124 | The Basics of Tracking Nutrients with Dr. Reed Jarvis

Welcome back to the Real Health Podcast. Today, we're kicking off our month long deep dive into nutrition. We're going over how the foods you choose every single day shape your health, your energy, and your long term vitality. This month is all about giving you knowledge and practical tools you need to truly fuel your body, not just to achieve body recomposition, which I know is a major goal for a lot of our patients, but also just to feel amazing and to thrive in everything you do and to increase your vitality. So in this first episode of our nutrition series, we're just going to start with the basics and we're gonna lay the foundation so that whenever we continue our deep dive, we'll get more specific into how you can even advance your nutrition.

But today, we're gonna talk about what macronutrients are and why they matter for your nutrition. We're gonna go over why calories in versus calories out still applies and while that is an important rule, even whenever you're eating clean and healthy food, we're gonna talk about how to balance both the quantity with portion control as well as the quality of food for real sustainable results. And finally, we're gonna go over four powerful action steps to help you take what we talk about today and put it into and put it into practice. So no matter where you're starting, you can use this podcast to begin coming up with a nutrition solution for your health to help you achieve your goals. I also wanna let you know that this month, we are offering free InBody scans at our office for the entire month of June.

These scans are going to give you a detailed picture of your muscle, your fat, and your water levels, as well as give you a detailed picture of your basal metabolic rate, which will help us come up with a good nutrition plan for you and understand what your body needs and how to fuel your body properly. All of this is information that's essential for truly personalizing your nutrition. So- at the end of the month- so go ahead and get your scans done because at the end of the month, we're hosting a special master class where we're going to take those results that you get from your InBody scan. We're gonna help you create a plan that's tailored to your body and your goals. Alright.

Let's go ahead and dive in. So starting with the basics, macronutrient nutrients or sometimes called macros are the three major nutrients that your body needs in large amounts. These consist of protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Each macronutrient plays a unique role and essential role in keeping you healthy and keeping you energized. Protein is the building block for nearly every structure in your body.

It's the building block for your muscles, your bones, your skin, your hair, and even the enzymes that keep your metabolism running smoothly. It helps repair tissues after your workouts and it keeps you feeling full and satisfied throughout the day. Protein rich foods that we talk about all the time include eggs and poultry, fish, lean beef, and even Greek yogurt. Carbohydrates are your body's primary source of quick energy. They fuel everything from your workouts to even your brain power.

Whole food carbs include, fruits and starchy vegetables and grains, and all of these deliver fiber, which also helps support your gut health and stabilize your blood sugar as well. Next, have fats. Fats are sometimes misunderstood. A lot of times people try to avoid fats, but they're absolutely essential for your nutrition, especially when it comes to how you feel and how you thrive. They're the backbone of your hormones, including those that regulate your mood, your metabolism, and even your reproductive health.

They also support your brain and your nerves, and they help you absorb fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin a, d, e, and k. Healthy fat sources are one of the most important to make sure that we're getting in our diet, and these include things like olive oil or avocado or nuts and seeds or pasteurized butter, wild caught fish. All of these are important for your brain health and your neurological health. It's important to remember that each of these macros also contributes to your totally calorie intake. It's what makes up the calories that you eat.

Protein and carbohydrates each have about four calories per gram, while fat has close to nine calories per gram. So portion size matters, especially with fats because they are a little bit more on the caloric dense side. But just to give you a brief overview of how much calories are in each gram of protein, carbs, and fats, and then we'll dive deeper into that in a later podcast. But now let's go ahead and tackle one of the biggest misconceptions that I hear all the time. Patients come up and they're like, "Dr. Reed, you know, I'm not gaining weight."

"I'm not losing weight," whatever their goals might be, "even though I'm eating healthy foods." Right? Even if you're eating healthy foods, calories still matter. So oftentimes, we might not understand how many calories we're eating each day or how little calories we're eating. So even though we're eating a healthy diet or we're on a, quote, unquote, diet, calories still matter.

The truth is that your body still runs on the principle of energy balance, and that's what we call calories in versus calories out. So here's how it works. If you consistently eat more calories than your body is burning every single day, your body will store that extra energy as body fat. However, if you eat fewer calories than you burn, your body will tap into its stored body fat to make up the difference. And over time, that's what leads to body recomposition and weight loss.

So this principle applies whether you're eating fast food or you're eating organic kale. It doesn't matter. Even healthy foods have calories, and sometimes even foods like avocados and olive oil can even be really caloric dense. So those are ones that we really need to, take a look at and monitor with our diet. You could be eating only the highest quality foods such as, you know, the grass fed beef, the wild caught salmon, and you could still gain weight if you're eating more than your body needs.

It's a reminder that while food quality is crucial for how you feel and how your body functions, calories still determine whether you're going to gain, lose, or maintain that weight. So that said, even the idea of calories in calories out can get oversimplified. It's not just about eating less. It's about understanding your unique needs and your activity levels and how your metabolism adapts over time. This is where having data like the InBody scan can be so helpful because when you know how much muscle you have and how much fat you're carrying and what your resting metabolic rate might be, you can make more precise decisions about how much to eat and what foods to prioritize to help you reach your goals.

So now let's let's be clear. Even though calories do matter and calories are the backbone of whether or not you're gonna lose or gain weight, the quality of those calories matter just as much, if not more, when it comes to how you feel and how you perform for your long term health. Not all calories are created equal. And whenever you focus on whole food proteins, you're not just hitting a protein target or your protein goal to help you reach those calories. You're getting all the micronutrients and the amino acids that help your body recover and thrive.

And we're gonna dive deeper into micronutrients and which ones you need to make sure you're getting, as well as amino acids in a later podcast. But just letting you know that whole food proteins and quality proteins are going to contain more micronutrients and better amino acids that will ultimately help your overall vitality. Same thing whenever you eat fiber rich carbs from whole foods and vegetables and legumes, you're not just fueling your workout so that you have more energy during your workouts, but you're also feeding your gut microbiome and you're stabilizing your blood sugar and you're reducing your inflammation. So all of these are still important even whenever we're trying to hit our nutrition or our fitness goals. And whenever you choose healthy fats from whole foods, you're supporting your hormones, your brain, and your mood, things that no processed foods or no fast food or supplement can replace.

So it's still important to be eating high quality, whole foods to help the little things that we might not notice whenever we're, trying to achieve a body recomposition or a diet goal. On the flip side, you know, processed foods like chips and sugary drinks, they might be calorie dense, but they're often nutrient poor. And what's gonna happen there is you're gonna end up overeating because they're gonna only leave you feeling hungry again soon after, and that can lead to cravings and blood sugar crashes, which is only gonna make you want to eat more throughout the day. So while it's true that calories in versus calories out is the foundation of your weight loss and your weight change, food quality is what supports your health, your energy, and your resilience as you continue on with your nutrition and your diet goals. So now that I've given you a little bit of a baseline understanding of what macronutrients are, what calories in versus calories out are, let's bring this all together and talk about how we can use these ideas into practice because knowledge is only powerful if you can actually use it to your day to day life.

So here are four simple but powerful steps that you can take and start implementing today no matter where you're at. So number one, we wanna know your baseline. So before you start adjusting anything, before you start adjusting your protein goals, your your carb goals, your fat goals, your caloric goals, it's important to get a clear picture of where you're at right now. Everyone's calorie needs are different. The standard is usually 2,000, but you may take your InBody scan and find out that you need way more than that or you need way less than that.

So it's all based on each individual person. It's based on things like your age, your activity level, your muscle mass, and even your stress levels. So this is why we're offering those free InBody scans this month to our patients so that they can give you a precise data on your lean muscle mass, your body fat, and your water balance. Instead of just guessing, you can see exactly what's going on inside your body because your weight alone doesn't tell the whole story. So whenever you know your baseline, you can set realistic goals and make sure the changes you're making are actually moving in the right direction.

We always suggest every if you're trying to make changes immediately, we suggest getting an InBody scan every month just to see if you're progressing in the right direction. But generally speaking, if you're just in a period of maintaining, you don't necessarily have a weight loss goal or you're not necessarily trying to gain weight, it's still good to get an InBody scan every three months just so that you can see how your body's improving with your nutrition as well as your exercise. Number two, a step and a strategy that you can implement is you can prioritize protein with every meal and you can balance your macros. One of the most impactful changes you can make is, to start prioritizing protein at every meal because protein isn't just for people who are trying to build muscle in the gym, but it's also, like I said before, it's the key to feeling full and supporting your recovery and keeping your metabolism strong, especially if you're trying to lose weight or getting in getting into a caloric deficit. Protein is so essential to help you stay full and stay recovered and not lead to any injuries.

Alongside protein, you want to include a balance of fiber rich carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, and healthy fats like olive oil, avocado, nuts, and seeds. In our masterclass, we're going to dive deeper into what that caloric breakdown should be as far as percentages, so that you have a better idea whenever you're tracking. This balance is what keeps your blood sugar steady, it keeps your energy high, and it keeps your cravings under control. It's not just about cutting out any one food group. It's about giving your body what it needs in the right proportions.

Number three, we want to watch our portion control even with healthy foods. It's really easy to think that just because a food is healthy, you can eat as much as you want of it. But the truth is, like I mentioned before, even the healthiest foods still contain calories and can still contain a lot of calories more than many of us probably even realize. Even though, like, nuts, seeds, oils, avocados are all incredibly nutritious, they're also very caloric calorically dense. So it's important to be mindful of portion sizes, and that doesn't necessarily mean restricting or obsessing over this.

It's just about being intentional. Eating slowly, tuning into your hunger cues, checking in with your nutrition. These small habits can make a big difference over time. Number four, we want to track, adjust, and stay consistent with our nutrition goals. I always recommend everybody track your food intake for at least a short period, like a week or two, maybe even a month, just so that you can see how much you're truly eating.

It's not about micromanaging your nutrition. That's not what our goal is. It's just about building awareness of what you're bringing into your body because most of us underestimate how much or how little we're eating, especially when it comes to snacks and bites here and there and healthy foods that we might not think to track, oils, stuff like that. When you track honestly and you're being real with your results, I use MyFitnessPal. There's there's hundreds of different ways that you can track your food, but MyFitnessPal is one of my favorites.

You could start to see patterns. Maybe you're not eating enough protein or maybe you're eating more calories than you realize even though everything you're eating is technically healthy. We can use that information to make adjustments, add more protein, choose more nutrient dense carbs, or make small tweaks to your meal timing to help support your energy levels whenever you feel like you might have lower energy than normal. And above all, it's so important to be consistent because change is not going to necessarily happen overnight. It's not about being perfect every single day, but it's about making small sustainable changes and improvements that will add up over time.

Consistency is what's going to turn these strategies into real lasting results. So to wrap this up, macronutrients are the foundations of how you fuel your body. Calories in versus calories out is still the key driver of weight change even whenever you're eating healthy foods. And food quality is what will make you feel better, perform better, and protect your health in the long run. This month, we're here to help you put all of this into action so that you can lock in on your nutrition goals and your weight goal journey.

So don't forget to book your free InBody scan if you haven't already. It's an amazing tool to see where you're at right now and track how you're improving over time. Don't forget to join us at the end of the month for our masterclass where we will show you how to turn your InBody results into a personalized nutrition and fitness plan that works for your life. If you found this episode helpful, go ahead and share it with a friend or leave us a rating. It helps us reach so many more people who need this kind of real science backed information to achieve real lasting results.

Until next time, thanks for tuning in to the Real Health Podcast.

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