Macros

My last few segments talked about the 3 macronutrients, Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins. I gave you a brief overview of why all 3 should be present in your diet and the role each play in your body. Now that you know WHAT each of the 3 are, in this segment I’m going to focus on HOW MUCH of each you need depending on your fitness goals.

If you recall earlier I talked about “calories-in vs. calories-out" and established some simple rules.

IF

• CALORIES-IN>CALORIES-OUT= Weight INCREASES
• CALORIES-IN<CALORIES-OUT=Weight DECREASES
• CALORIES-IN=CALORIES-OUT= weight stays the SAME.

We know that the amount of calories you consume dictate whether or not you will gain or lose weight. However it is extremely important to remember NOT ALL CALORIES SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF AS THE SAME. Yes, 1 calorie will always equal 1 calorie, however depending on WHERE that calorie came from effects the way it will be used in the body.

An example to demonstrate this would be if you had 2 individuals, Bob and Tony. Both Bob and tony have a caloric maintenance level of 2500. Recall that this means if they both consume 2500 calories a day they will neither gain weight nor lose it. If both Bob and Tony decided they wanted to increase their weight and as a result increased their calories to about 3000 per day, both would now be eating at a 500-calorie surplus. Say Bob eats nothing but pizza and Ice cream to reach his 3000-calorie goal every day, while tony has a balanced diet consisting of healthy Carbs, Fats and Proteins to reach his 3000-calorie every day. Yes both individuals would gain weight after a certain amount of time, but their BODY COMPOSITION would be totally different. Most or even all the weight Bob will have gained will be FAT; where as most of the weight gained by Tony would be MUSCLE.

The Most important thing to take away from this is that YES the calories-in vs calories-out concept DOES dictate whether you gain or lose weight, but it doesn’t dictate whether the weight you gain or lose is mostly fat or muscle. In other words, to track a healthy diet, not only do you have to make sure you’re getting a sufficient amount of calories to reach your goals, but also pay close attention to the COMPOSITION of those calories. It is extremely important to know what PERCENT of those calories are coming from Carbs, Fats and Proteins. This concept of tracking the COMPOSITION of your calories is knows as tracking your “Macro’s” (Macro is just short for macronutrients).

Fact
1 gram of carb=4 calories
1 gram of Protein=4 calories
1 gram of fat=9 calories

Since fats are more calorie dense than protein and carbs, you don't need AS MUCH in your diet but you DO still need some.


So how do you know what percent of your calories should be coming from Fats, Carbs Or Proteins?

Well that depends on your fitness goals. An individual who’s bulking would have different macros then someone who’s cutting. A good starting point to determine your macro’s comes from first understanding your body’s somatotype. For example, if 2 people who both weigh the same decide they want to bulk, shouldn’t their macro’s be the same? The answer is No.

Insulin Sensitivity

Recall from my previous blog on Carbohydrates I talked about the effect Carbs have on your insulin. We know that consuming carbs raises your blood sugar level so your body releases insulin to lower blood sugar by carrying that glucose (and other nutrients) into muscle cells to help them build and recover. However depending on your metabolism and how well your body can handle carbs different body types will release different amount of insulin when carbs are consumed.

Endomorphs tend to gain fat easily so they have low insulin sensitivity. Ectomorphs on the other hand have faster metabolisms and have high insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity basically means that if an endomorph and ectomorph both ate a bagel, the endomorph's body would release MORE insulin to lower his/her blood sugar level down to normal. Where as the ectomorph would find it easier to metabolize the carbs and his/her body would release less insulin.

Looking at this animation you could see that the insulin attempts to lower blood sugar by carrying the GLUCOSE as well as other nutrients into different cells in the body (INCLUDING muscle cells). However as a result of having low insulin sensitivity, good man Mr. "Insulin Resistance" is going to prevent the glucose from reaching the cell. This basically means this individual's body does a poor job of metabolizing carbs and instead of using it for energy it will be stored in the body's fat deposits.
 

Understanding insulin sensitivity is important because it would affect the percentage of calories that the person should get from Carbohydrates when establishing their macros.

Macro Splits

The most common Macro splits in the fitness community are the 50/30/20

And 40/20/20 split. What do these Random numbers mean?

Although the 50/30/20 and 40/40/20 are the most common macro splits they may not be optimal for everyone. Nutritionist Michael Kory uses a good example to explain why this is.

According to him your macro split can be represented by the picture of these 2 suits. One suit is custom made and fits the person’s body a lot better than the “one size fits all” default suit. Your macros should be the same way. You want it to be tailored to YOUR body.

How do you find your Macros?

There are many different opinions on this topic in the fitness community but the most popular one is as follows

The following Table was made for a LEAN 200-pound person.

Now things get slightly mathematical. To find your optimal macro ratios follow the listed steps: 

Step 1

To find how many grams of protein you need multiply your LEAN body mass by 1.

Example: a 200-pound individual would multiply his/her bodyweight by 1 so

200 x 1=200. Therefore a 200-pound person would consume roughly 200 grams of protein per day. Now that this person knows how many GRAMS he/she would need from protein they now have to figure out how many CALORIES they need from protein. To do this is simple; just multiply your answer from above by 4.

200 x 4= 800, therefor a 200-pound person would need to get about 800 of their daily calories from protein.

2    

      Step 2 

      To find how many grams of fat you need multiply your body weight by 0.4.

200 x 0.4= 80. A 200-pound person would need about 80g of fat in their diet.

To find how many CALORIES this individual would need from fat; they would multiply their number by 9.

80 x 9= 720, so this person would get about 720 of their daily calories from Fat.

3       

      Step 3

      To find your macro’s for carbs is a little bit trickier. To find your Macros for your Carbs you would first need to know what your daily calorie goal is. For this you can refer to the macronutrient calculator I posted in my blog about "calories". Say the person in our example is trying to maintain their current weight and they’re eating 3000 calories per day. To find how many calories he/she would need from carbs they would subtract the calories consumed from from protein and fat from 3000.

3000 – 800 -720 = 1480. Therefor this person would need to get about 1480 of their daily calories from Carbs. To find how many GRAMS he/she would need from carbs they would then divide 1480 by 4.

1480/4= 370g, so this person would need about 370g of carbs per day.

*Note* It is important to remember when calculating protein to multiply the 1g per LEAN body mass. This means if a person is obese and weighs 300 pounds, that 300 pounds is not LEAN body weight as it contains a high amount of fat. This person would have to find their lean body mass first and then multiply THAT by the 1g.

Based on these calculations, the 3000 calories this 200 pound person would consume daily would need to consist of approximately 200g of protein, 80g of fat and 370g of Carbs. It is important to note that this is just a STARTING point, and these macros may need to be adjusted depending on your body type and fitness goals. I will talk about HOW to make these adjustments in future articles once I start explaining how to BULK and CUT.

Finding your macros is a very “technical” topic unlike my other “theory based” topics. If you're still not understanding this topic I suggest you go back to my previous blogs and re-read them and THEN come back to this. And if its still unclear, as always feel free to message me with any questions or comments.