What Are Micronutrients & Macronutrients?
Lacey What are They? What’s the Difference?
To put it very simply, macronutrients are needed to maintain the body on a daily basis, while micronutrients are needed to maintain the body in the long run. While both of them are needed for the body to function correctly, macronutrients are what you’re going to be needing more of daily in order to go about your business.
What are Some Good Sources of Them?
Macronutrients are in basically all food because it is made up of three parts; Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Fat. Some good sources of these are fish, nuts, and poultry which are high in protein and fat. Most vegetables and fruits like sweet potatoes, oranges, and bananas are high in carbohydrates.
Micronutrients are a bit harder to find in regular food as they are made up of vitamins and minerals. Most minerals and vitamins can be found in fruits and vegetables such as avocados, beetroot, kale, and sweet potatoes .
How Can They Help?
If you follow a popular diet like keto, then they’ll probably ask that you keep track of how much macronutrients you eat everyday and to limit yourself to a specific number of each part. This is to help reduce your ‘simple’ carbohydrate intake and make your body burn fat instead, which can help greatly with weight-loss. Simple carbohydrates are processed foods or foods high in sugar that don’t offer more than the immediate carbohydrates. By giving up simple carbohydrates and eating complex carbohydrates can help a lot with weight loss by itself. Although you should be careful about cutting out a lot of carbohydrates at once, since you’ll need to supplement it with a large portion of fat which the body will then use to burn for energy. A good diet for cutting carbohydrates is paleo or keto since they work to replace where the body gets it’s energy from.
Most diets though don’t ask that you keep track of micronutrients because they are measured in very small milligrams or micrograms that are extremely hard to keep track of. That doesn’t mean to say that they aren’t important, as micronutrients are what keeps your body running in the long term. If you’re missing out on some vitamins you will feel the effect, most times you’ll feel faint or have digestion problems, but it can also lead to more serious cases if it is ignored. Micronutrients help in making more blood cells, so a deficiency of them can do numerous things to the body.