Is focusing on calories the best approach?

Ahoy there!

You should look at foods as a whole and how they interact with each other rather than just calculating calorie, protein, carbohydrate, and fat intake.

Something you should consider is absorption. The protein, carbohydrate, and fat that you are consuming - how much are you absorbing? 

The iron that you are consuming, how much of this is your body absorbing? Absorption is a key term to remember.

Aspects that affect nutrient absorption include,

Biological factors

Genetics

The quality of the food

The other foods in your diet (for example, vitamin C enhances iron absorption)

If you want to increase your iron absorption, eating more iron in combination with Vitamin C over a sustained period would be a way of doing so. Tea is known as an inhibitor of iron due to its tannin content, therefore to further enhance iron absorption limit the cups of tea.

We hope that we have demonstrated that food is so much more than calories and macronutrients. The focus should be on the micronutrient content of the foods, such as iron, vitamin b12, etc, the quality of the foods, and how different food types interact with each other.

There is an abundance of information out there on this topic. However, like a lot of things, the way that foods interact with each other is likely still relatively untouched.

Our message is to always try and make it personal when looking at your diet. We all lead different lifestyles, have different body types, have certain resistances and different schedules.

That is our message here, to explore the world of nutrition, eating certain foods in combination with each other can be a powerful remedy.

Dare we say that eating natural foods that the body naturally accepts and uses is more powerful than any pill on the planet!

When you eat foods that are more processed the body doesn't have much use for this compared to natural foods. The body's main reaction to this is to get rid of the food as waste. During this process, two main things occur;

1. The body is not getting a vast amount from the food, it's not getting a vast amount of nutrients to perform countless functions throughout the body.

2. When your body digests and breaks down food, this all takes energy, if your body is not getting much from the food you're in a situation where you are not getting much bang for your buck.

We hope that this has enlightened and motivated you to view food as much more than just calories, protein, fat, and carbohydrates.

As always, all the best and all the best in your endevour!