Genetic differences
Because of our uniqueness or biochemical individuality, each one of us requires different quantities and ratios of both macronutrients (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to function at our best. The dietary variation from one person or athlete to the next can be substantial. Investigating the genetic differences that affect fitness or performance at the DNA level has become one of the most fascinating aspects of sport and fitness research.
Body chemistry, simply put, refers to the body’s intricate interconnection of hormones and cellular chemistry and how it is affected by nutrition, exercise and supplementation. Another important aspect regarding weight management that we cannot ignore or overlook is related to food allergies and intolerances that can have a negative effect on our health and metabolism, body chemistry goes far beyond this notion.
The three main factors influencing body chemistry are nutrition, exercise and supplementation. Consuming high-quality food is also important; proper nutrition is vital to our energy level and personal motivation. How we eat today will influence our metabolism tomorrow and affect our ability to lose fat and/or gain muscle. And what we eat directly affects the environment inside our bodies. It can condition our cells to maximize function or it can weaken our response to stress, causing premature inner decay and unnecessary degeneration.
Empty calories
Of course, calories are easy to obtain with refined food, especially carbohydrates, fats and alcohol. People aren’t dying of calorie starvation in North America; they’re dying of micronutrient malnutrition. Most people consume more calories macronutrients than they expend in any given day but they are grossly undersupplied with micronutrients. Removing the fiber, the water and the spoilage factors from natural food creates more space for sucrose, salt and chemically altered fats. Food processors generally use lots of heat, various solvents, acidifying chemicals and dozens of fancy sterilizing techniques that destroy enzymes, heat-labile nutrients and the vitality or life force of food.
The net effect is a massive increase in addictive, easy-to-overeat, and non-nutritive empty calories. If your food base does not sustain your biochemical need for every essential nutrient in optimum amounts, then your food base is incomplete. Thinking you’re getting enough is an extremely subjective and unreliable approach to nutrition, unless you’re an expert in the field and choose food based on pure logic and objective reasoning without preference to taste.
Nutrients provide substrates and influence enzyme activity and therefore, an animal’s food base would be totally relative to its function and survival potential. Evidence has shown that the presence or absence of certain nutrients affects the transcription of genetic activity and the modulation of hormones, as mechanized through the driving forces of our gene pattern.
Chemical reaction
Live foods enzymatically contribute to their own digestion, and the enzymes they contain are actually recycled, because enzymes are not used up in these reactions. Enzymes, by definition, catalyze chemical reactions without being destroyed or altered during the actual chemistry; they can be recycled in the blood and then contribute to the body’s overall metabolic pool. Enzymes are essential to energy transfer and every cellular function in the body.
You can take anyone who is too fat and increase their metabolic rate almost immediately, simply by reducing cooked, carb-rich foods such as bread, pasta, bagels and muffins, and replacing them with the exact same quantity from a volume or caloric value of fresh green and multi-colored vegetables. You will definitely see an improvement in the fat burning beta oxidation effect. What this proves is that we must think outside the calorie box and never base a dietary format on calories only. Health, performance and body composition have more to do with the quality of carbohydrates, proteins and fats we eat, more so than quantity, but is obviously relative.
Determining the specific recipe of a person’s carbohydrates, proteins and fats, along with calorie count, for an optimal and healthy lifestyle is the key. Slimtronics understands how challenging this can be to meet their individual fitness and health goals. Discerning the impact of food on your body chemistry is of enormous value and important to weight and body management, that’s one of the reasons we developed our online diet and exercise platform.