• Proteins are large molecules made up of amino acids which are required by your muscles & other tissues in your body for optimal function
• Protein is a vital and an important part of our diet and a major component of our bodies. It is necessary for cellular function, cellular transportation and digestion maintenance, proper growth and maintenance of muscles, water balance, and tissue repair
• It is ESSENTIAL that you consume enough protein to meet your muscle mass maintenance needs. If you fail to consume adequate amount of protein, your muscles will atrophy (decrease in size)

Protein is responsible for:

• Building, strengthening and repairing tissue – specifically muscle maintenance for recovery
• Keeping us full for longer, acting on satiety cues in our digestive tract
• Maintaining stable blood sugar levels (reducing risk of diabetes)
• Creating a “thermic” effect on your body, burning more calories just to digest  
• Keeping our muscles firm by maintaining a positive nitrogen balance in your body 

Many people would agree that a high protein diet would be suited to any person looking to improve body composition, so it is important that you are consuming the proper amount and type of protein!

There are 20 different amino acids which are combined to make millions of different proteins, each with a specific function in the body. It is important to choose high quality complete proteins more often as they provide all the amino acids and are absorbed more readily. These are animal sourced protein including meat, poultry, eggs, dairy products, tofu, tempeh and seitan.

Carbohydrates have gotten quite a bad rap lately with all the low-carb diets out there, suggesting that carbs are bad for us or are responsible for weight-gain.

Is this true? Are carbohydrates responsible for body fat gain? Should we avoid them?
The answer is NO to both!

The fact of the matter is that carbohydrates are the preferred fuel source for your bodies – and brain’s – energy needs. This is because our bodies use glucose and convert it to ATP (adenosine triphosphate) which our cells use as energy. The closer the chemical structure of foods to glucose, the more readily our bodies can produce energy. Therefore, carbohydrates provide more instant sources of energy (relative to protein and fat), which is why they are ideal to fuel your workouts!

The other thing people need to understand about carbohydrates is that too many calories, of any type, can lead to fat gain. With carbohydrates, people tend to eat too many sugary carb-dense foods, which also contain fat. Therefore, it is important to choose your carbohydrate sources wisely to avoid added fats and/or too much sugar! And while it’s true that you need carbohydrates for energy, you only need so much. In this regard, if you overload your energy intake, aka calories, and are not active enough to burn the excess calories, the unused fuel (glucose) will be stored and then eventually converted to fat. It’s basic math: calories in > calories out = weight gain; calories in < calories out = weight loss; calories in = calories out = weight maintenance

The trick with eating carbohydrates is knowing exactly how, when and which carbohydrates to eat so that your body may use them for energy without later storing them as fat.