Understanding Metabolism: You Are What You Eat

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Recommended: Importance of enzymes

There is a reason why the saying, “you are what you eat” came around. All living cells are constantly performing thousands of chemical reactions to sustain life, one example being the chemical breakdown of food. These reactions occur step-by-step through metabolic pathways in small amounts at a time with the help of enzymes. This prevents an overwhelming amount of energy to be produced all at once. The purpose of chemically breaking down food is to convert the energy from compounds, such as glucose, into a form the cell can use. As the substance is being broken down, the main goal is to create adenosine triphosphate (ATP), as it is the main energy currency and source of energy for the cell. The food put in one’s body is fuel and energy can only be created from that source, meaning poor nutrition can lead to low energy levels and health risks.

What Is The Zone Diet? …show more content…

Three meals and two snacks per day should be consumed at regular intervals around every 3-4 hours to allow the timing of blood sugar spikes to be balanced throughout the day (Medical News Today, 2013). The plate should represent a pyramid shown in Figure 1, containing mostly non-starchy fruit and vegetables (no potatoes or corn). Next, low fat proteins such as beef, chicken, turkey, soy and eggs should be the next highest consumed group. The only fat recommended is small amounts of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats from select fish, nuts and oils containing omega 3’s and other healthy fats. Lastly, grains and starch should be consumed the least as they contain high amounts of sugar, leading to a blood sugar fluctuation and disrupting the zone (Web MD, 2013). Following this blueprint is said to keep hunger away for five hours, reducing the urge to snack and build up unnecessary calories to be stored as fat (Zone Labs,

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