Nutrition: Overview 2 - An Analogy

Imagine a bank account that charges you whenever you are overdrawn. This is done on a sliding scale so the more overdrawn you are, the more you are charged.

Of course, the charges go onto the overdraft making things worse.

The more overdrawn you are the more overdrawn you get.

So on and so forth. You have to work harder to make payments just to bring the overdraft under control and hopefully get into the black (into credit).

Now imagine two people, the first earns a modest £1,500 per month after tax. After fixed outgoings are accounted for, £400 is left as disposable income. If that person is prudent, they will watch what they spend on a purchase by purchase basis. Failure to do so risks them going into the red and those overdraft charges kicking in. If that person then does not take measures to reign in their spending, or find other means to top up their income, they will either stay overdrawn or in extreme cases get seriously in debt to the point where there seems no way back into positive equity. That's what leads to depression, stress and all the associated negativity.

Now the second individual in our little tale earns a tidy £10,000 per month. After taking into account his fixed monthly outgoings, has a disposable income of £7,000 (the extra outgoings are for bigger house, car etc). This person however lives well within their means so as a result knows they are never anywhere near going overdrawn. They do not need to keep tabs on their spending on a purchase by purchase basis. They KNOW, from the cost of the things they spend their money on that there is NO WAY, they are going to spend more than they have and therefore go overdrawn. The day to day costs of their purchases is insignificant in comparison to what the know they are fortunate enough to earn. Every once in a while they may indulge in a big purchase as a treat, but hey, they can afford it and they have accumulated so much savings that it cannot dent their savings. They are however aware of the relative cost of that indulgent purchase and realise that unrestricted purchases of that scale could send them into the red if they left it unchecked.

So, tying our goals of a healthy and active lifestyle to our bank account analogy, income is the activity I partake in, expenditure is what I consume and the overdraft is the stored fat I retain.

I live an active lifestyle so accumulate a healthy credit. My fixed costs are the same as everyone else. We all need a minimum amount of calories just to stay alive. Even if I lay on my back and did not move, simply breathing, the beating of my heart, the activity of my brain and the cellular activity that goes on in all my organs, they all require energy. Any and all activity over and above this increases my caloric requirements and therefore the amount of calories I need to consume. Remember though, if I am not active enough to offset the extra calories I consume (earn more for the increased expenditure), my body will store the extra calories as fat and I therefore go into overdraft mode. At this stage I have a choice to make. I can either reduce my expenditure by eating less or more efficiently (healthily). This may, by itself, not be enough so more activity (income) will be required. The desired state of affairs is one where my level of activity is complemented by a healthy and nutritious diet that does not exceed the total caloric requirements needed for the level of activity I have. This is the only way to ensure I never get overweight.

All things being equal, it's that simple. Generally speaking, there may be all sorts of influences on what you can consume and how active you can be. Again I am talking from a personal perspective. There were many times in my life when the bulk of my food was neither healthy nor nutritious. I have however, been quite active so have been spared being overly overweight but my body composition has been way off many a time and I've dealt with being lethargic and 'soft' and had to deal with all the associated issues of self esteem, lack of confidence, depression and just feeling like .. well you know what I mean!

Foundations | Nutrition - An Overview | Nutrition 3 - About Me