First, I need you to do something for me. Go back and read my blog post about the science of my diet (and for the record... I hate using the word "diet" because it sounds temporary. This is NOT temporary, this is a way of life!). After that, take into consideration that diet is only a piece of the whole fitness puzzle; a rather large piece, but still it alone is not the answer. Results are going to be 60% diet, 20% cardio, and 20% weight/resistance training. These numbers aren't exact, but I needed to throw numbers at you to stress how important each piece is.
Ok, so now that you're on board, and haven't closed this page yet, lets get started. I'll start in the logical place: macronutrients (duh!)
Macronutrients
Mike, wtf are macronutrients? Well, jerk, they're the general classification of all nutrients that we take into our bodies. You might know them better as Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats, and Minerals. We can throw alcohol in there too, but its a rather special one, and deserves a little extra explanation... we'll get there.
Minerals
Lets start easy: Minerals. These are 0 calorie elements like iron, zinc, vitamin A-Z, potassium, magnesium, etc. They are extremely important to your overall health, but take more of a supporting role in weight manipulation. Best thing I can say is that if you don't feel like researching every plant, meat, or fruit known to man to balance your minerals, take a Centrum. I wish they paid me for this advertisement, but they don't. It's THE most complete multi-vitamin around, and you'll get about 90% of ALL essential minerals you need every day if you take one. How's that for peace-of-mind?
Proteins
The powerhouse nutrient. Proteins do all kinds of important shit like build muscle, help repair organ tissue, and at the cellular level, provide cells with the amino acids necessary to do cool things like split in half and make more cells with the help of glucose. That's the only fuel they need, man. In your diet, you need to bring in a good amount of protein, especially if you're active. The RDA of protein from the general health counsel is 20% of your dietary calories. That's IF you sit on your ass all day, and don't stress your muscles at all. Unless you're one of them, you need MORE protein because when you stress the muscles, they tear, and need to be repaired. Protein is the only thing that will do that - and if you don't bring in enough guess what happens? Your body either tries to make essential ones from the non-essentail proteins it has, or (this makes me cry...) your body breaks down OTHER muscles to get the protein it needs to repair the damaged ones. True story!
Carbohydrates
The power-house nutrient. I read a quote "Dr. Michael Colgan ... calls carboydrates 'premium fuel'"*. This is by far the best description I ever heard. Its what your body is begging for. Carbs are anything from a single simple sugar (like nectar from a flower) or as packed as a bowl of pasta... and everything in between. Carbs are derrived almost exclusively from plants. At a high level, there's disaccharides, monosaccharides , polysaccharides, and fibers. To overly simplify things, thing of these 4 as a sliding scale of "bad-to-good" carbs. The more fiber and polysaccharides you bring in, the better. Think veggies and fruits (although fruits contain a lot of fructose - monosaccharide). Monosaccharides are absorbed and burned almost instantly... but beware! Too much of this sweet nectar of the gods can have the same effect as disaccharides on your body, which will be described ... next!
Disaccharides are condensed monosaccharides. WTF does that mean? Not really important compared to where to find them (look up the Wikipedia entry, its got more info than you'll ever care to know!) Where do I find disaccharides? Table sugar, lactose and high fructose corn syrup (HFC) account for probably 99% of the disaccharides you'll care about. Keep these to a minimum! These are really sweet sugars that require a little extra help to break down. Because anytime we indulge in such sugars (the exception being lactose, because of the small concentration in dairy) they are brought in in mass quantities, your body immediately recognizes the need to call in the supporting cast: insulin. This shit will kill you if you didn't have enough (ask a diabetic!) or had too much. To sugar, it's like the equivalent of a light saber cutting through storm troopers. Take in too much disaccharide (or even monosaccharides) and you get hit with a whopping dose of insulin. Your body doesn't have time to meticulously calculate how much it needs. It opens the flood gates and lets it all out to do its job before you overheat from burning all that sugar, pass out, and maybe die. So what happens when there's no more storm troopers? It burns your reserves... and you feel crazy tired.. this is more commonly called a "sugar crash". Insulin has taken over your body, and all you want to do is sleep until it's out. Too much insulin? Your cells have no immediate energy left to do things like multiply and well... eventually, you die. Ask a diabetic what happens if they screw up an insulin calculation and give themselves too much.
Polysaccharides and fibers are the "complex" carbohydrates. Short and sweet, a shit-ton of mono and disaccharides strung together. You find these in fleshy vegetables like broccoli, potatoes, squash, spinach, etc. and grains like oatmeal, wheat, quinoa, couscous, and so on. Why do these kick ass? It give you a shit-ton of the sugars your body needs to function at the cellular level and at the macro level (you kicking someone's ass in Wii boxing... or real boxing!). What's also great about these complex carbs? They give your tidal wave of insulin something to do!!!!! See all those exclamation points? I mean every one of them. Eating the right balance of mono/disaccharides and complex carbs leaves you feeling somewhat full, not sluggish, and you won't crash in a half hour. Too many complex carbs, and you wont' have enough insulin to break it down, and sadly, partially broken down sugars make excellent building blocks for body fat. So, you can see why carbs are now the red-headed step-child of the nutrition world these days. People blame the nutrient rather than bad dietary habits. The same is true for fats... which, is up next!
Fats (Lipids, Fatty-acids, etc.)
I did a nice blog before this about fats. Read Let's Chew the Fat first. These are like super really super duper important, and the blog clears up why you NEED them in your diet, and shouldn't spend all your focus on cutting them out. To summarize, you have 3 types of fats: Saturated fats, unsaturated fats, and trans fatty acids. Your goal? Eat as many unsaturated fats (monounsaturated, polyunsaturated) as you can to make up your daily allotted fat intake. These are things like nuts (almonds for sure!), avocado, olive oil, fish oil. Saturated fats are your animal fats, and trans fats are just fucking bad for you, period. Don't eat them at all, if you can help it. Its so important that I'll say it again here, in case you were lazy and didn't read the other blog post: if you see the word "Hydrogenation" or any declension of that word on the food label, don't eat it on a regular basis. Hell, I enjoy cake on occasion as much as the next guy, but you'll never EVER see me eat a muffin every day for breakfast. The price in the end isn't worth it!
Alcohol
Alcohol, like fat, packs 9 calories per gram. The bad thing about alcohol though is that it doesn't metabolize. It runs rampant in your blood stream doing funny things to your organs when the blood carrying it gets there. The only thing to break it down is water, and that happens over time. Calories from alcohol don't count for much, BUT the fermented juice or wheat the alcohol is part of DOES. So, for all intents and purposes, you have to count all the calories listed on the label. Limit your alcohol intake, especially when manipulating your weight loss/gain goals. Its a caloric wild card, hard to predict, and too much of it (everyone agrees) is just plain bad for you. If you do indulge, have a glass of red wine, a plain vodka, or gin. Everything else is loaded with sugars on top of the alcohol, and just image what happens when you add it to fruit juice! Alcohol, highly concentrated sugars in the alcohol, plus a shit-ton of added sugar in the orange juice... as much as I would care for a screwdriver, its just no good for your goal.
Ok, so now you have the basics down of macronutrients. To summarize, your proteins, carbs, and fats. Lets talk calories now.
Calories and Caloric Intake
What's a calorie? Well, a calorie is the amount of energy required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree C. Great, glad we fucking cleared that up! What does it mean to ME, god damnit!! Well first off, lets clear a little something up. When you see "Calories" on your food nutrition label, they are really talking about Kilocalories - meaning 1000 calories. Lucky for you, when we talk about diet and nutrition, we are also talking about Kilocalories, or else 1 blueberry would put you over the daily caloric requirements! For some reason, unbeknownst to me, Calorie = Kilocalorie when talking about food and nutrition. Just thought I'd clear that up and give you some fun facts for Quizzo! When we talk calories, we're really talking about "how much energy does my body need to do stuff". That's the bottom line.
How many calories do I need? 2000 right? WRONG! The correct answer is "I dunno, how much do you weigh?, what's your lean mass %?, how tall are you?, and how active are you?" The standard "2000 calorie" diet is a great approximation. Most people fall within 1 standard deviation of 2000 calorie intake diets... that is to say that probably over 80% of all people will fall into the 1800 - 2400 calorie intake range. The exceptions are athletes, marathon runners, people trying to lose weight, and people trying to gain weight.
To know how much you need to take in, first thing is first: calculate your basal metabolic rate. Well christ Mike, how do I do that? Simple: go here and get a number that's close enough to work with for our purposes. What is basal metabolic rate (BMR)? Lets say I spend the whole day sitting on my ass, only getting up to cook, eat, poop, pee, and let the dog out. That's how many calories I would burn doing so. Its how many calories your body needs to perform necessary functions to keep it alive, and only that work. Start doing other things, you need more energy. Eat less than this amount, your body will gladly oblige and start burning fat for energy... for a short while. Maintain a diet of such low calories... your body goes into a starvation state, and what does it do? First, it slows your metabolism WAAAY down. Second, because it has now slowed your metabolism down, it stores all the fat that it can for its declared "state of emergency". It knows its getting food (1000 calories or so), so it uses that energy wisely, and stores as much as it can as fat for when your dumb ass decides that even 1000 calories is too much and I'm going to starve it more. I should mention that there does come a point when you can even starve yourself to burn fat in this state, but look at the starving kids in Africa... that's the state they are in. That's not where you want to be (hell look at Hollywood actresses! That's not where you want to be either!!).
Ok, so, now we know how many calories we need to maintain our body. What next? Well, we do more than just sit there and do nothing... most of us do anyway. We go to work, we play basketball, we walk the dog, we have sex, we... well you get the point. All that requires calories too. How many? That's a tough one. A really good approximation is to use a multiplier value based on how often we work out. Lets say you're fairly inactive and you work out 3 times per week. Multiply your BMR by 1.35. Work out 5 times a week? Multiply by 1.55. 7 days a week?? 1.85. These are great starting points. You'll find that when you do so your daily caloric intake shoots up to a number well above 2000. What you do here all depends on your goals.
Weight loss: Take your BMR * the scale factor, and then multiply by .8. A 20% reduction in daily caloric intake. So thats: (BMR * 1.35) * 0.8 for someone who works out 3 times per week. Get it? Good. Doing this for myself, I have a BMR of about 1730 calories, work out 3 times a week. If I wanted to lose weight, I'd take in (1730 * 1.35) * 0.8 = 1870 calories. If I start working out more often, I'd up the calories using a different scale factor.
Weight gain: Same rule applies as above, except instead of multiplying by 0.8 for a reduction in calories, I'd multiply by 1.05 to create a calorie surplus. So thats: (BMR * 1.35) * 1.05. For me that's (1730 * 1.35) * 1.05 = 2450 calories. To put on weight, I need 2450 calories per day.
Weight maintenance: This is easy: this is just BMR * 1.35. You will need to choose the right scale factor for your workout intensity or else you're going to miscalculate and take in too few or too many calories.
*disclaimer* This is NOT an exact calculation. These are good ballpark figures though. Stay in the +/- 100 calorie range of your calculation and you should see good results.
Macronutrient Intake Ratios
Here's where 90% of all diets fail. Some diets require you take in too much protein, others require you to take in not enough carbs, while others require you to take in too much fat. Optimizing your macronutrient intake for your goal is crucial!! Too much fat means you'll have to eat too many calories to get your required amount of protein and carbs. Too much carbs, you'll have to eat too many calories to get your proteins and fats. Too few cabs? Well... not enough energy and probably eating way too much protein and fat which can effect your arteries and kidneys.
So what's the magic ratio, mike? Well... there is none.... you need to experiment. But, talking statistics, over 80% of us will probably fall in the "sweet spot". This again depends on your goals, but start with this basic ratio:
35% of all calories come from protein
55% come from carbohydrates
20% come from fats
How many grams of each does that come out to? Well, lets say you have a 2000 calorie diet. A g of protein is worth 4 calories, a gram of carbs is worth 4 calories, and a gram of fat is worth 9 calories. I didn't make this shit up, that's the real no-shit values. To find out how much protein you need: 2000 * .35 = 700 calories. 700 / 4 = 175 g of protein daily. Compare this to the measly 100 g they recommend. Carbs?? 2000 * .55 = 1100 calories. 1100 / 4 = 275 g of carbs daily. Fats? 2000 * .2 = 400 calories. 400 / 9 = about 44.5 g of fat daily. This is just to give you a ballpark figure. Naturally, if you are trying to put on weight, and your caloric intake is 3000 calories, you may want to think long and hard about taking in a whopping 67 g of fat daily. Use good judgment, armed with the knowledge in this blog and advice from your nutritionist, if you have one. (Doctors often give poor nutrition advice, but LISTEN to them if you have a health condition... any health condition, because that changes everything). If you do have a health condition, work with your doctor AND a nutritionist.
Doing if for Yourself
Mike, this is cool, but I suck at math, and I'm already lost. No worries, email me and I'll get you started. I'll send you an excel spreadsheet that calculates it all for you. All you have to do is enter your age, weight, height, how often you work out, and your goal (weight loss or gain). Your recommended caloric intake will be calculated for you.
"I know my way around a spreadsheet, I can do it myself!" cool, go for it!
Making Meals
"I know how many calories I need every day, but how and when do I eat them?" Very simple. Eat 4 - 6 times per day. If you eat 4 times a day, make sure you have a snack. 5 - 6 times a day, make each time a good meal, or 3 good meals, and 2 or 3 hefty snacks. Reasons for this are outlined in the first blog I linked to.
Take your total caloric intake for the day, and divide by the number of meals. I eat 5 times a day. So for me, my 2450 calories / 5 is 490. So lets build a meal with 490 calories. You'll find that making a meal of exactly the amount of calories you want is hard... but the trick is to get get close, and if it falls short, make that meal later in the day, if it falls over, make that meal earlier in the day. I'll give you examples of a breakfast and a dinner that I eat.
Breakfast
| Food | Protein (g) | Carbs (g) | Fat (g) |
| 2 eggs | 14.4 | 1.4 | 11.6 |
| 2 strips bacon | 5 | 0 | 7 |
| Oatmeal | 5 | 27 | 3 |
| Milk | 4.5 | 6 | 0 |
| blueberries | 0.2 | 4 | 0.1 |
| ½ grapefruit | 1.2 | 15.4 | 0.2 |
| Total | 30.3 | 53.8 | 21.9 |
Calories = (total protein g * 4) + (total carb g * 4) + (total fat g * 9)
Calories = (30.3 * 4) + (53.8 * 4) + (21.9 * 9) = 533.5 calories
Now, that's a lot of fat for breakfast. I agree. But my strategy is to eat the most fat with breakfast, and as a snack a little later on in the day, and have lower fat meals later on at night. Adjust your breakfast to meet your needs. Say, no bacon or turkey sausage instead, and toast instead of oatmeal. I wouldn't replace the fruit :)
Dinner
| Food | Protein (g) | Carbs (g) | Fat (g) |
| Albacore Tuna | 26 | 0 | 4 |
| Whole wheat pasta | 10 | 38 | 2 |
| Asparagus (5 spears) | 2 | 3.5 | 0 |
| Tomato | 0.8 | 3.6 | 0.2 |
| Olive oil (½ tbsp) | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| totals | 38.8 | 45.1 | 13.2 |
Calories = (total protein g * 4) + (total carb g * 4) + (total fat g * 9)
Calories = (38.8 * 4) + (45.1 * 4) + (13.2 * 9) = 545.4 calories
Special note: You may find that doing this multiplication on anything in your fridge may not result in the exact amount of calories listed on the container or package. There's a reason for that. The FDA allows food companies to round out the calorie content to the nearest 5 calories. It also allows them to round the amount of protein, carbs or fat to the nearest 1/2 number. So, for example, the eggs above may be listed as 7 g protein, .5 g carbs, and 5.5 g fat. 1 egg then would be shown as 80 calories. Use the package as rough estimates, because that's what they are. For more accurate calorie content, check out the Calorie Database for a really good and fast lookup of nutrition information. Another good site, especially for restaurant meals is Caloriesperhour.com. You can use this site to build your whole meal, and it lets you select the nutrition facts you want to see like fiber, sugars, etc. in addition to just protein carbs and fats.
Final note: you'll want to calculate the total calorie content for each meal, add it up and see how it compares to your target calorie intake. Once you have that, you'll be able to calculate the percentage of fats, carbs, and protein you took in that day. Lets say, for example, I ate 2200 calories today. I would then add up the total grams of protein for ALL meals that day. Lets say it was 140 g. Do the same for the carbs. Lets say it was 300 g. Do the same for the fats. Lets say it was 50 g. The percentages would then be:
Protein: (140 * 4) / 2200 = .2545 = 25.45 %
Carbs: (300 * 4) / 2200 = .5454 = 54.54 %
Fats: (50 * 9) / 2200 = .2045 = 20.45 %
That's pretty close to my macronutrient goal. I'd like a little more protein, but this is still good. I still got 140 g of protein that day. To fix this, I an adjust my meal a little bit, or have a protein shake.
Conclusion
So, you learned all about macronutrients, calories, and how to make meals. You learned a little bit about determining how many calories you need, and why its so damn important. I showed you an example of making a meal and how to calculate how many calories that mean contains. I gave you resources for helping with all of this.
*"Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle". Venuto, Tom. Chapter 11, p. 190.
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