Understanding Your Macros Part II

I hope you all had a great 4th!!

Before we jump into macro’s, I just want to emphasize that I am not a doctor. Also, everyones different! I’m going to show you what my macros would be if I was using the 30/30/40 calorie breakdown but it’s certainly not a “one size fits all” guarantee. Find what works for you!

 

So, we left off with me finding out how many calories a day I’d need to consume IF I were trying to lose weight and that number was 1784.67. Now that I know how many calories I’m shooting for, I can break it down even further into how many calories of each macro I want to consume. Since I’m going to use a 30/30/40 split (40 percent carbs, 30 fat, 30 protein), I can just multiply each percentage by my total calorie number:

.40 X 1784.67= 713.87 calories coming from carbohydrates

.30 X 1784.67= 535.40 calories coming from protein 

.30 X 1784.67= 535.40 calories coming from fat

Now that I know how many calories of each macro I should consume, I can figure out exactly how many grams of each I need.

Grams come in handy since they can easily be measured by weighing your food (yes, this sounds over the top and time consuming…which it is….but it works!).

To find the grams of each, just divide the calorie number by the calorie per gram:

713.87/4= 178.47 grams of carbohydrates

535.40/4= 133.85 grams of protein

535.40/9= 59.46 grams of fat

 

That’s it! It probably sounded much more complicated than it actually was…hopefully I didn’t make it that confusing!

I use a great fitness app called My Fitness Pal. You can plug in your own personal goals, for example, the overall calories I want to consume and then the amount of grams of each macro. From there, you just enter in what you eat throughout the day . Like I said before, this seems a little obsessive but it’s really the only way to truly know how much you each and what exactly you’re eating. For me, it really pointed out the amount of sugar I eat. I’m not eatin’ candy bars all day either! Just the sugar that comes from things like yogurt or peanut butter…those hidden sugars add up!

You can also plug in the workouts you do and your calorie intake for the day adjusts .

So that’s about it on the macros! I hope I shed a little light on why they’re valuable to know whether you’re trying to lose weight, gain, or maintain your weight.

 

In other news, I’m running a race this weekend! My first trail race and it’s gonna be a doozy….7.5 miles uphill…gaining 2500 vertical feet in Vail!! Yikes. I’m sort of not looking forward to it…

 

Any fun plans for the weekend?