Posted on June 18, 2008 by Gerald Pugliese
Mike Howard of Diet Blog offers up his list of 10 things you don’t need to worry about for a healthy life, and, here they are:
- Macronutrient Ratios
- Taking a Multivitamin
- Drinking Coffee
- 8 Glasses of water
- Bicep Curls
- Fat count
- Net Carbs
- Eating After 6pm
- Eating Organic
- Artificial Sweeteners
I don’t agree with all of Mike’s thoughts, but the one about macronutrients is pretty good. Check this out, from
Food Scoring Guide: Macronutrients:
Macronutrients are nutrients that contain calories. There are only macronutrients—fat, carbohydrates, and protein. Macronutrients give us the calories we need for energy and growth. All natural foods contain a mixture of fat, carbohydrates, and protein, although some (primarily animal products) contain only two of the three. For example, a banana is mostly carbohydrate (93%), but it does contain some fat (3%) and protein (4%). Spinach, like all dark leafy green vegetables, contain approximately equal amounts of carbohydrates (40%) and protein (43%), along with a lesser amount of fat (7%). Sirloin steak is all fat (44%) and protein (56%) and contains no carbohydrate.
With Americans gaining weight at such a fast pace, there seems to be an endless stream of diet books that focus on manipulating the amounts and the percentages of the macronutrients—carbohydrate, fat, and protein—that we eat. But fiddling around macronutrient percentages is not the way to lose weigh or improve health. In fact, the only way to slow the tidal wave of increased chronic disease and obesity is for people to eat less of all three macronutrients.
Oh, and be sure to read
the rest of the post for Mike’s explanations.
