the 3 levels of optimal eating

In the realm of nutrition, it’s easy to get lost in why you are choosing to eat what you eat.

My aim is to empower you to be more intentional, precise, and proud of your nutrition decisions, day in and day out.

To do so, it is important to understand where you are starting and where you want to go (sometimes synonymous with how you want to feel, look, and perform).

In today’s article, I am delineating three tiers of nutrition (no one is better than the other) for all people, accompanied with some questions to help you figure out which category applies to you today.

You can even see in the spread above, many options, plates filled with different offerings, different macro splits, different micronutrient contents, different total calories. This is an encapsulation of you going out into society and deciding WTF to eat. I hope by the end of this piece you recognize that this doesn’t have to be an overwhelming process.

level 1 nutrition: nourish

Until you’ve nailed these features of your diet, you can’t move to the next. It’s just the building blocks of nutrition. Much like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, there is a stepwise progression that your body follows to reach a level of excellence and self-actualization (seen in Level 3).

Level 1 Nutrition is all about nourishment. Let’s define “nourish”: to honor and heed your needs; to cherish; to build up; to nurture. Nourishment is all about recognizing the calls for energy coming from your body and brain and honoring those calls with your feeding actions.

The 5 behaviors are peak nourishment are:

1. Being Intuitive
   Being intuitive means deeply listening to the cravings and responses your body has to different foods. Unlike your best friend loves cucumbers and tomatoes, you might not jive well with those veggies. Unlike whatever the latest commercial on YouTube says, a nutrient that is great for Sally might not be the best one for you.

2. Eating Enough of Each Macronutrient
   The 3 macronutrients are: fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Many diets today segregate and discriminate against one or more of these macros, but I cannot stress enough that you have to experiment with which ratios work for you. I think it is best to begin with a balanced split of 40% Carb/30% Protein/30% Fat. If you aren’t feeling great with this, begin to shift the macros around.

3. Eating Enough Calories In Total
   I balk at how many women overestimate their caloric intake. Most women have it programmed in them to “eat less,” “be thinner,” “be lighter,”…funny how many of those messages feel like they connote “be unseeable.” I would try tracking how many calories you actually eat for one week and compare it to the recommended caloric intake based on this calculator from Precision Nutrition.

4. Eating Enough Micronutrients
   Micronutrients are those nutrients which are not produced by the body and must be derived from the diet. They fall into four categories: water-soluble vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins, trace elements and trace minerals. The easiest way to make sure you are covering you micronutrient needs is to:
   -eat whole foods
   -eat the rainbow (make each meal reflect the colors of the rainbow…color communicates nutrition)
   -add sea salt to your water

5. Hydrating Sufficiently
   If your pee is any shade of yellow, you are not drinking enough water. We are made up of 70% water, and really need to be diligent about drinking water or else most of us forget. A good rule of thumb is to take in half your bodyweight in ounces per day. This excludes the water and minerals lost during sweating and working out.

level 2 nutrition: stay well

Level 2 Nutrition is about fostering an environment for sustained wellness. Let’s define “wellness”: actively practicing habits on a daily basis that generate better mental, physical, spiritual, and social conditions; being in a state where you can optimize your body and mind; being in a state where you can fend off viruses, dis-ease, and illness.

The 5 signatures of peak wellness are:

1. Vitality
   Vitality is having vibrant energy when you wake up. If you are waking up feeling drained and amotivated, something is off in you and/or in your life. Vitality is also feeling strong and ready for activity—be it going for a walk/run, having social plans, going on an adventure. Not 100% of the time, but definitely most of the time.

2. Robust Immunity
   Immunity is a resiliency of your immune and nervous systems to fight off foreign invaders and threats. If you are often getting sick—whether it be from germs or social situations or work, it is a sign that either the stress load is too high or you are lacking in countering with robust nutrition. For athletes and hard hard workers in the business realm, moms and dads—any one with a lot of duties, it is important that you buffer the stress you undergo with your nutritional arsenal.

3. General Fit Body Composition
   A fit body composition, as defined by Healthline.com, is 21-24% for women and 11-17% for men. I offer this ‘fit’ range rather than the ‘acceptable’ and of course not ‘obese,’ because it is the middle-of-the-road range that enables the person to move well and often, which is a necessary rhythm of a healthy life. Additionally, it is in this range where probabilities of dis-ease and illness radically drop as compared to the risks of higher body fat percentages.

4. Clear, Creative Thinking and Memory
   You may not consider creative thinking to be a staple of wellness; but, IMHHO (in my humble human opinion), it is. One of the very cognitive capacities that separates us from our ape ancestors is our ability to not only mimic others behaviors but imagine different avenues, actions, outcomes, paths forward. Combine this with clear thinking and strong memory, and you have a damn strong brain.

5. Healthy Sleep Cycles
   An undoubtable sign of being well is consistent sleep patterns. Going to sleep at the same time each night and waking up at the same time each morning. With such natural consistency that you wouldn’t even need to set an alarm. Falling asleep quickly and enjoying sound sleep are also two pillars of a healthy sleep cycle.

level 3 nutrition: excel

Level 3 Nutrition is about chasing peaks. Peak body composition, peak sport performance, peak mental states, etc. When you are chasing peaks, you are excelling. Let’s define “excel”: to eclipse; to stand out; to be a cut above.

The 5 focal points of nutrition for excellence are:

1. Advanced Aesthetics
   This is where we go beyond ‘being fit’ in body composition and play with looks and size. Perhaps you want to have more defined abs and calves. Perhaps you want to grow your shoulders and glutes. Perhaps you want to appear more ripped and striated in musculature. These are all situations and aspirations that your nutrition would be geared towards once you have achieved nourishment and wellness with your nutrition.

2. Sport Performance
   If you train for life or train for a sport, you need to fine-tune your nutrition decisions to make sense for your desired performance/outcome. Let’s say you want to be able to lift heavy three times a week to get stronger for (fill in the blank sport/fill in the blank of how you want to feel). You would likely need to advance your protein intake and consider supplementation to keep up with the rigor of your training.
   
   The following three components of nutrition for excellence look at how you might need to adapt your nutritional choices to serve the advanced goals of aesthetics and sport performance.

3. Pre-Training Optimization
   I’m not a fan of 90% of pre-workout powders, but I am a fan of being revved up and dialed in to do your best work. Most pre-workouts on the market are stuffed with unreasonable amounts of caffeine and other stimulants that will give you a false sense of strength that is dangerous to rely on long term. Rather, consider nature’s bounty of vasodilators (open up your blood vessels in muscles and brain) such as watermelon, beet root juice, green tea, and raw cacao. If you are going for a pre-packaged, pre-mixed supplement, two of my trusted sources come from a company called Onnit:
   - Alpha Brain Instant (also fabulous before delving into any big speech-delivering presentation (podcast recording, lecture, etc.)); there is also an Alpha Brain Pre-Workout which has 200mg of Caffeine which is too much for me, personally
   -Shroom Tech Sport (wonderful for enhancing respiratory resilience and robustness…take 45 min prior to physical activity)

4. Peri-Training Optimization
   If you are going hard and long, you’ll need some nutritional support during your training sessions. If you haven’t buckled down consistent feeding throughout the day or you practice intermittent fasting regularly, peri-training nutrition may be necessary for you. If you have more muscle mass, too, mid-training replenishment may be necessary. For endurance sport training sessions lasting more than one hour, replenishing glycogen (readily available) stores with 30-80g carbohydrate/hour is a good rule of thumb. For full-body strength training sessions lasting one hour or longer, 40g of protein during the hour is the sweet spot to stimulate greater muscle synthesis and adding in some carbs can delay or stave off fatigue.

5. Post-Training Optimization
   Once you’ve nailed the pre- and peri-training fueling, it’s time to look at post-training optimization. Essentially, you’ve broken down your muscles, deliberately and temporarily tarnished some of your organs and lungs, and you might feel depleted. Side note: for 80% of your training sessions, you should feel strong at the end. I’m not the best at sticking to this, but it is a golden guide to prevent burnout and injury. You may have heard that chocolate milk is the perfect post-workout choice. This is because it proffers a 4:1 carb:protein content. You want that mix. After an endurance training session lasting longer than one hour (assuming you’ve nourished during the session), a go-to could be a smoothie with protein powder, a power bowl with quinoa, eggs, and veggies, avocado toast with an egg. Fortunately, your go-to’s for after a strength training session don’t look too different. You may not need as much carbohydrate. A 1:1 ratio getting in at least 30g of protein is a golden guide.

Nutrition is an ever-changing science and an ever-changing art. It is of utmost importance that you know YOUR nutritional needs, based on your lifestyle/stress load, tolerance to various foods, and based on how you respond to the conditions of different seasons. For more information or guidance on how to optimally fuel for YOU, click here and let’s chat.

Sources:
https://training4endurance.co.uk/nutrition/carbohydrates-during-exercise/
https://barbend.com/should-you-take-protein-during-a-workout/
https://runfasteatslow.com/blogs/news/how-to-fuel-up-after-a-long-run