HOW TO GET LEAN N’ MEAN IV: The American Partisan’s Guide to Good Nutrition – Macronutrients

Welcome back, Partisans! It’s been a bit since I last posted, but I’m back to provide the next installment of the Lean N’ Mean series! In this post, we’ll get into the weeds of nutrition by looking at how commonly consumed food and our metabolisms are connected. Now, I’m not gonna lie – this post is very long, due to its comprehensiveness; but read on, and ye shall be rewarded! As always, though, any information I provide in my posts on fitness and nutrition will be in non-technical terms, so that regular, everyday American Partisans can quickly grasp important ideas about fitness and nutrition that actually are worth knowing – but, in plainspoken English. Again, I really can’t stand excessively technical explanations – they have their place for some folks, but really, most people just want the understandable lowdown, and don’t care for the technical science. At the same time, it definitely pays for the American Partisan Operator to have some depth of understanding of nutrition and metabolism, so that he can make better lifestyle choices to build his health and state of physical readiness (the national situation is getting quite dire, wouldn’t y’all agree?). This post intends to begin to explore the complex subject of good nutrition, but in a “conversation at the kitchen table” style. 
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Good Nutrition: Necessary for our Bodily Machines to Work Well, as Designed by God
The subject of nutrition is a legitimate and highly technical science in and of itself, complete with an array of different specialized PhD’s and even additional sub-specializations to go with those PhD’s. However, this American Partisan primer on nutrition and digestion (and, really, all my writings on fitness) has been written with the express purpose of cutting through the many technical abstractions of nutrition science in order to provide commonsense and actionable information for Partisans. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, much of the time, information related to key areas of life is deliberately complicated with the purpose of disempowering everyday Americans and to create their dependence on “experts” (like lawyers, accountants, scientists, and other “experts”), but American Partisans are a smart, resourceful group, and we can empower ourselves to be our OWN authorities! That’s been my approach to fitness for decades at this point, and any American Partisan Operator can do the same. As such, the information in today’s post is intended to provide Partisans with an improved understanding of how to improve their health through good nutrition.
First, let’s really, really simplify the subject of nutrition by recalling the notion that the body is a high-performance machine – in truth, the most high-performing machine ever created, by the Almighty Himself. Any machine needs certain inputs to run smoothly, as well as occasional maintenance and replacement of its working parts. But the divine human body is special in that it is a living machine made of microscopic units called “cells”, which represent the smallest functional working part of the bodily “machine”. Specialized cells working together on common functions form our internal organs and other bodily systems (like muscles, bone, nerves, etc.). Cells come in various shapes, sizes, functions, and lifespans; fresh, new cells are constantly being created while old, sick, and abnormal cells are constantly being destroyed and recycled by the body in its normal processes, and in the trillions – every second of every day!! Quite remarkable in and of itself. And the body distinguishes itself from a man-made machine in that, by the grace of God, it has been programmed to maintain its engine and working parts on its very own, and potentially perfectly… provided that we give our bodies the proper food inputs (good nutrition) and take care of it via healthy mental/physical lifestyle habits (exercise; proper rest; low-stress environment, where controllable). Look at how few things we need to do to have good health! The healthy body, with its vast capabilities, is truly a gift from God.
The body’s nutritional needs, unlike the stressors of life, are well within our control, and can be properly satisfied by a mix of high quality macronutrients, micronutrients, and accessory nutrients in order to produce optimal performance. Briefly, according to Webster’s Dictionary Online, a nutrient is “a substance or ingredient that promotes growth, provides energy, and maintains life”. Therefore, “macronutrients” (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) are relatively large-scale (“macro” = large) nutrient inputs, usually measured in grams. “Micronutrients” are relatively small-scale (“micro” = small) nutrient inputs, usually measured in milligrams or even micrograms (and for some micronutrients, in “international units” or “IU’s”). Please note: the definitions provided are my own. Typically, macronutrients (food of real nutritional value) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are considered “essential”, which means they need to be consumed by us in order for us to live and be healthy; the absence of these “essential” nutrients will cause nutritional deficiency and eventually lead to health problems and worse.
In the world of health and fitness, an “essential” element is one that is vital, but must be supplied to the body externally, since the body can’t supply that element on its own. For example, a lack of adequate protein (a “macronutrient”, measured in food by grams) or a lack of vitamin C (a “micronutrient”, measured in food by milligrams) – both of which the body cannot make on its own, and that must be supplied to the body through external consumption – will lead to deficiency, symptoms, and eventual disease. Finally, “accessory” nutrients are optional/supplemental to essential nutrition, and can be measured in either grams or smaller units, depending on the nutrient. For example, supplemental creatine can be beneficial, but is not considered “essential”, because the body produces its own creatine. The specific focus of today’s post is on the macronutrient part of the nutrition equation; separate posts in the future will focus on micronutrients and accessory nutrients, each of which deserve their own separate posts.
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Macronutrients – A More Detailed Look
Basically speaking, macronutrients form the vast bulk of what we eat, and are made up of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and water (alcohol is also considered a macronutrient, but I don’t count alcohol as anything essential for consumption, hence not worth covering here). Once again, macronutrients are measured in grams. The sections below provide a detailed look at the macronutrients and their metabolic properties, in simple terms. To reiterate, “metabolism” for our current purposes is defined as “how the body deals with food”, or put in a slightly more refined form for this post, “how the body utilizes and assimilates the chemical elements contained in food”. Keep this definition in mind as you read on.
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Protein</