Nutrition basics-Conclusion or 3+1 ways to fix your diet

      The best diet is the one you can follow for a long time.When you think that you are food deprived you cant have results.Everyone is different and because of that general guidelines about nutrition dont work most of the time.But some general directions are always helpful for a beginner.

     The way to do this is really simple and can be summarized in three steps

1.As we saw calories in calories out is a good guideline.So to start you should find your maintenance calories.There are two ways to do this:the easy and the hard one

a)The easy one is to use one of the calorie calculators available on the internet.

b)The hard way and the one I suggest because it is more accurate is to write down everything you eat each day for a week.Then you find the calories of each food(see here) and you calculate how many calories you consumed each day.Afterwards you sum up the calories of the week ,divide the number with seven and voila your weekly calorie average.

Finally after you find your maintenance just lower the calories by 200 or 300 for weight loss and the opposite for weight gain.

2.You need at least one to one and a half grams of protein per kg of body weight.So find that number then multiply it with four and you are going to have your daily protein calories

A chinese buffet.Irrelevant?Ι dont think so

3.Fill the rest of the calories with fats and carbs.

     Now you may not want to be bothered with calorie calculations and the like.There is a solution for you too.Just lower the portions of what you eat like this:carbs sources first,fats second and protein last.For weight gain just do the opposite.Finally activity plays a huge role but for now these simple guidelines should be enough and remember moderation is key for everything.