What are macros?  Sound like a vague memory of first year economics?  Well, all it refers to are the "macro nutrients" protein, fat, and carbohydrate.  These three macros are where the calories we eat come from.  It should be pretty plain that eating 2000 calories of fat, and eating 2000 calories of protein will have a different effect on your body. How exactly do you figure out what to eat then?  When determining the actual macro nutrient breakdown of your diet there are some good rules to get you started. This is where some people get frightened by dieting, thinking that it is too complicated to figure out on their own.  I want to make this as clear and painless as possible. So let's go through this step-by-step.

What are your goals?

The number of calories you consume depends on your current goals.  There are three options to choose from.

 Fat Loss

 As you get leaner your insulin sensitivity, and hormone levels improve. This makes it far easier to gain muscle.  If your goal is to gain muscle you should still lose fat first in order to make muscle building more efficient. The goal here is to lose fat once, and stay lean forever. Most people should focus on fat loss first.

 Muscle Gain

 This is for people who are already very lean (well defined abs) and want to build muscle.  The goal is to build as much muscle as possible without excessive fat gain.  Remember that you want to get lean once and stay lean forever. The benefit of gaining muscle while minimizing fat gain is that insulin sensitivity will remain high, meaning that more carbohydrates can be put to use building muscle.  Not to mention that you won't become a fat slob, and have to spend a lot of time losing fat again a few months down the road.

 Body Recomposition

 This is a slow transformation where you will both build muscle and lose fat.  During a recomp, fat loss will be slower than during a focused fat loss plan, and muscle gain will be slower than during a focused muscle gain plan.  However, if you are new to weightlifting, and are not overweight, this is the option for you.  In your first year of weight training you will experience tremendous gains in both strength and muscle growth.  A recomp will allow you to take advantage of this, and also lose body fat at the same time. This is a rare opportunity to both build muscle and lose fat, efficiently, at the same time.

How Much do You Need to Eat?

There are some tried and true guidelines that are used to calculate caloric intake based on body-weight and goals.  These numbers will give you a good starting point, but you have to track your progress and adjust accordingly. All of the following calculations are done using body-weight in pounds (multiply your body-weight in kilograms by 2.2 to find your body-weight in pounds).

 Fat Loss : Body-weight x 10 to 12

 Start at 12 and adjust accordingly. If you are not losing fat, reduce calories by an additional 150-200 calories per day.  Some people may need to go even lower than body-weight x 10 to see a good rate of fat loss, this depends a lot on activity levels and your metabolism. If you are drastically losing strength or are having hormonal problems, you may need to increase calories by 150-200 calories per day.

 Muscle Gain : Body-weight x 16+

 Your goal is to see how high you can push your caloric intake without excessive fat gain.  Start at 16 and slowly increase your carbohydrate consumption until you start to see fat gain, at which point you will decrease carbohydrates until you are gaining muscle without getting fat.

 Recomposition : Body-weight x 15+ on training days and body-weight x 10 to 12 on rest days

 This method is a combination of both fat loss, and muscle gain.  On days where you train with weights you will eat more calories to support muscle growth.  On days where you do not train you will eat fewer calories to promote fat loss.  The difference in calories will come from carbohydrates. This approach assumes that you are training three to four days a week.

Macro Nutrients

There are three macro nutrients.  They are protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Alcohol is not technically a macro nutrient because it is not necessary for our survival (I beg to differ), but it is a source of energy.  Let's assume for now that alcohol will not be a big enough part of your daily diet to warrant its inclusion.  For those times when alcohol will play a leading role in your daily diet, remember to follow the rules I laid out here. And, remember to thank me when you have a fun, guilt free night of debauchery.  Now that you know how many calories you will be eating each day, where should these calories come from?  Remember that one gram of carbs or protein contains four calories, and one gram of fat contains nine calories.

 Protein

 Protein is very important for muscle growth and retention, but not as important as some would have you believe.  A good range for protein is 0.75 to 1.25 grams of protein per pound of body-weight. You do not need to consume the outrageous amounts of protein that are tossed around in the bodybuilding community. I personally eat on the lower end of the range, as this allows me to eat more carbohydrates. Protein is very filling though, so when calories are restricted, eating more protein will leave you feeling more satisfied. Staying within the range mentioned above, should be perfect.

 Fat

 Set fat intake at twenty to thirty percent of total calories.  For example, if your daily caloric intake is 2000 kcal, you will get twenty-five percent, or 500 kcal from fat.  Remembering that one gram of fat contains nine calories, this gives fifty-five grams of fat per day. This is given as a range because some people will feel better with more fat in their diet, others with less.  Don't be afraid to play around with these numbers.

 Carbs

 Carbs will be used to make up the rest of the calories. So, subtract the calories from protein and fat from total daily calories to find your carb intake.
Calories from Carbs = Total Calories – Calories from Protein – Calories from Fat


Divide the answer by four to calculate how many grams of carbs you will be eating.

 Using myself as an example for a fat loss calculation, here is how I would set it up.  My body-weight is 165 lbs, so my total daily calories will be 165 x 12 = 1980 kcal.  Set protein at 1 gram per pound, so 165 grams. Set fat at 25% of total calories, which gives 1980 x 0.25 = 495 kcal, or 55 grams of fat (divide by 9 kcal/gram).
Calories from Carbs = Total Calories – Calories from Protein – Calories from Fat

= 1980 - 660 - 495
=825 kcal of carbs (divide by 4 to get roughly 205 grams)


This means my daily macros are 165 grams of protein, 55 grams of fat, and 205 grams of carbs.  This is only a starting point.  If fat loss were too slow, the calories would be reduced by decreasing the amount of carbs. Similarly, if the calorie deficit were too large and I felt really low on energy, or was starting to lose strength and muscle, I would slowly increase the amount of carbs.

Personalizing

If you've read my post about my diet experimentation, you know that there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter diet.  The steps outlined above are recommendations for how to start your own experimentation. Some things to remember when personalizing your diet are:
  • Insulin Sensitivity - Everyone's body is different and some people may find that eating carbs on rest days prevents them from losing fat.  This is due to insulin sensitivity, and it means that you may need to go with an "earn your carbs" approach, where carbs are only allowed after training. Low carb or fat based diets work well for a lot of people, and work particularly well for people that do not weight train.  In this case, you may find that completely eliminating starchy carbs (rice, potatoes, grains etc) is the most efficient way to lose weight.  The same may be true for people looking to gain muscle.  Excess carbs on rest days may be responsible for excess fat gain, and you may still want to have an "earn your carbs" approach.

  • Hormones - Many people will find that bad things happen if either fat or carb intake is too low.  Loss of libido,  mood swings, and irritability are all signs that something is wrong with your diet.  Dieting sucks, and lack of energy happens from time to time, but it should not become severe enough to negatively impact your ability to perform at work, in the gym, or in the bedroom.

The main thing to take away from this is that you can't be afraid to experiment with your diet.  The steps given above will get you started properly, but you need to take accountability and figure out the nuts and bolts of the diet yourself.  My advice is to follow the steps exactly to determine where your total calories should be, and then begin adjusting carb and fat intakes, to improve your energy levels and to make the diet as sustainable as possible.  The only way to make this work is to find something that you can stick with, and then stick with it.  Good luck, and be sure to let me know how it's going either here or on facebook.