Balanced Meals Guide

Building (and eating!) balanced meals is a fundamental part of eating well. Read the Guide on how to build balanced meals, portion sizing guides, food and meal ideas.

Macronutrients

The first thing we need to understand about nutrition is that all the foods we eat are made up of nutrients. Some we need in larger quantities that provide us with energy called macronutrients.

There are three main macronutrients, protein, carbohydrate and fat and each of them play an important role in our diet to nourish us.

Protein

Provides amino acids tissue growth and repair (like our muscles!) and keeps our blood sugar stable through the day

Carbohydrate

Provides our brains and bodies with energy, fuel for muscle contraction and fibre for digestive health.

Fat

Helps us with energy for our day, nutrient absorption, skin/hair/nail health.

All foods have a ratio of the macronutrients in them, so we want to choose a variety of foods in our diet to cover our basic needs.

Micronutrients

The body also needs a wide array of micronutrients to survive and thrive.

Micronutrients are nutrients our body needs in smaller amounts like vitamins (e.g Vitamins A,B,C,D,E & K) and minerals (e.g iron, magnesium, calcium, zinc).

The simplest way to begin getting a good balance is by making sure you have a balance of protein, carbohydrate, fat and some micronutrients (mainly found in fruits and vegetables) at each meal, making it a Balanced Meal, and then having enough servings over the day.

This will provide our bodies with the building blocks it needs from macronutrients as well as micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to feel and look amazing.

Sources of the Macronutrients

It’s handy to know which foods contain which macronutrients. You can print out this handy guide for your fridge.

The 80/20 Approach

How do you know which foods are good quality sources of the macronutrients? Choose foods that are:

• Minimally processed

• As close to a whole food as possible

• High in micronutrients (vitamins and minerals)

Foods that are high quality nourish us and our cells, and give us the nutrients to help our bodies feel and look great!

Aim for is 80% of your weeks food choices to be high quality, to nourish your body. But allow for around 20% of your diet, to include "low quality" foods, if you wish. There are no "good" or "bad" foods, just food that serve our goals more or less. We want to allow some flexibility in your nutrition to be able to remain consistent.

Your nutrition doesn't have to be "perfect" to be healthy! You can include some treats, meals out here and there and still achieve your goals, and most probably remain more consistent!

Healthy Nutrition Habits

Once you have developed some healthy habits, we could go to the next level deeper.

Quantity

The amount we eat is also very important to be able to transform our bodies. The energy we bring in affects our body composition. Knowing the amount you eat is important and empowering to achieve your body composition goals and to feel energised.

Eating too little can cause low energy, an adaptive metabolism (make it harder to lose fat) and cause nutrient and hormonal deficiencies.

Eating too much can cause unnecessary fat gain and affect our digestion. To start with, you can use the portion sizes of your hand and an amount of meals per day to get on a good routine

Calories

The way we can measure a more accurate QUANTITY of food we eat is through calories. Calories are the unit we use to measure energy.

Every food has a calorific value, and the calories come from the MACRONUTRIENTS we discussed earlier (protein has 4 calories per gram, carbohydrate has 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram).

Body Composition Goals

It is important to understand that you have a MAINTENANCE range of calories that you eat in a day. Your maintenance amount is a calorie range where the energy you take in is similar to the energy you burn through bodily function, daily activity, exercise and digesting food.

This amount varies from person to person depending on age, height, gender and activity levels. In order to achieve different body composition goals you will have to alter the amount you eat per day in relation to your maintenance calories

Lifestyle Goals:

Eat your maintenance amount of calories

Fat Loss:

Eat in a 10-20% deficit of your maintenance

Gain Muscle:

Eat in a 10% surplus of your maintenance.

It is important to be aware of these without going to extremes, as extremes have negative consequences on our health!

Having both a healthy understanding of nutrition principles, and healthy behaviours and relationship with your food is important to feel great in your body. Finding a healthy balanced maintenance in the long run is the goal.

Recipes