Do yourself a favor and toss Mr. Atkins aside, please. A typical healthy diet should provides approximately 60% of your calories from carbohydrates, 20% from protein, and 20% from fats (mostly unsaturated).
Nutrition labels provide the number of grams of fat, carbohydrate, and protein, but what many don't realize is that these nutrients provide different amounts of calories per gram. Proteins and carbohydrates each have 4 calories per gram however; fat has 9 calories per gram.
To make this simple, take a meal or snack you eat, add up the total number of grams of carbohydrates and divide that number by 15. Take the resulting number and multiply it by 5 to see how many grams of protein you should have eaten. Multiple by 2.22 to see the number of grams of fat that should have been in that meal - had it been a well balanced one.
What to do: There's no need to carry a calculator with you everywhere or to drive yourself crazy, so simply pick 3 meals a week (random) and do this calculation to see just how "off balance" you may be. If you're off, the next time you eat that same meal, try to cut a little fat, add some protein, etc. to get the right balance.
See this website for help on food that does not have a nutrition label. You might be surprised at how imbalanced your meals may be!
In the next article we explore a main reason why having this balance helps you reduce the total net calories for you in a year - helping you to lose weight.
About the Author: Alan Zimmerer is founder of LeanDream. LeanDream is a company that provides high quality custom workout plans with instructions and videos of each exercise. Additionally, LeanDream reviews your plan each week with you and makes adjustments - just as an in-personal trainer would. There is no better cost-effective solution to meet your goals this upcoming New Year.
Comments