Mystery Solved!

I'm educating or at least I am re-educating myself with regards to what it is to be healthy and how to stay that way as part of the process of reaching a state of good health.  As part of that endeavour, I went to see a sports' dietician today.  Interestingly she has a martial arts background having trained and competed in Taekwondo for 7 years as I found out today.  I went to see her to find out a number of things like how realistic my weight goals are and if my approach to diet and nutrition is sound.

I came away feeling very positive.  She offered me some sensible tweaks to my daily macro-nutrient targets. Macro-nutrients are your basic nutritional building blocks of protein, carbohydrate and fat.  Within my daily calorie intake goal there is a percentage of each required to maintain good health.  You can adjust the intake of each to ensure you have enough energy to exercise and repair muscles after working out.  This can be done on a daily basis depending on the activities you plan to undertake.  More broadly speaking I have set daily targets of each to ensure proper nutrition.

Good Carbs!  We like them.

One of the most interesting facts I learned in today's visit and for quite some time was to do with how carbohydrates can impact the early stages of weight loss.  You may remember in my week 1 weigh in, I lost 3.7kg.  I reflected on how in the first week I have found that it is possible to lose a disproportionately large amount of weight for the effort expended.  Amongst other nifty things, carbohydrates snaffle water.  I learned today that every gram of carbohydrate holds with it 3 grams of water.  It was like an epiphanous lightning bolt struck me.  What a concept!  I can really see how carbs could get a bad wrap.  Not only can the wrong type that we eat so much of get easily converted to excess fat, but, they do actually retain water.  Double banger or what??

A good mixture of fast and slow release carbohydrates is, however, very important to feed our muscles and brain for all the activities we choose to undertake.  The right balance is the key.  Because they do capture water, they also have a big role to play in our hydration.  But, what about the initial big weight loss when you start a diet?  Well I now put it down to the gross excess of carbohydrates that at least my diet obviously contained.  When I allowed my body a normal intake of carbs and the opportunity to purge itself of the excess loading I was feeding it, 3 times as much water as carbohydrate went with it.  Carbohydrates are large molecules that when converted for use by our body are stored in our muscles.  Because they are so large they tend not to be retained for very long before either being used by the body for fuel or converted to fat.  So by reducing my carbohydrate intake to a healthy level, my body burned up the excess and a stack of water went with it.  Those two little tidbits combined equals a big drop on the scales week 1.  Mystery solved!

So the trick from here on out is to, what is now so plainly common sense, get the balance right.  Eat the right types of carbs for the level of activity I am participating in.  Slow release (complex) carbohydrates before training and quick release (simple) during and after to maintain energy in long sessions or for recovery.  Carbs are not evil.  They are necessary for proper health.  In the right amounts you will rock the planet.  Consumed incorrectly and you will be somewhere on the spectrum of an lethargic under-performer to a bloated toady.

I learned a great deal more from my visit to the dietician today and have added to my arsenal of health weaponry.  This little series of carbohydrate factoids though really resonated with me.  So straight forward when someone lays it all out for you.  Just like someone pointing out where in fact Wally is hiding in plain sight....