This may be a cliché, but it’s worth repeating: what you eat affects your health.
Unhealthy eating habits have been associated with various health problems such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and many others.
If you want to live a healthy life, you need to get your nutrition right. Improving unhealthy eating behaviors can even have a faster impact on your body than training, although the latter is also important.
But, what does good nutrition or healthy eating look like?
Well, in a video we’re about to show you, Registered Dietitian and Sports Nutritionist Luke Corey from UCLA Health Sports Performance explains clearly and concisely the 5 basics of optimal nutrition. Not only that, he also explains how to put them into practice.
The video is about 37 minutes long, but it’s well worth watching. Let’s see in more detail what Luke’s video covers.
Table of Contents
Optimal Nutrition Definition
In the first 7 minutes of the video, Luke explains the definition of nutrition, the impacts of nutrition on your day-to-day performance, and the differences between poor nutrition and optimal nutrition. These first 7 minutes serve as the introductory part of this video.
The typical definition of nutrition is “the process of obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.” Based on this definition, the function of nutrition is to keep you alive and functioning.
According to Luke, while this definition is great, it’s not sufficient to define “optimal nutrition.” We need to expand on this definition when discussing optimal health and optimal nutrition.
So, what’s optimal nutrition? Luke defines optimal nutrition as “eating the right amounts of nutrients on a proper schedule to achieve the best performance and longest possible lifetime in good health.”
Based on this definition, the function of nutrition should not only be to maximize health, happiness, and well-being, but also to improve your athletic performance and exercise capacity.
What Are the 5 Basics of Optimal Nutrition?
After those first 7 minutes, Luke explains the 5 basics of optimal nutrition. Those 5 things are (1) eating schedule; (2) key nutrients; (3) food selection; (4) portion sizes, and (5) hydration. This section is the gist of the video.
Eating Schedule
There are different eating schedules that people follow. A fairly common one is the three square meals routine, which consists of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then, some people eat smaller meals five or six times a day.
Now, which eating schedule is the best to follow? According to Luke, research shows that what really matters is not the eating schedule that you follow, but your consistency in following your eating schedule. So, pick an eating schedule that you can follow consistently.
Key Nutrients
Key nutrients are the nutrients that you need to include in every meal you eat. According to Luke, there are four key nutrients, namely: (1) protein, (2) carbohydrates, (3) healthy fat, and (4) vitamins and minerals.
Each key nutrient plays an important role in supporting your body. For example, proteins are the building blocks of all your tissues, such as muscles, brain, organs, and bones, while carbohydrates are the main source of energy for your body and brain.
As you can see, Luke advocates for the balanced diet approach. A balanced diet is a diet that includes all the nutrients your body needs in proper quantities. It can be distinguished from diets that severely restrict or eliminate a certain food group, such as the currently popular keto diet.
Although an unbalanced diet may help people with certain health issues, such as the keto diet for epilepsy, we believe that a balanced diet is the healthiest and safest approach to eating for most people.
Food Selection
In this section, Luke provides examples of foods that can supply your body with key nutrients. The important point here is to eat a variety of foods to ensure that you’re getting all the key nutrients your body needs.
So, don’t limit yourself to animal-based protein; also include plant-based protein, such as lentils, beans, and tofu. Similarly, don’t just eat carbohydrates from grains; eat them from vegetables and fruits too.
By consuming proteins, carbohydrates, and fats from a variety of sources, you’ll also get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.
Portion Sizes
To determine how much to eat, Luke employs the portion control approach. In this approach, you don’t need to count calories; instead, you simply need to pay attention to portion sizes. He teaches how to use your hand as a guide for measuring portion sizes.
This approach is more practical than calorie counting. However, the weakness of this approach is that you can’t accurately determine the exact number of calories in your food.
If you want to learn about different ways to track food intake, we recommend reading our article on the best way to track your food intake.
Hydration
According to Luke, about 75% of your body is water. So, even a slight change in hydration can affect your body.
Now, how much water do you need to drink every day? Luke provides an easy way to calculate that. To find out how many ounces of calorie-free fluid you need to drink per day, divide your weight in pounds by 2.
For example, if you are a woman weighing 145 pounds, then the amount of water you need to drink per day is 145 divided by 2, which equals 72.5 ounces of water.
Closing Remarks
After explaining the 5 basics of optimal nutrition, Luke discusses how to put those 5 things into practice by creating a meal plan.
In the summary section of the video, he provides more actionable tips to help you implement the information he has shared.
Okay, this introductory article is already long enough. So, without further ado, please watch Luke’s video below. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below!