[Viktoriya WolffKeymaster]

Many people who want to lose some body weight jump to the conclusion that Carbohydrates (Carbs) are bad and they need to be limited in their diets. This is not true. Not only do Carbohydrates provide you with rapid energy during exercise, they also help to increase your glycogen stores to increase your endurance for your next workouts. Read more about Carb and Carbohydrate Loading.
General Daily Carbohydrates Recommendations:
For General Training- 5-7g/kg of body weight
Endurance Athletes – 7-10g/kg of body weight
Ultra-endurance Athletes- 11 g/kg body weight
Let’s calculate the amount of Carbs that is needed for general training for a person that is 132lbs. First we have to convert pounds to kilograms 132/2.2=60kg. Then, 60kg multiply by 6g (5-7g Carbs) which is 360g of Carbs/day. When multiply 360g by 4 = 1440 Cal, which sounds a lot-but it is not. Forty percent of Carbohydrate will supply your body with energy when it is at rest, such as heart beating, breathing and other important body functions.
Carbohydrate needs usually are greater for training than competition.

Recommended pre-exercise meal:
Pre-exercise meals provide energy when the athlete exercises hard for 1 hour or longer. Pre-exercise meals, such as shakes, increase blood glucose to provide energy for exercising muscles.
It is recommended to consume 1g Carbs/kg of body weight for each hour of exercise or 30-60g of Carbohydrate every hour as food or fluid.

Fats play many important roles in the body: first of all it is body’s primary energy reserve, it helps to maintain body’s temperature, protects vital organs, aids in delivery and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and many other important functions.

Dietary Fat Intake Recommendations:
- 25-30% of total energy
- limit Saturated fat intake (solid fats) to less than 10% of energy intake
Let’s calculate: if your total energy intake is 2200 Cal, than .25 x 2200 Cal is 550 Cal of fat is recommended and less than 220 from those fats are recommended to be solid fats, such as from butter or sour cream or meat and any other animal sources.

Protein is probably one of the most important nutrients when talking about building muscle. Because after hard exercise, muscles are broken and amino acids are required to build more muscle.
Protein Requirements are:
Sedentary Individual older than 18y/o- 0.8g/kg of body weight/day
Endurance Athlete- 1.2-1.4g/kg/day
Resistance Athlete- 1.6-1.7g/kg/day
A gain of 2 lbs of muscle/week would require an additional 50g/protein/day for a 70 kg athlete or 1.6g/kg/day.
So, let’s calculate: Let’s say you do general training and your needs are about 1g/kg/day, at 60kg of body weight it is 60g of protein per day. Sixty grams of protein (60 x 4) equals to 240Cal from protein per day. Ingestion of about 0.1g/kg body weight of protein after resistance exercise helps to increase skeletal muscle net protein balance. But it must be done withing 1 hours after exercise.

Hope this helps.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by  Viktoriya Wolff.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by  Viktoriya Wolff.

[Viktoriya WolffKeymaster]

That is a very good question,
Salt plays a very important part in our body. Salt is a molecule containing Na (Sodium) and Cl (Chloride).
Most importantly Sodium regulates fluids in our body. The amount and the pressure in the veins regulates cells nutrients uptakes. Sodium also helps to regulate pH (acid-base level) in the body. Sodium plays an important role in transmitting nerve signals for muscle contraction and other body functions.

Chloride plays an important role for the digestion, the natural acidic fluid in the stomach that helps to break down molecules of food to enable them to be absorbed by the body. Salt (NaCl) plays an important role in the body, and can’t be produced by the body, so it has to come from the diet. The problem is with salt that, as everything, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Average Sodium intake by American ranges between 3000-4500mg/day (130-195 mEq Na or 8-10 g of Sodium Chloride). The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend an intake of less than 2300mg of Sodium, which is equivalent of 6g of table salt (NaCl) each day.

High salt intake is linked to several health conditions:
1. Hypertension (High Blood Pressure): High Sodium causes vessels to widen, reducing the resistance the blood experience as it flows.
2. Osteoporosis: High Salt intake is also associated with osteoporosis (bone weakening). That is because increased salt in the body causes increased Calcium excretion in the urine. Calcium, of course, is very important for the bone strength.
3. Stomach Cancer: Excessive salt consumption is linked to Stomach Cancer. Although not all the molecular basis was not confirmed yet, the epidemiological studies found this association.

So, how to reduce salt consumption? First of all, it is important to realize that majority of salt in Americans comes from processed foods. It would be a good idea to reduce processed foods consumption, and switch to low Sodium diets. There are also several programs on-line that can help to track your Sodium and Calories intake.

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