The Problem with One-Size-Fits-All Nutritional Plans

It can set you up for failure.

The biggest problem with one-size-fits-all nutritional plans is that they fail to teach you the importance of the four macro-nutrients. Macro-nutrients, eaten in the right ratio, are required for health. The 4 macro-nutrients are:

• Water,
• Carbohydrates,
• Protein, and
• Fat

When you’re missing any of these, your nutrition is unbalanced. I’m going to give a brief overview of each of the macro-nutrients. There is a lot of information I will be leaving out because I am writing an article not a book.

Why are these macro-nutrients so important?

Let’s begin with water. Water is where many other nutrients are supposed to be found. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms found in water are not supposed to be found alone. Pure 100% water does not exist naturally on our planet. There is no place that is just water, there are always minerals and other substances contained, naturally, in naturally flowing water.

How important is water to your health? The adult body is at least 60% water. We know this percentage is even higher before birth. As late as 32 weeks gestation, the baby is more than 80% water and is surrounded by the ocean-like amniotic fluid. The baby continuously swallows the amniotic fluid for nourishment; that’s about 250 milliliters each day for every kilogram of body weight. For an adult, this is equal to about 5 gallons of water per day. Without this constant swallowing of water and nutrients, the baby would become malnourished and the digestive system itself could not be properly formed.

Why does water matter? Water is the primary component of all the bodily fluids — blood, lymph, digestive juices, urine, tears, and sweat. Water is involved in almost every bodily function: circulation, digestion, absorption, and elimination of wastes, just to name a few. Water carries the electrolytes, which are mineral salts that help convey electrical currents in the body. The major minerals that make up these salts are calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Water requirements vary greatly from person to person. The climate in which you live, your activity level, and your diet all influence your individual needs for water.

How does water heal? Anything that nourishes can heal, and among all nutrients — perhaps all substances of any kind — water is unsurpassed in its ability to heal. As human beings, we turn to water for healing (and feelings) in all dimensions of our lives — from hot tubs to hydrotherapy, from bathing to baptism — and the mere sight of water, like a mountain lake or ocean tide, can ease the pain of psychological wounds. The pain of physical wounds is also healed through water. When you’re injured, your bloodstream carries repair substances to the injury site. About 81% of that bloodstream is water. When toxic substances from the environment make their way inside your body, your urine (95% water) or your sweat (99% water) usually carries the toxins back out. Skin wounds heal most quickly in a wet environment, because water accelerates re-epithelialization (the making of new skin) and the rate of wound contraction.

In these and countless other ways, water is fundamental to life. Without clean water, you cannot experience optimum health. Without enough water, you basically dry yourself out (the technical term is dehydration). In medical research dehydration is linked to a long list of chronic health problems, including adult-onset diabetes, arthritis, asthma, back pain, cataracts, chronic fatigue syndrome, colitis, depression, heartburn, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney stones, lupus, migraine, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy.

All water needs to get where it was originally designed to go, and in the case of humans, that means directly into your body and not detoured as a result of drinking other things, like soda pop or coffee. You most likely aren’t aware that coffee upsets your body’s water balance, even though it consists mostly of water. You see, coffee is a diuretic and can actually cause you to excrete more water than the cup of coffee actually contains. Soda pop can also upset your water balance. When the highly sugar-concentrated water in soda pop enters your digestive system, it can cause the body to “steal” water from elsewhere to dilute the soda pop and make it less concentrated. This soda pop problem is referred to as hyper-osmotic load.

When you are choosing your water source, understand that a 1-quart bottle of highly mineralized spring-water can contain well over 75% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for magnesium. By comparison, tap water in most U.S. cities contains fewer than 10 mg per quart, or about 3% of the RDA. It’s also important to understand that the RDA — Recommended Daily Allowance — numbers are intentionally set low. They are intended to keep you from becoming malnourished. They are not about optimal health.

How do you make sure you’re getting enough water?

1. Your urine will be a very pale yellow or clear.
2. Include sea salt or pink Himalayan salt either in your water or dissolved directly on your tongue before you drink any water. Doing so allows your body to use the water more efficiently.
3. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water daily. (For more information about hydrating with sea salt and water, visit www.WaterCures.org.) Your water intake is also highly dependent upon your size, your level of activity, time of year, and how many natural foods you consume that also contain water. Your body uses water to process everything you take into your body, this includes the environmental toxins you don’t have control over. When in doubt, drink more water.

Now, I’m going to talk about carbohydrates. The “demon” everyone seems to be dropping like a bad habit. There are many different kinds of carbohydrates, but some can serve as a quick source of energy for the body. It was the “quick energy” carbohydrates that prompted the fore-bearers of nutrition to recognize carbohydrates as the body’s chief source of energy — the fuel that runs its engine. However, we’ve since learned that many carbohydrates function in the body not as fuel but as communication devices. For example, sugars that are found on the surface of your cells enable your cells to recognize and interact with each other. Sugars on the surface of your red blood cells help determine your blood type and are the basis for determining appropriate and inappropriate blood donors. The oligosaccharide branch of the carbohydrate family plays a critical role in immune function, and many carbohydrate structures turn out to be tumor — and anti-tumor — associated.

Taking a prebiotic to feed your gut microbiome? Oligo-saccharides containing fructose (fruit sugar) make their way through the small intestine and end up as food for bacteria in the large intestine. Have you ever chosen an eating plan that told you to eliminate fruit?

In general, carbohydrates come to us from plant versus animal foods, because carbohydrates are produced by photosynthesis in plants. The carbohydrates are the primary source of energy in Nature’s plant foods — fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and tubers. These foods play an important role in the functioning of internal organs, the nervous system, and muscles. They are the best source of energy for endurance athletics because they provide both an immediate and a time-released energy source as they are digested easily and then consistently metabolized in the bloodstream.

Carbohydrates play an important role in helping to regulate the metabolism of their fellow macronutrients — namely, protein and fat. Moreover, the balance between these three food components helps determine the robustness of your immune response, bone and tissue growth, joint fluidity, and rate of healing following an injury.

Now let’s chat about protein. Protein is an essential part of nutrition, second only to water in the body’s physical composition. Protein makes up about 20% of your body weight and is a primary component of your muscles, hair, nails, skin, eyes, and internal organs — especially the heart and brain. Your immune defense system requires protein, particularly for the formation of antibodies that help fight infections. Hemoglobin, your oxygen-carrying red-blood-cell molecule, is a protein, as are many hormones that regulate your metabolism, such as thyroid hormone and insulin. Biochemical deficiency can occur when there is a lack of enzymes, the protein molecules that catalyze chemical reactions in the body. Protein is needed for growth and the maintenance of body tissues; it is vitally important during childhood as well as pregnancy and lactation.

Protein was generally regarded as a part of food that was primarily designed to support body structure. When we say that protein “supports body structure” we’ve generally been talking about things like muscles, connective tissue (collagen), hair, and fingernails. All of these structures are composed primarily of protein, and chronic protein deficiency tend to show up in the form of weakening or damaging of these particular structures. Protein is also known to form the structural basis for smaller and less permanent body components, including hormones and enzymes. We now also know that protein plays a role in the area of communication, information processing, and cell signaling.

Proteins play a wider range of functions than any other bodily component. They form all of the enzymes that spark our metabolism and many of the hormones that regulate our body chemistry. Antibodies that help neutralize bacteria, transport molecules that move minerals around our body, and structures that provide tissue with protective strength (like fingernails or bone collagen) are all composed of protein. Even the contraction of our muscles depends on protein.

We must have a constant supply of amino acids to build the proteins that create our body tissues. This is especially true in the formation of a tiny human during pregnancy as well as in growing children, but we are all constantly rebuilding new tissue throughout our lives. Hair and nails are growing, and the cells in the body become worn out and need replacing, which all requires amino acids. Red blood cells last about a month, as do skin cells, while cells that line our intestinal tract are replaced almost twice weekly. During times of healing, during illness, and after surgery, injuries, burns, or blood loss, we require more protein production to assist in bringing back the body’s strength through regeneration of cells and tissues.

When your body needs energy, it will first use carbohydrates and then fats for energy, and if these sources are low, it will burn dietary protein. Should your diet be deficient in energy sources, your body will break down tissue proteins to meet its needs. We do not store extra amino acids, like we do fat, other than in tissue proteins, so your body will destroy its own protein (muscles wasting) when fuel is needed, usually after your fat stores are depleted

Proteins inside cells help keep the correct amount of water in the cells. Unlike water, most proteins do not move in and out of cells, and large protein molecules attract water. The proteins in plasma help maintain the blood volume as well. When overall protein concentrations are low, fluid imbalances can occur. Proteins also help maintain the normal sodium and potassium balance, which is essential to life. Sodium is concentrated outside the cells, while potassium is mainly inside, a situation necessary for normal muscle and nerve cell function. Proteins push sodium out of the cell and potassium into it, thus aiding the heart, lungs, and nervous system to function optimally.

Proteins can help normalize the acid-alkaline balance by acting as buffers. The body constantly produces acids and bases from chemical reactions. Proteins help in the elimination of excess hydrogen ions, which are part of acids. In this way, the pH (the acid-alkaline balance of the blood) is kept near constant at about 7.4.

Despite what you may have been told over the past few decades, fats are an important component of your diet, and at least a minimum intake is essential. The role of fat as an energy-storage substance is only one of its important roles. Fats are also required to transport other nutrients, such as vitamins A, D, E, and K. Fats are an essential component of the cell membrane, and internal fatty tissues protect the vital organs from trauma and temperature change by providing padding and insulation. Fatty tissue, in fact, even helps regulate body temperature.

To remain healthy, our bodies need fatty acids not only of all three lengths (SCFAs, MCFAs, and LCFAs), but also both saturated and unsaturated. When a fatty acid is fully saturated, it interacts the least with other molecules in the body, and it provides the most stable structure. Saturated fats are helpful structurally because they help stabilize cell membranes, and they are not very susceptible to damage because they are primarily inert and non-interactive. Unsaturated fatty acids are much more interactive and susceptible to damage, but they are critical in the body because they provide flexibility to cell membranes and allow the cells to stay in dynamic communication with their surroundings.

Fats perform many life-supporting functions in each cell of your body. They are part of every cell membrane and every organ and tissue. The fatty acids keep your cells strong to protect against invasion by microorganisms or damage by chemicals. Fats are important to your nervous system as well as in the manufacture of steroid and sex hormones and the important hormone-like prostaglandins. Cholesterol is responsible for some of these functions that support the health of the brain, nervous system, liver, blood, and skin. The cell membrane function of fats also includes an important signaling component. Signaling is the general term used to describe each cell’s way of communicating chemically with the rest of the body. The specialized forms of membrane lipids all help cells carry out signaling tasks and stay in communication with their surroundings.

I am not going to go into how much of each macro-nutrient one “should” consume. This is a very subjective topic and the way you live your life and reactive foods will determine what you need most. For instance, I right now have a friend who’s eating only animal protein because her body is adversely reacting to all other forms of food.

Start to pay close attention to what you think and how you feel as you look at and eat the foods you encounter. Do you see them in a different light?