Major Topic. Do you know your optimal numbers? How many calories, proteins, fats and carbs do you need on a daily basis to achieve the body and energy levels you desire?

First off – it depends on your goals. Looking to gain weight? Lose weight??

Let’s assume you want to lose weight, as most people do.

Now let’s assume you aren’t looking into any overly specific type of diet like Keto, Carnivore, Vegan, Paleo etc. Let’s assume you just want to have a ‘normal’ protocol for High Protein, Low Fats, Low Carb, and be in a calorie deficit. These are typical Macronutrient boundaries.

Speaking of boundaries, let’s set the Caloric boundary of 10 cals per 1lb of bodyweight. That should give us a good calorie deficit (This will be temporary mind you).

Now we need to understand how many cals are in each gm of each type of Macro, then we will work backwards through %’s of each macro to come up with how many gms of each.

It looks like this:

4 cals per gm of Protein and Carbs, 9 cals per gm of Fat.

35% Protein, 45% Carbs and 20% Fat (this is a typical split for losing weight and maintaining muscle mass)

Let’s use me as an example here so you can see how this works out.

I weigh 188lbs, which gives me (lbs x 10cals) 1880 calories to consumer per day.

35% from Protein is 658 Cals or (divided by 4 cals per gm) 164gms of protein.

45% from Carbs is 846 Cals or (divided by 4 cals per gm) 211 gms of carbs

20% from Fats is 376 Cals or (divided by 9 cals per gm) 41 gms of fat

So my Macros would look like:

1880 Cals. 164gm of Protein, 211gm of Carbs, 41gm of Fat.

Now I would use an app like MyFitnessPal, plug these into the goal section and start entering my food as I go to see how I fit and can keep within these boundaries.

Now its your turn!

Do the math: weight x 10cals for total cals, apply the % of each macro to get how many cals per macro, then convert the cals into grams so you can start measuring and monitoring the amount of food you eat.

It’s a little tedious at first, but it works.

Again, this specific example is a typical one that is used for weight loss and muscle maintenance. For me personally, it’s VERY hard to do simply because of the low amount of calories (I’m a BIG eater).

With all this being said – what are your Macros?