"Master the nutrition fundamentals
YOU need... then adapt your
food nutrition guide to fit
your targets and
your body type!"

Some recommend to eat a lot of protein, some tell us protein is evil. Others advise us to be in the "zone" (to combine our carbs, proteins and fats perfectly at every meal), while others inform us never to combine starches and proteins.

This becomes doubly difficult for someone like me who throughout my working life overseas since 1979 is confronted with the same foods native and traditional to a particular area.

So to be honest with you, I really don't care who is right. Let us leave them until they all have figured out all the pieces of the puzzle.

Until then, the philosophy I want to share with you is pretty simple. We concentrate on the fundamentals of nutrition. This is the stuff that everyone agrees on--even the rivaling fad experts.

According to Tom Venuto, author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, “certain universal nutrition laws apply to everyone and that once you’ve established a solid foundation by mastering these nutrition fundamentals (also known as “baseline nutrition”), then you need to adjust your nutrition plan to fit your goals and your body type”.

The chemicals needed by humans for life’s activities are called nutrients, which function in:

Therefore, we need a daily sustenance of foods making up the basic nutrients of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in addition to the need for water, minerals and vitamins.

Metabolism is the complete set of chemical and biochemical reactions that occur in living cells. These processes are the basis of life, allowing cells to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments.

It is usually divided into two categories. Catabolic reactions yield energy, an example being the breakdown of food. Anabolic reactions, on the other hand, use this energy to construct components of cells such as proteins.

Nutrition is the application of food and how it provides the body with the energy for growth, its daily activities and to repair damaged cell tissue.

The key macronutrients that the body use in relatively large amounts are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. This is contrary to micronutrients, which the body requires in smaller quantities, such as vitamins and minerals.

A lot has been said and written about nutrition in the past – entire books have been devoted to the subject. “These scientists (nutritionists) have demonstrated that by paying attention to the essential needs of good nutrition,” says C. Curtis Shears, author of Nutritional Science and Education, 1974, “one can achieve better health with less tension, friction, anxiety and neurosis as well as enjoy a more meaningful, happy, productive and spiritual life”.

According to him, “by being informed of the nutrients in foods available to us, we can eat less but more wisely and thereby attain improved health, mental alertness and stability at much less cost and avoid malnutrition and disease”.

Like many people, you desire a longer life to give you more time in which to lead a better life. The choice of waking up to another tomorrow and the capacity to enjoy it should be open to all of us, each and every day. One must use the best of present day methods to increase healthy life span and reduce the risk of suffering age-related conditions in later life.

The key weapons in the fight to prevent cardiovascular disease — the nation’s No. 1 killer are a healthy diet and lifestyle according to American Heart Association recommendations.

The proposal, which replaced guidelines issued in 2000, now mentions:

Further reducing saturated and trans fatty acids in the diet;

Minimizing the intake of food and beverages with added sugars;

Emphasizing physical activity and weight control;

Eating a diet rich in vegetables, fruits and whole-grain foods;

Avoiding use of and exposure to tobacco products; and

Achieving and maintaining healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

There is more focus on long-term, permanent changes in how we eat and live. A combination of exercise with heart-healthy diet, coupled with weight control and avoiding tobacco products is the best way to lower cardiovascular risk.

In addition, the association while continuing to emphasize achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight, is now putting more focus on balancing the number of calories consumed with the number of calories burned. A favorite target is put on food preparation methods that avoid adding saturated fat, sugar or salt and portion size control.

This is not much different than what has been observed and practiced in the past. “The requisites of health are plain enough”, says Sir John Lubbock Bart, the author of The Pleasures of Life (1889),” by regular habits, daily exercise, cleanliness, and moderation in all things – in eating as well as in drinking – would keep most people well”.