Week 3 - Macronutrients

Week 3! This week we will discuss a “How-To” set up your macronutrients (Macros). I consider macronutrients as fuel for my body. They are essential for overall health and wellness and aid in your body’s brain function, metabolism, and heart health. Without an optimal performing body, how can we achieve our goals with our family, work, or personal lives? When it came to getting healthy, I knew how to work out, but I did not know how to set up my eating habits correctly. Once I figured this out, I quickly realized that controlling your health is 80% diet & 20% exercise. I hope this article helps you align your eating habits with your personal goals!

I strongly recommend downloading an app on your smartphone called “Lose It!” It has a database of food that you can input throughout your day and see what it is you’re really consuming. I recommend downloading the app to your phone, be completely honest with yourself, and track everything that you eat for two weeks. Not only will this allow you to honestly realize what you’re consuming, but it will get you in the habit of tracking everything you eat. The key is being 100% honest with everything you input in the app.

At the end of the two weeks, you’ll be able to see how many calories you ate daily. It’ll breakdown your proteins, carbohydrates, and fats consumption for each day. When I first started my routine, I was 230 lbs and over the course of 6 months I lost 65 lbs. The weight coming off relieved a ton of other issues – my knees weren’t hurting anymore, my skin cleared up, my general sense of purpose became clear and I was more focused. Additionally, it confirmed what I thought all along, 80% diet, 20% activity.

We’re going to find out how to set up your “maintenance calories” and how-to breakdown your macronutrients within those allotted calories. Again, I strongly recommend downloading a food log app on your smartphone. Like I mentioned before, I have been using “Lose It!” for the past year and I have all my favorite recipes and meal preferences saved to my account. You can follow my macros at the link on the bottom of this article. Another great app is “My Fitness Pal (MFP)”. MFP has a community-type feel to the app so if you’re setting goals with some friends or a personal trainer, this may be the way to go for you.

If you’re not tracking your nutrition or energy intake (calories), you have no baseline established to make changes to your diet. It’s difficult to make changes to your diet without a baseline established. We can make on-the-fly decisions when eating, but typically it’s comparing two or three meal choices in front of you and choosing what we think is the “healthy-option.” While this may make us feel good in the moment, in the long run it’s difficult to determine what was a good decision, and what provided no nutritional benefit to reach our goals.

Step 1: Find your maintenance calories

This will give you a baseline of calories you need to intake daily to maintain your current weight. The best method that I have used is the Mifflin St. Jeor Calculation - here is a great calculator.

Input your age, gender, current body weight, height, and exercise level based on the choices provided. Another quick way to determine your maintenance calories is to multiply your current body weight by 14 through 17, depending on your activity level - 14 = lowest activity level, 17 = very active.

Step 2: Determine Macronutrients

Keep these in mind: 1 g of Protein = 4 calories, 1 g of Carbohydrates = 4 calories, and 1g of Fat = 9 calories. Fat is more calorically dense per gram than proteins or carbs. We’re going to set-up your proteins and fats first, then fill in the rest with carbohydrates.

Protein (P): Set your protein goals to 0.8 - 1.25 grams/lb of current body weight (I keep mine on the higher end usually between 1.0 - 1.15)

Fats (F): 0.35 - 0.45 grams/lb of body weight

Carbs (C): The remainder of your calories will be divided by 4 to determine grams of carbs to have in your diet.

Here is an example of how I set up my macros:

Using that same link above, I input the following: 29 years old, Male, 167 lbs, 5’-8”, Exercise Level: Daily. This calculates my maintenance calories at 2633 calories/day.

For my Protein: 167 lbs x 1.15g/lb = 192g (P)

For my Fats: 167 lbs x 0.4g/lb = 67g (F)

I calculate my calories based on these macros:

For my Protein: 192 g (P) * 4 calories/g = 768 calories

For my Fats: 67 g (F) * 9 calories/g = 603 calories

Total so far: 768 + 603 = 1,371 calories

I subtract this number from my maintenance calories:

Maintenance Calories: 2,633 calories/day

Proteins & Fats Calories: 1,371 calories

2,633 - 1,371 = 1,262 calories remaining

This means I have 1,262 calories to be used for carbohydrates:

Divide this number by 4: 1,262 calories/4 g/calories(C) = 315g (C)

Now I know my maintenance calories: 2,633 calories/day and my macronutrients for those calories: 192g (P), 315g (C), and 67g (F). This is broken down to maintain my current weight, at my current activity level daily. If you’re considering gaining weight or losing weight, I usually adjust my caloric intake by +/- 500 calories of my maintenance calories. This 500-calorie adjustment allows me to gain or lose weight at a rate of 1 lb/week. Whether I’m cutting or bulking, I keep my protein at the same level and reduce my carbs and fats.

Step 3: Execute

This became a simple math problem for me to solve - if I wanted to lose weight, I needed to either eat under my maintenance calories or increase my activity level each week. Here is a screenshot of my weight loss journey over the last year and my current macros for my post-holiday cut:

Now that we know what our caloric intake needs to be and the breakdown of those calories, we can start to adjust our diet to meet those goals. I strongly recommend purchasing a food-scale - here is a link to the one I have. This will allow you to be very accurate with tracking your caloric intake with your app. It was shocking to me what 5-ounces of chicken actually looked like when you weighed it! Don’t get so wrapped up in eating turkey bacon vs. regular bacon or avocado toast vs. scrambled eggs & cheese. Make the right choices that meet your macronutrient goals and your caloric intake requirements and be completely honest with yourself. By making these right choices, you will be able to make a sustainable diet and not fall off the wagon. I recommend a refeed day once per week - One non-tracked meal where you can eat outside of your macros and enjoy life! After all, that’s what we’re all looking to achieve - enjoy life.

I hope you enjoyed this topic/post and it helps you with your personal goals. I'm constantly seeking feedback - leave a comment below, or send me a message letting me know what you think, how I can make this better, or if there's a topic you want me to cover!

Thanks for reading!

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About Sal Randazzo:

Sal is a defense contractor, entrepreneur, and fitness enthusiast. His Blog is designed to share his life with his followers. His YouTube channel & Blog is a gallery of his work and personal life. Enjoy!

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Nutrition Disclaimer: I am not a certified nutritionist and make no claims to the contrary. Each individual’s dietary needs and restrictions are unique to the individual. You are ultimately responsible for all decisions pertaining to your health. This post is written and produced for informational purposes only. Statements within this site have not been evaluated or approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This website is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Content should not be considered a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment.

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