What are Macronutrients and why are they important?

• macronutrients
• fats
• carbohydrate
• protein
• toptips

 

What are Macronutrients? 

The word ‘Macronutrients’ can seem a little daunting to a lot of people. They find that such a long word (which is only mainly used by health and fitness professionals) quite complex when it is quite the opposite. If you break the word down into two sections ‘Macro’ and ‘Nutrients’ it becomes quite simple. First off, the word ‘Macro” means big, or a large scale, therefore, relating to our food intake this means the largest nutrient groups which we need in our diet. These being Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats. Then, even more simply, ‘Nutrients’ meaning the food we intake. Overall putting these two together, we can understand that Macronutrients is just the largest nutrient groups we need in our diet to ensure we have a healthy and balanced lifestyle. 

 

 

What’s a Protein?

Proteins are made up of different Amino Acids and these are the building blocks for new tissues needed daily for growth and repair. They are also essential as they coordinate bodily functions and keeps our bodies chemical balance just right. These include our enzymes which control hormones and antibodies. Protein can be found in plant and animal sources such as meat, fish, nuts, dairy and legumes (beans and lentils). Protein can also provide us with a small fuel source when exercising muscles. 

 

Depending on our activity levels your protein intake will be slightly different. Athletes have higher protein requirements than less active people. This is because extra protein is needed to compensate for more muscle breakdown after intense exercise, and therefore needed to repair and rebuild those muscles cells. Experts recommend that you should consume protein throughout the day, rather than taking it all at once. Your individual requirement is worked out by your fitness coach or dietician. The consensus regarding daily requirement is between 1.2g – 2.0g of protein per 1kg of body weight for athletes, and .075g of protein per 1kg of body weight for less active people. The types of proteins which should be consumed after exercise are fast absorbed proteins, (such as whey) as they are considered optimal for recovery. Protein can be found in a lot of food and many people can eat too much, this is nothing to be worried about and it just gets broken down into urine and excreted. 

 

 

What’s a Carbohydrate?

 

Carbohydrates are the most important fuel for our brain and central nervous system as well as our muscles! It is stored as glycogen in our liver and muscles, the purpose of liver glycogen is to help maintain blood sugar levels. This works by when your blood sugar dips, glycogen is released from the liver into the bloodstream to help bring your sugars back up. The purpose of muscle glycogen is to fuel physical activity, this is more favourable over fat as a fuel as the glycogen is more efficient.  

 

It is important to understand that when training hard we need more fuel; therefore, our carbohydrate intake must match the fuel needs of the training for the right glycogen replenishment. General guidelines for carb intake are 3-5g per 1kg of bodyweight for very light training and 8-12g to 1kg of bodyweight for very high-intensity training. The more active you are, the greater your muscle mass, the higher your carbohydrate needs. To promote fast post-exercise recovery, experts recommend 1- 1.2g of carbs per 1kg of body weight per hour for the first 4 hours after exercising. It is also recommended that the pre-exercise meal provides high carbs to enable you to keep fuelled throughout your training. 

 

What’s a Fat?

 

Some fats are essential as it makes up the structures for our cells, brain tissue, nerves and cushions our organs. Fats in food also provide us with essential fatty acids and vitamins such as A, D and E and is also a very important source for exercise. It is recommended that no one should intake more than 35% of their daily intake in fat, and it is more important to meet their Carbohydrate and Protein goals. However, the intake of fat is needed, especially for Omega 3, this helps increase delivery of oxygen to the muscles, improve endurance, speed up recoveries and help reduce joint stiffness and inflammation. It is said we should consume 2-3 portions of healthy oil and fats per day, these include: nuts and seeds, olive/rapeseed oil, peanut butter, and normal butter, also oily fish. 

 

There are 3 main types of fats: Saturated, Unsaturated and Trans Fats. Saturated fats are mainly found in animal sources like meat, dairy and some plant foods such as palm oil and coconut oil. These are the fats that can increase your cholesterol as it is carried in the blood as LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and HDL (high-density lipoprotein). Eating too many of these fats can increase LDL the ‘bad’ cholesterol in your blood which can increase your risk of heart disease. 

 

Unsaturated fats can be consumed instead of saturated fats if you want to reduce your risk of heart disease, these are mostly found in plant and fish oils and are either monosaturated fats or polyunsaturated fats (good fats) such as corn, rapeseed, avocado, salmon and mackerel, these simply help lower the LDL in your blood. 

 

Trans Fats are the worst kind of fats, these can be found in hydrogenated oils like vegetable oil and all fast foods. Adults should not have more than 5g of Trans fats a day, so best to keep away from these altogether. These fats higher your cholesterol levels greatly. 

This blog has been written by Tegan Cadwallader 

Instagram: Tegan_alice_pt

 

The author of this article/blog/ is a qualified Level 3 Personal Trainer. Further detail regarding the author can be found via the website or social media handle listed above.

 

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