First let’s start with the term macros, you have probably heard the term macro before, but you may not know what it means. It stands for macronutrients. We have macronutrients and micronutrients. It helps to think in those terms, micro being small, macro being big.
Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, polyphenols, antioxidants all of which are important for the body, but they don’t provide energy. Macronutrients are what provides the body with energy.
If we think about energy in the terms of foods that we eat, exercise, and daily movements, the first thing that probably comes to mind is the word calorie. And that is correct, a calorie and a unit or measurement of energy.
When it comes to calories believe it or not, it’s not just calories in versus calories out. It is important, and it is true to a certain degree, but what makes up your calories dictate what you lose as far as body fat versus muscle tissue, and that’s reason it’s so important to make sure that you’re hitting certain macros in the diet to produce the results that you want.
Protein
Let’s start with protein first, as a macronutrient protein has four calories per gram protein, and as you may know the body uses protein for building muscle tissue. Protein is also needed to build anything that the body produces, for example: Hair, nails, skin, the lining of your intestinal tract in on your stomach, protein is also used for your immune function to build antibodies in the body.
The key thing here is that you can’t make your own protein, you must ingest it on a daily basis to make sure that you have enough of the building blocks, aka amino acids to build all these things above.
The American Dietetic Association recommends 0.8 grams per kilogram of protein daily. However, it is important to note that this is just to prevent malnutrition, not for optimal health. If we look at the International Sports Society and Medical Societies they take into account all the things going on in the body and that we are faced with in our day to day lives – pregnancy, being sick, injuries, express stress, exercise. All these things would increase our needs above baseline.
So I typically recommend clients get 1 gram of protein per target body weight as being a good target. A good rule of thumb, is to consume protein with each meal or snack.
Sources of Protein
Foods that would be considered our primary sources of protein are meat, fish, poultry, some dairy products, protein shakes and eggs. These are primary protein sources as they are considered complete protein sources, meaning they’re higher in protein than they are the carbs and the fat.
Note that if you are vegetarian or vegan, this doesn’t change your macro recommendations. If we look at tofu, while it is a protein source is not necessarily a primary protein as it is going to have some carbohydrate in there, same goes with legumes and beans. They are a good protein source but they’re actually higher in carbohydrate, so that is why we don’t consider them as primary protein sources.
The reason I say some dairy products because it depends on the type of dairy you are choosing. If you are consuming flavoured or sugar rich dairy products those would be a carbohydrate source, but if you’re choosing say Greek yogurt, then that would be higher in protein.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates is another one of our energy sources. Carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram inside of them.
Both Carbohydrates and fats are energy sources but carbohydrate is going to be that primary energy source that we use for higher intensity training. When we look at carbohydrates, I know that they get labeled as bad a lot in media. However, it is not that they are bad, I would say that the average American is over eating processed carbohydrates, but it’s not inherently that carbohydrate in itself is bad.
Some great things about carbohydrates are the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that we get from them that we might not get in some of our other sources.
Theoretically, you don’t need to eat carbohydrates, your body can actually make glucose from protein and fat, it can produce glucose in the body, which is essentially what carbohydrates are being broken down to.
Sources of Carbohydrates
We want to be eating them in the forms of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and natural sugars
Where you need to be careful with carbohydrates is in simple processed carbs, and generally all know what these are, but basically it is anything that comes in a box. I.e: candy, chips, chocolate, ect. As a rule of thumb, we want to look at cutting down on the simple processed carbohydrate.
Fat
Once again fat is a fuel, however it should be notes that dietary fat is totally different than adipose tissue or body fat on our body. Fat has 9 calories per gram,
Similarly to protein you must ingest a certain amount of it on a daily basis and it is needed for hormone production and production of cell membranes. There is a range for the minimum amount you need, but typically I would recommend females having 35 to 40 grams of fat and males 45 to 50 grams.
Sources of Fat
Some of the source of fat in the diet are in nuts, seeds, oils, coconut, avocados, etc
When it comes to oils, we want to steer clear of vegetable oils and look to other sources like olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil.
How to track your Macros
You will need to buy a food scale, and apps like My Fitness Pal can be extremely helpful. However as a coach I can accurately prescribe a macro profile specific to you, your needs, your goals and your lifestyle, I believe this really is the best way to have success.
Remember that the key part to ANY nutrition or fitness routine is consistency. Trying this (or anything else) loosely for two weeks will not get you results.
I hope that helps get you started. Comment below with any questions or concerns you might have when if comes to Macro counting. I would love to help you