Understanding MACRO's; The right MACRO split for you.

In this article Here we learned how to know what amount of calories to consume so that you can reach your fitness goals; either losing fat, gaining muscle or maintaining. But what foods will you eat with-in those caloric parameters?

Composition of a Calorie

A calorie is made up of Macro-nutrients or otherwise known as MACRO's. They consist of carbohydrates, Fat & Protein.

Carbs and Protein both have 4 calories/gram while Fat has 9 calories/gram.

For cutting, shredding or losing fat; you will be in a caloric deficit which means that the body will be looking for other sources of energy such as fat (ideally) or muscle. There will always be some muscle loss but in order to minimize as much muscle loss as possible, the protein intake should be high. Carbs and Fats can be adjusted based on personal preference, more on this later.

PROTEIN

1 - 1.5 Grams of Protein per lb of body weight while in a caloric deficit.

So a person weighing 180 lbs with 2000 calories ( in deficit) should be consuming;

1 - 1.5 x 180 = 180 grams to 270 grams of protein. 

You can lean towards the lower side if your body fat levels are too high similarly if you are already lean then your consumption should be close to 270 grams. This is an adjustment you will have to make based on your situation

Lets say the person decides to go with 1.3 grams/lb of body weight since he is neither too fat nor lean.

1.3 x 180 = 234 grams of protein x 4 = 934 Calories.

This calculation shows that 234 grams of protein will have 934 calories, these are the amount of  protein calories you should be consuming out of the total 2000 calories. So we have 1067 calories left to divide among carbohydrates and fats.

CARBOHYDRATES AND FATS

The ratio between carbs and fats is debatable and varies from person to person depending on their body-type, training and other factors such as what kind of foods they like. 

Generally a good place to start is 60% carbs & 40% fat; excluding of-course the protein calories.

Carbs

In our example the Carb intake should be:

1067 x 0.6 = 640/4 = 160 Grams of carbs.

The above calculation shows that out of the remaining calories after excluding the protein, the carbs should be 60% which equals to 640 calories and since 1 gram of Carbs have 4 calories therefore that equals to 160 grams of carbs.

Fat

After excluding the Protien and Carbs from our 2000 calories we are left only with 427 calories. Therefore this portion will make up our Fat intake which will be

427/9 = 48 Grams of Fat

Now we have our MACROS for a person how is trying to lose fat while preserving as much muscle as possible with weight loss calories of 2000.

270 Grams Protein

160 Gram Carbs

48 Grams Fat

(more coming on what foods to eat)