Nutrition, Is It Really That Important?

Hey guys It’s been a few weeks since my last blog, something decided to invade my household and get us all sick! I hope all your weeks have been going great! If you’re a Patriots fan I imagine you are having a great week, I can bet we all ate and drank a little too much this past weekend with the national holiday (Superbowl Sunday). This brings me to todays topic, just how important is nutrition to our progress.

I cannot stress enough how important nutrition is, it is the staple of your weight loss or muscle gain. Losing weight or gaining muscle is 75% nutrition and 25% exercise. While you may go beast mode in the gym if you are not making the smart decisions in the kitchen your efforts will be in vain and ultimately waste your time, energy, and effort.

Weight loss/gain is centered around a number, 3000. This is how many calories are needed to either gain a pound or lose a pound. A caloric deficit of 3000 will make you lose a pound, while a caloric surplus of 3000 will make you gain a pound. This means a balanced diet that adds up to -3000 will have you losing a lb no matter when that -3000 occurs. So, a 7-day diet and exercise regimen with a 430-calorie daily deficit will have you losing a pound in a week, it is the opposite for putting on weight.

So, what is the importance of this to our progress? Well if you are working hard and killing yourself in the gym, pushing it day in and day out, burning 1000 calories every time you exercise on top of the 1500 calories you burn working and walking throughout the day then you have a daily caloric deficit of 2500. Now this is a great number, it is an excellent amount of burned calories but here’s the problem; you are currently -2500 for the day, let’s start adding our nutrition to the mix. You had subway for breakfast because its “healthy,” you got the Footlong steak and cheese because hey its subway, that is 960 Calories, then you eat a healthy snack Greek yogurt with granola (240 Calories), Lunch comes around and the boss bought the office pizza, you will just get 2 slices because you have been eating extremely healthy (700 calories), protein shake break time, because you know, “Gainz” (300 Calories). Finally, the gym is done its time for your last meal of the day and let’s face it you have worked hard, time for a healthy meal, Chicken (335) Broccoli (50) and rice (206 calories) of course just one serving a piece. Now Add it all together, 2,791 calories! That is what you consumed in one day while “eating healthy.” So, those 2 hrs we spent burning 1000 calories, a complete waste of time. Instead of having a caloric deficit like we are supposed to, we now have a surplus of 291 calories. Do you see the problem?

​While we may feel, we work hard enough to see progress, if we are not aware of what we are putting in our bodies we will never see the results we want. In this one day, had we ate ½ of the foot long and substituted the pizza for a chicken salad (200 calories) we would have a caloric deficit of 714 calories instead of a 291-calorie surplus. It’s the little Choices that make the biggest impact in our fitness journey.
 
Below is an example of what 1500 calories can look like. A full days’ worth of calories or one meal, the choice is yours.

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