NUTRIENTS
What the Body Needs and What it Doesn’t
Our bodies need nutrients, vitamins, minerals and water for good health and proper functioning.
Amazingly, the human body is capable of producing thousands of nutrients that it needs to sustain its own life.
The nutrients that the body manufactures itself are known as “nonessential” nutrients because the body is able to actually produce those nutrients itself and it’s not essential that you go out and get them from the food you eat.
Nonessential nutrients: the nutrients manufactured by your body that you do not need to get from the food you eat.
Conversely, “essential nutrients” are those nutrients that you must get from the food you eat. To sustain life, it is essential that you get these nutrients from your dietary intake.
Essential nutrients: the nutrients you must get from your diet because they are not being made in the body.
Some examples of essential nutrients include water, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. One very common nutrient that has been purposely omitted here are carbohydrates. The biological fact of the matter is that there is not a single carbohydrate that is essential to the human diet…not sugar…not starch…not fiber. The fact is, carbohydrates do not provide any nutritional benefit to the human body—none whatsoever. You will learn a lot more about this in the coming sections.
The 3-Week Diet is about maximizing the nutrients that we do need while restricting those that we do not. Really, it is all about eating the right foods in the right quantities at the right time. When done correctly, we are able to put our body into a 24/7 fat burning mode.