Frank_y's picture
Frank_y
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+ 15 Working out your calories and macros.

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Let me write about how to set your macros and how to set your calories because it's not that difficult and there's no excuses where you can't be doing it. And YES, also because diet is the corner stone here. This is gonna help you set up and we'll go through a few scenarios. I will definitely go through the maintenance which is how to keep your weight, how to stay exactly where you are, so how many calories to eat in order to stay the same weight. Once you calculate this, you can do a surplus or be at calories deficit deficit, depending if you want to bulk or to cut.

Starving calories will work into markets. Afterwards it's just a logical thing to do because we do have a pyramid of importance of the way we should look at nutrition: Calories, second down it's gonna be Macros, third and fourth down probably Micros and meal timing and then number five probably is gonna be anything else like Suppplements. So really, should be focusing on calories first, though.

I'll tell you how to work out your maintenance. This is a rough guide and you will have to do some calculations along the way. I'll try and make this as simple as possible for you.

First of all, all of this depends on the way your hormones are holding up, the way your thyroids hang up, the way your history has been, even a surplus of bulk have you been taking maintenance, etc, all these variables do change the actual answer of this so be warned.

Calories. Roughly you want to be taking your body weight in pounds assuming you are lean. If you are kind of bit more overweight I would kind of guess your percent fat and then take off from that. This is to say you should be having maybe 14-16 calories per pound of body weight. So for example if you took someone who was 200 pounds times that by 14 or 16 the results are between 2800 to 3200 calories. The reason why there is a range is because of the variabilities but also because of the activity: someone who is highly active and maybe works on buildings or someone that it's gonna be moving a lot, more expending, a lot more energy expenditure going, so they will have to be eating higher than that and it may be that it's even higher than the 3200 calories. So once you have this initial number all you have to do is weigh yourself every day for a week see what happens if your weight goes down you know you're in a deficit. If your weight goes up you know you're in a surplus if your weight stays the same you know you're in a maintenance level. Using some well known app that helps you calculating your intake of calories will be a plus here.

So let's assume that you've got your calories. Now we work out how many macros we should have: how much protein, how much carbohydrates, how much fats and then maybe you could just look at sugars on the whole at the end of the day. So protein, this is the method: 2.5 to 3.4 grams of protein per kilogram of lean body weight so if you're lean you could probably just take your weight as it´s and if you're a variable weight you should get your body fat and again take off a number and that's how you'd workout. Remember this formula: 1 gram of protein contains 4 calories.

Once we worked out our protein we can work out our fats. Now, minimum, really minimum required dose is going to be 15 percent. The maximum can go up to 35%. The reason for that is because fats help regulate hormones. They have compounds which can help testosterone boost from the body not only that but estrogen as well, and generally just for recovery and energy. So minimum 15 percent just for hormone regulation. The only time I can see dipping below that it's deep into a calm season but even then if you've done it right you shouldn't need to go that low. Another formula here: 1 gran of fat contains 9 calories.

The rest of the calories that we use will be made up of carbohydrates so that could range anywhere from 20% to (all apps are) 60-70 % depending on how many calories you've got to eat.

EXAMPLE:

So let's use me as an example. The reason I'm going to use me as an example is because we'll take my stage weight which means we don't need to do too much calculation. We won't do any calculation for the body fat because I don't really have any therefore my percentage is quite low so I don't need to work out the differences too much whereas if I was in my off season I may subtract the body fat weight from my total weight.

So first of all calories. We'll go for the 14 to 16 grams rule. I'm pretty an active person so we'll go for 16. So we take 190 pounds what times that by 16 this gives me 3040 calories. So we've got the calories. Easy. So that should be my maintenance.

Next thing that would do is work out my protein so from here we'll do it at kilo method because I prefer it. I'm someone who prefers a little bit more protein towards the 3.4 area just because I feel like the intensity of my workouts has a little bit higher demand for protein so if you're someone who maybe train every other day, maybe you have three or four rest days a week you pick up a lower amount. If you are training once per week full body the demand isn't as big. You can move more towards 2.5. In my example it is by 3 just for the sake of not going for crazy numbers. 86.2 kilo times 3 that makes up 259 grams. If we round up so just as a sake of it do 260 over then. From there, we have to use the first formula so we do 260 times 4 that makes a 1040 calories. So easy.

There´s leave of 2,000 calories left so then we know 15 to 35 percent of that is gonna come from fats. For me it has got to be a lot, 30% percent, because I enjoy the fats. I anecdotally feel the difference that fats make in my diet. They slow down my digestion of carbs and generally they keep me a little bit fuller in the mornings what I'm getting really hungry as soon as I introduce carbs, that's when I get hungry so the fat helps a lot. To get a percent off 2000 which hand that 2000 by 0.3 which means 600 and we'll divide that 600 by a 9 (second formula) which means 66.66 grams of the 3,040 calories will be from fat.

It then means we've got 600 calorie from fat plus 1040 which is the protein calories and it means that we've got 1400 calories to play with so all we do is 1400 divided by 4 because we know that there are 4 calories in every gram of carb, which means 350 grams of carbs.

So therefore my macros would be 260 grams of protein, 350 grams of carb and 66 grams of fat.

So that's it. That's how you calculate your macros and calories and then if you want to go into bulk you will add calories to this start off with a couple of hundreds and see what happens. Add more and more if you want to go into a deficit reverse. Take out a couple hundreds more add some cardio in and monitor it every few days if you want to cut. Don't forget that feedback is major key so make sure you can do that to improve.

If you feel like, do your calculation and leave them in a comment here. That way you are "forced" to calculate them and to know or to remember them.

PhillyMelvin_Smelvin's picture

Damn good info!! Thanks for taking the time to write this out...

Boogerdaddy's picture

Awesome info. It’s pretty much spot on with my fitness app. I just never really understood how they came up with the percentages and numbers. Thanks for the education.

mr_fishsticks's picture

Frank - This is really helpful. I started plugging this into a spreadsheet so all I have to do it change up my target weight. If needed, it's easy to mess with activity level for protein grams and % from fat.

It took me a few minutes to figure out that your total fat % wasn't 30% of your total daily caloric intake, but rather 30% of the remaining calories after protein was allocated. You wrote that clearly, but I missed it.

By my math, you're actually closer to 18% total daily caloric intake from fat. Is that correct?

Screenshot (not sure how to add in this post):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Z33iaNX2HIeCVeJdBz7_rBbRFRwbk7Wd

william90's picture

right post for right people who is looking for weight gain....keep going

DSTER's picture

Good stuff frank +

Eagles 2013's picture

Great stuff Frank. +1

johnmarshall12's picture

A lot of work went into this! +

Frank_y's picture

Thank you. I appreciate the comment :-)

Zalewski's picture

Just being a bit more specific here but when it comes to carbs, what portion of that is sugar? Also I assume you fiber intake isn't calculated into this so what would you suggest that to be.

Frank_y's picture

Well, truth said 100% of your carbs intake can be sugar but I don't recommend you get anywhere close to that. Simply put, if we burn all of the calories we consume in a day, we also burn all of the sugar we consume in a day so the net effect of the sugar is zero (the horror stories we hear about sugar happen when we are in a caloric surplus), but the big issue here is not just burning it or not: sugar enters your system and immediately a cascade of events will take place, which includes your pancreas releasing a large dose of insulin, who’s job is to go in and remove that extra glucose from the bloodstream.

At times, eating sugar in your diet can actually be beneficial. For instance, adding sugar to your diet immediately post-workout when your muscles have been depleted of their muscle glycogen can actually help to speed up the recovery process, restoring this glycogen and getting you ready for your next workout session. Don’t expect a miracle from this, but over time, the smallest changes can add up, so if you need every advantage you can possibly find, meal timing might be a consideration!

I personally set my sugar intake around 15-30% of the total carbs.

About fiber there is a reason why I'm not talking about them in the post: they are quite a complex thing and not even scientists got to an agreement about them.

Dietary fibers are complex carbohydrates, so some experts estimate that they provide 4 calories per gram just like any other carbohydrate. However, others say that calories from fiber don’t count since your body’s digestive enzymes can’t break down fiber.

Personally what I do is, when checking about my carbs, assigning them 2 calories per each gram. So far it´s the most accurate formula I was able to find.

Any suggestion is more than welcome!

Hitman1992's picture

Wow what a nice read thank you!

DfromPhilly's picture

Putting out some damn fine content recently frank. Thanks for contributing. Looking forward to what’s next

Frank_y's picture

Thanks, D. That is great compliment, though :-)