitor the results.
There are some guidelines to follow:
- 1g of Protein for each Lb. of body weight, or 2g of Protein for each Kg
- Don’t go too low with your fat because it’s the building block of testosterone
- Don’t go under 1500 kcal a day
Now, it also depends on your goal:
- If you want to lose weight, be in a caloric deficit of 300–500 kcal
- If you want to lose fat, be in a caloric deficit of 100–300 kcal
- If you want to build muscle, be in a caloric surplus of 100–300 kcal
Then, once you calculated your desired caloric intake for your goal, calculate the protein in, and then fill it with fat and carbs accordingly.
Keep this in mind when experimenting:
Some people are better at metabolizing fat, while others are better at metabolizing carbs. Find out which one are you.
#5 — Sneak superfoods and micronutrients into your diet easily
This is indeed a trick, a hack to supercharge your nutrition and health! There are hundreds of supplements out there, and you would break the bank trying to jump on each trend.
My advice is to focus on natural ones and incorporate them into your diet to experiment. Keep in mind that you need to experiment with one or two in turn, to check which one works. If you combine 5 at the same time, and you feel good, you don’t know which one did the trick.
Some good examples are:
- Maca root
- Tongkat Ali
- Cordyceps
- Moringa
- Spirulina
- Siberian Ginseng
- Shilajit
My ultimate hack to incorporate these into your diet is to make an easy-to-drink smoothie. Get the supplements in powder form, and add them to your whey protein shake, once a day, to get all the benefits, in a quick sitting or on the go. I just chuck them into my Nutri Bullet and be on my way!
In conclusion, nutrition is one of the most talked about topics out there, but also one of the most overlooked pieces in our training program or everyday lives. Follow the tips and tricks above to avoid losing control of your nutrition.
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Published and enjoyed by Annelise Lords.