Now that we know what macros are, what do we do with them? How do we use them?
First we need to determine what our macros are before we worry about counting them.
Your numbers can vary widely depending on your goals. Whether you’re cutting fat, or gaining muscle.
This can be a painstaking process because there are multiple ways of figuring out what your macros are.
Going off of your total body weight VS your lean mass. It can all become entirely too confusing.
I got you covered though.
Let’s get to figuring out what you need.
Before you begin actually calculating what you need let’s start with where you’re at. For the next 2 weeks I want you to eat completely normal, but enter it in an app like myfitnesspal.
Right now let’s say you’re sitting at 200 lbs and you want to lose some fat. You currently hit the gym between 2-4 times per week, and you sit at a desk all day for work.
After entering all the data in my fitness pal you come up with an average number of 3,200 calories per day. Which equates to 22,400 per week.
In order to drop .5-1 lb of fat per week (ideal for maintaining muscle mass. We want to lower this by at least 3,500 calories per week. That’s 500 calories per day.
For fat loss I recommend between 12-14 calories per lb of body weight. In rare circumstances dropping a bit lower.
In our example we can start with the higher number 13 calories x 200 lbs of weight = 2,600 or 18,200 per week. That right there is 4,200 calories less than what you were eating.
Every body is different, and I’m a huge fan of experimentation and for eating as many calories as possible for reaching a goal even if it is fatloss. It makes it easier for most people, and you’re able to eat more foods you enjoy, which in turn leads to adhering to the diet longer.
So we have 2,600 calories per day.
Where are the macros? Why did we calculate that if we are using macros?
We are kind of working backwards.
Protein
I recommend 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight. I prefer to start on the higher end especially to preserve muscle.
200 x 1.5 = 300
300 grams of protein is 1,200 calories (4 calories per gram)
2,600 total cals – 1,200 protein cals = 1,400 calories remaining
Fats
I recommend at least .4 – .5 fats per lb of bodyweight. If you’re someone that feels better on higher fats then start on the higher end, but for this example we’ll use .4 grams.
200 x .4 = 80
80 grams of fat is 720 calories (9 calories per gram)
1,400 calories left – 720 fat calories = 680 calories remaining
Carbs
And lastly the delicious carb.
We have 680 calories remaining so we are going to divide that by 4 because there are 4 calories per gram of carb.
680/4 = 170
We can have 170 grams of carbs per day.
So the final numbers tally up to
300 grams of protein
80 grams of fat
And 170 grams of carbs
Next week we’ll delve more into how to count your macros.