Nutrition
Click here for some general guidelines for the Fourteen23 approach to nutrition!
Click here to discover healthy recipes based on what you have in your pantry!
Input some information about yourself and your body type and get caloric & macronutrient suggestions!
Click here to get some example meal plans that fit a specified calorie and macro goal!
Click here to check out some relevant Blogs & Podcasts from me and other experts in the field!
General Nutrition Guidelines
Macronutrients
Macronutrients
Protein (Structure*)
- Required for synthesis and repair of tissues, cells and muscle
- Comprised of amino acids – some essential, some non-essential.
- Complete proteins (contain all amino acids) vs incomplete proteins (legumes, grains, etc).
- Animal protein is highest quality (complete), but not a necessity – can also combine incomplete proteins.
- Recommended Dietary Allowance: ~10-35% of total calories.
Carbs (Performance*)
- The body’s primary source of energy
- Simple or complex in structure.
- Simple sugars (fruit, sugars, etc) digest & absorb rapidly – good for pre & post workout where energy is needed quickly.
- Complex carbs (starches, grains vegetables) digest slowly and are better for sustained energy.
- Recommended Dietary Allowance: 45-65% of total calories.
Fats (Function*)
- Extremely important for essential bodily functions
- Characterized by the structure of the chemical bonds, specifically the number of double bonds
- Saturated fats: No double bonds
- Unsaturated fats: > 0 double bonds
- Trans-saturated fats: Artificially fully saturated bonds
- Recommend limiting unsaturated fats to 10-25% of total fat consumption
- Recommended Dietary Allowance: 20-35% of total calories.
Nutritional Strategies**
Nutritional Strategies**
Fat-Loss
- MUST be in caloric deficit
- Increase energy expenditure, decrease energy intake, or both
- Deficit of 500 calories/day–> 1 lb loss/week
- Choose nutrient-dense whole foods (Apple vs Apple Strudel)
- Stop drinking your calories. Replace sugar-filled drinks with water or other sugar-free beverages.
- Up the protein, always. Upwards of 1 gram/lb of bodyweight per day has shown to be extremely effective
- Portion control. Add vegetables & high fiber foods to your meals to increase satiety
Muscle-Gain
- Requires adequate caloric intake and resistance training (eat your food & lift your weights)
- If protein intake high enough, don’t have to be in large surplus to gain fat-free mass
- Carbs will not make you fat. Pre and post workout carbs are essential
- Aim for 20-40g protein per meal & ~ 1 gram/lb of bodyweight per day
- Increase meal frequency and/or portion sizes to obtain adequate calories.
- “Anabolic window” is a myth. The quantity of nutrients assumed is FAR more important than the proximity of consuming nutrients to the end of your workout.
*For more information regarding the macronutrients, their specific roles in nutrition, and my meaning behind the terms ‘structure’, ‘performance’ & ‘function’ – check out one of my recent blog posts here!
**NOTE: All nutrition strategies are a function of the individual’s age, height, weight, training schedule, lifestyle & other things. These suggestions are just made for the general population. If you are interested in getting more personalized suggestions, check out our one-on-one coaching opportunities!
Recipe Generator Tool
You don’t feel like going to the grocery store just to buy ingredients for a specific meal? You want to cook something healthy to eat but not sure what you can make? Fill out the fields below and let me know what all ingredients you have in your pantry, and I will give you a list of healthy recipes that you can make with what you got!
Caloric Suggestion Tool
If you are not sure how many calories you burn on an average day, this tool is for you. This tool is designed to take in some information about you and your lifestyle and take a guess at how many calories you burn on the average day. You can use this guesstimate as a starting point to determine how many calories you need to aim for to either gain, lose, or maintain weight based on your goals!
NOTE: This tool should serve only as an educated guess and starting point and not as a concrete value of your total daily caloric expenditure. The actual value varies from person to person and involves more variables than what is asked for to the left. However not exact, this tool is based on the average of a few scientifically proven and tested equations that are used as a standard for this calculation across the industry.
Caloric Suggestion Tool
If you are not sure how many calories you burn on an average day, this tool is for you. This tool is designed to take in some information about you and your lifestyle and take a guess at how many calories you burn on the average day. You can use this guesstimate as a starting point to determine how many calories you need to aim for to either gain, lose, or maintain weight based on your goals!
NOTE: This tool should serve only as an educated guess and starting point and not as a concrete value of your total daily caloric expenditure. The actual value varies from person to person and involves more variables than what is asked for to the left. However not exact, this tool is based on the average of a few scientifically proven and tested equations that are used as a standard for this calculation across the industry.
Meal Plan Generator Tool
If you have an idea of roughly how many calories you need to eat per day and what macronutrient split to achieve your desired goals, but you’re not too sure how to develop a meal plan that isn’t dull and bland, test out this tool to get some ideas for a full day of eating that eliminates the guess work for you! Just enter your total calorie goal, your desired diet type, the number of meals you’d wat to eat per day, and any dietary preferences, and get a few full example days worth of delicious foods tailored to meet your goals!
NOTE: If you aren’t sure what your calorie count should be, try out the calorie suggestion tool located above!
Relevant Resources
Personal Blogs
If you’d like to see more of my content related to fitness, nutrition and personal development with a splash of sports & engineering, subscribe to my blog below!
