Healthy, Fit, & Busy – OH MY

I have brought on someone that can answer this question with experience and expertise beyond myself, so lets turn it over to Jessen Houston, MS, RDN, ATC, CSCS

“There are a number of ways you can experiment with changing your metabolism.  Let’s start by defining metabolism. Metabolism can be described as the total amount of physical and chemical processes that take place in the body. It can be measured in kilo calories(kcal/calories). Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is what you burn at rest and the amount of calories you burn throughout the day with normal chemical processes.  Estimated Energy Expenditure (EEE) is amount of energy you burn with physical activity and exercise.  For your total metabolic rate, simply add the two together. This number is a quantitative way to assess and measure your metabolism.  However simple addition is, identifying EEE can be difficult and it’s the most controllable and variable aspect of changing your metabolism. Metabolic carts and other calculations can be used to estimate your BMR(Krause).

Quite obviously, the simple answer to changing how you eat is to eat in ways that enhance your ability to exercise more and be more physically active, since this is the most variable aspect of metabolism. Finding a balanced, healthy fitness or performance program you can do consistently, enhances your metabolism. For example, both carbohydrates and fats are primarily used for long distance running (Achten and Jeukendrup). To optimize your run, ensure your pre-activity meal consists of the appropriate amount of both nutrient dense carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, and healthier fats like almonds. The other macronutrient protein, along with carbohydrates, is required to optimize benefits of resistance training and enhance muscle synthesis. This type of training is a great avenue to increase both BMR and EEE. The required amount varies based on individual dynamics and the type of training. In general, we advocate for a carb to protein ratio of meals after workouts to be at 4:1 ratio (Williams).  Men typically have higher BMR due to the ratio of fat tissue compared to adipose tissue. Resistance training is one of the best methods to enhance this ratio to your benefit.  Finding reasons to increase activity like parking further away during grocery shopping all add to enhance EEE and metabolism.

Another healthy eating habit to increase your metabolism is to increase the number of meals you consume. Ideally, eating 4-6 snacks, or smaller meals each day, will force your digestive system to become more efficient at metabolizing your food. Our digestive systems prefers this methodology over eating 3 large meals a day. Smaller, more frequent meals, help regulate your blood glucose which can allow you to be more productive at work and in the gym.  To the notion of gut health, probiotics enhance the ecosystem of the digestive tract, which can allow nutrients to be absorbed more efficiently. The more efficiently you can absorb and utilize macro and more specifically micronutrients the better you can exercise and metabolize foods. Among other things, enzymes are key to metabolism and enzymes are derived from efficiency of nutrient absorption. (Williams)”

1. Mahan, Kathleen et al. Krause’s Food & the Nutrition Care Process 13ed. 2015
2. Phd Juul Acten and PhD Asker E. Jeunekdrup. Optimizing fat oxidation through exercise and diet. 2004, Nutrition Volume 20 #7/8
3. William, Melvin. Nutrition for Health, Fitness and Sport. 11ed. 2017

Meet Jessen Houston

Jessen Houston is a Registered Dietitian Nutrition, Certified Athletic Trainer and Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist who serves as a Director of Nutrition and Performance at a K-12 Independent school in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is also the owner of Comprehensive Nutrition Performance & Wellness Consulting LLC, where he works with professional athletes, student athletes and general population designing healthy eating plans around their exercise and performance training. He specializes in providing holistic performance, wellness and nutrition programs. Some of the services he provides are, virtual nutrition counseling, exercise performance program design and instruction, body composition assessment, resting metabolic testing, sports nutrition presentation, chronic disease education, disordered eating counseling, biochemical analysis, customized meal planning, meal planning education, nutrient analysis, medical nutrition therapy, fueling station design, injury assessment and functional movement analysis. Contact Email: jessen

As many of you know, I take selfies on a regular basis, as well as a lot of other people out there! I recently had someone write me asking “if taking selfies are bad for you, and do I feel stupid taking one at the gym?”…ok, well I will be honest, I hate taking them at the gym, and my gym can tell you how awkward I am when I say “will you please take this picture and video of me working out?” However, for me, I find it helps me with accountability, as well as help me feel comfortable in my own skin. Self-Awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self-Awareness allows you to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment. Can a selfie of yourself, or others, help you become more self aware?

What Does Research Say?

There has been a plethora of research investigating relationships between social media activities and self-esteem, which has produced mixed results. Mehdizadeh (2010) has instead found that individuals low in self-esteem engaged in more self-promoting behaviors on Facebook (including self-promoting photos) as compared with individuals with higher self-esteem (Sorokowski et al., 2015). Nadkarni and Hofmann (2012) have shown that self-esteem may predict the actual need for self-promotion on social networking sites. Conversely, other studies (e.g. Krämer & Winter, 2008) have pointed out that low and high self-esteem users did not differ on self-presentation behaviors.

What Does This Mean?

Try both?? If you have never put yourself out there on social media and you want to share your progress then do it! For some, you might find it helps with accountability and self-image. For others, you may find you are comparing yourself negatively to others on social media. Either way, what is good for one, may not be the best for another, so respect each other and support each other. Selfies, whether of yourself or others, may help you become more self-aware!

“If It Fits Your Macros” (IIFYM) diet versus counting your calories. Social media is BLOWING UP with six packs with the #IIFYM for hashtag, but what is it, what is better??

Counting Marcos: The diet’s main objective is that meeting your daily intake of macronutrients (or macros, as you see on social media)—protein, carbohydrates, and fat—is the most important part of losing weight. Those are the three main nutrients that provide calories your body can use. The first step of the diet (or any healthy lifestyle) is figuring out your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). A persons’ BMR is the amount of energy your body would use if you were lying around all day. You can calculate this from an online website/app/RD/Nutritionist/or any other healthcare provider that knows how to do it…I’d save time & $ and use an app! I like Fit My Macros 😊

After that, you take your activity level into consideration by multiplying your BMR by a number between 1.2 (if you’re sedentary) or 1.8 (if you’re really active – exercise 4-5 times a week). And presto, you have your recommended calorie intake. — > The diet requires that 40 percent of your calories come from carbohydrates, 40 percent from protein, and 20 percent from fat. Oh, and most nutrition labels list carbs, protein, and fat in grams—not calories. So you’ll need to do some math to figure out whether that Cold Stone Ice Cream fits your macros. (Been there, done that) 😉

Eating a combination of carbohydrates, fat, and protein should keep you satiated, energized, and on the weight-loss train and IIFYM is a style of eating that sounds like it’s less restrictive than other diets, but doing the math to figure out what is possible at dinner can be intimidating.

Breakfast Example: If you’re a 27-year-old woman who’s 5’5” and weighs 130 pounds, according to the BMR calculator, you burn 1,399 calories at rest. We will say you are planning to do cardio or resistance training six days a week, so you can multiply that by 1.7 since that’s fairly active, and you get 2,378. Next, you multiply that by 0.40 to get your daily protein and carb intakes, then multiply that same number by 0.20 for the fat portion. Finally, you need to divide the calorie counts for each nutrient by three to figure out how many cals’ worth of carbs, protein, and fat you need to be eating per meal. After that, you’d have to look up the nutritional content of each breakfast food you want, then measure them out to make sure you’re hitting your mark. Oh, and nutrition labels don’t usually list those nutrients in calories—they list them in grams. FYI – Those calculations are strictly for maintaining your weight! If you want to drop a few pounds, you’ll have to make sure you’re taking in less than the number you get after multiplying your BMR by your activity level. When you’re forced to split up your calories the same way at each meal, people end up making the same meals all the time because they know those foods fit their macros. Hence – meal prepping! (which that is a whole other topic to discuss)

Calorie Counting Only

The recommended daily protein intake for active people is 15% of your total calorie intake, which is lower than 40% mentioned above. The fat would make up 25 to 30 % of your daily calorie intake. And eating 55 to 60 % is recommended for carbohydrates.

Counting calories can be eat a well-balanced diet consisting mostly of unprocessed foods, including all of the food groups and your favorite treats. It is still important to consider your basal metabolic rate and consider your activity level as well (calculation above). Then, it is as simple as counting the calories going into your body. And “mindful eating” is another buzz phrase you may hear but it is excellent in helping determine which foods to put in your mouth. Make simple switches, like water or sparkling/flavored water instead of sodas/teas. Or, if at a restaurant, put the dressing on the side and dip your fork into the dressing first, then grab your bite (you have heard this before). Or just be consistent with eating and don’t skip meals. Make it a habit to allocate x amount of calories to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and if you find yourself hungry between, throw in wholesome snacks (ie: apples and peanut butter, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc) and drink WATER!

Choose What Is Best For You

Counting calories, paired with fresh foods, is the go-to diet for most people since it is easy and reliable. Counting macros is a great way to feed your body exactly what it needs, however, it is not necessarily feasible for the average person. But honestly, depending on which you want to try is your best option! There is never any harm in trying both options for 30 days at a time, coupled with exercise. Which brings us to another topic….what type of exercise?? HIIT, Cardio, Weights, Cross Fit, Yoga, etc. Lets say for now, just get moving!