2842: How to Calculate Your Macros ; The Complete Beginner to Advanced Guide

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1:41Adam Schafer:You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, how to calculate macros. This is for you, whether you want to build muscle, burn body fat, What are macros and how do you calculate them? By the way, we have a calculator online that gives you a nice general number on what macros you should be consuming. How many grams of proteins, fats, and carbs? You go to mapsmacro.com. It's free. It'll take you 10 seconds. Now, this episode is brought to you by Olipop. So, Olipop is, well, it tastes like the soda you grew up drinking as a kid, except it's super low calorie.

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3:50Adam Schafer:If you've paid attention to nutrition advice for more than five seconds, you've probably heard the term macros. What are macros? How do you calculate them? Are they important to track for your progress? If you want to lose body fat, build muscle, it doesn't matter. What are these things, and should you pay attention? We're going to talk about that today.

4:08Sal Di Stefano:how to calculate your macros this this dates us a little bit but it makes me think of like uh can you recall when you first heard this term there's two there's two terms that are thrown around in the space like crazy that there was a time when i never heard what either one of these were yeah pr and macros i had no idea what that was 25 years so i i knew the term macronutrient well of course but not the macros yeah yeah people would say macros and you'd be like macros i have no idea

4:38Adam Schafer:what the hell that i that wasn't that well maybe it was iif ym that made it yeah it was probably

4:43Sal Di Stefano:like like yeah like 10 years ago yeah yeah that's what i mean macros had all these other acronyms and then and crossfit and cross yeah that's another one amrap and and and pr and wads were words that i had never heard anyone say just 20 years ago yeah the first time i learned about

5:02Adam Schafer:So macro is short for macronutrient. So when you look at food, just kind of like break down the basic here. When you look at food, food is made up of nutrients. And you have micronutrients. And a micronutrient would be like a vitamin or a mineral, for example. And you have what's called a macronutrient. So micro, small, macro, larger. And there's three macronutrients that you'll find in food. One of three, two of three, all three in food. And that's protein, fat, and carbohydrate. So when you hear someone say macros, what they're referring to are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. That's basically it.

5:38Adam Schafer:And macros are what make up the calories. So when you look at a food and you look at a calorie total, let's say something has 500 calories, I can go in and see what is making those calories up. How many grams of protein, how many grams of carbohydrates, and how many grams of fats. and easy way to remember is proteins and carbs are four calories per gram and fats are nine calories per gram and that's pretty much it there's there's nutrition there is yeah there's

6:12Sal Di Stefano:your course that's it yeah but let's talk about uh in in what case are there are there certain cases where you are going to teach somebody to track macros versus just calories yes and and i So this is where I want to go with this conversation because I have found to be far more successful teaching people about macros than teaching people how to have a calorie budget. Yes. Having a calorie budget to me is very entry level to understanding, you know, if you're eating too much or not enough for your body to gain weight or lose weight, which is bare, bare minimum entry of understanding weight loss or weight gain.

6:56Adam Schafer:Yes.

6:57Sal Di Stefano:But understanding your macros makes a huge difference, I think, in your success to body composition. And how you feel. Right. Behaviors in general. Exactly right.

7:05Adam Schafer:And it's also essential. Right. You have to because two of the three macronutrients are essential, meaning you have to eat a certain amount of them to survive. In other words, you could eat 10 ,000 calories. You could have a lot of food. But if you don't eat an adequate amount of the two essential macronutrients, proteins or fats, you'll actually starve your body. There's a famous story about this with hunters. I don't know exactly when this happened. This was during the times of the frontier here in the US, I believe. And you had these hunters and trappers that would go out and they would starve eating rabbits.

7:47Adam Schafer:And they would catch a lot of rabbits. They eat a lot of rabbits, but because they were so lean, they weren't able to consume enough of the essential macronutrient fat. And they would actually starve to death even though they'd have so much food. Isn't there a term related to that? I believe it's rabbit starvation.

8:02Sal Di Stefano:There's a term for exactly that because of how common that was because you think that you're eating enough. This is really popular on the show alone that I always talk about when I talk about where these guys get dropped off on a random island or place out in the middle of nowhere. Alaska is a big thing. Yeah, Alaska was actually one of the last places they were at. And they don't have a hard time a lot of times catching rabbits with traps, but they're still freaked out because they're like, I can only survive so long on just eating rabbit meat because it's so lean. Yeah, not enough fat. Yeah, whale blubber is so valuable up there.

8:39It's like that's one big resource that can get fat.

8:42Adam Schafer:Yeah, so it's essential to understand macros because you need a certain amount of protein and fat. Now, carbohydrates are not essential, okay? So that means you could go the rest of your life technically, and I say technically because there's more to this, but you could go the rest of your life technically never eating a carbohydrate and you won't die from malnutrition. Now, here's why I said technically, that doesn't mean it's ideal. Okay. So although there are cases and situations where a low or no carbohydrate diet might be beneficial, and you'll find this with like medically advised ketogenic diets in some cases, sometimes for gut health or depending on the situation, it'll be beneficial for a certain period of time.

9:29Adam Schafer:But it's just for most people, it's not ideal and they actually don't do very well on a diet that is without carbohydrates. Even though carbohydrates aren't essential, people tend to do better with them. It's usable energy and yeah, it just makes a lot of your physical efforts a lot easier. Not just that, but that you feel better and you start to notice hormone issues oftentimes. And so although it's not essential, what I'm not communicating, what we're not saying is don't eat them because it's beneficial to eat them. But you definitely, definitely need a certain amount of protein and fat because if you go too low, it causes problems.

10:06Adam Schafer:In fact, I've had many times with clients, this was especially common in the late 90s and early 2000s when I was a personal trainer, you know, coming right out of the low fat era where, you know, fat was so demonized. I would have female clients that were so afraid of consuming dietary fat that I'd look at their diets. And even though their calories were somewhat okay, their fat was so low that I would literally have them add an avocado and some olive oil. And boom, their health would just improve dramatically within days, most of the time within a week or two because they needed the fats.

10:46Sal Di Stefano:I also find getting a client to understand macros so important for just the individual variants too and how people feel. Yes. Right? So like, I can't tell you how many times I've had a client that feels way better with a higher fat and a lower carbohydrate type of diet and then vice versa, right? Somebody will be much better off of a moderate fat to low fat and a much higher carbohydrate diet. And certain people will do really well on protein up to a certain threshold. And then over that is too much and their digestive is off. So this is where really understanding your macros and what your body needs based off of your goals and your body where it's at.

11:31Sal Di Stefano:And then within that, playing with those numbers and going like, oh, I seem to do better when I have more of this and less of that. And, you know, you have, like you said, your point, there's your essential numbers. And then you have like optimal and optimal may look different for each individual. And I've found that, you know, it's not a, you know, sex by sex or weight class by weight class or goal by goal that changes. Just there's an individual variance of some people do better on a higher carbohydrate diet versus other people do better on a lower carbohydrate. Some people do really well on really high fat versus moderately high fat.

12:09Sal Di Stefano:And so until you kind of learn what does your body need and then how do we play with those additional calories within those macros?

12:17Adam Schafer:Great, great, great point. So let's start with protein. And we're going to talk in generalities because there is an individual variance here, okay? But generally speaking, and this is true for most. So when I say general, this is actually true for most. a diet that is high in protein, much higher than what would be considered essential, does better for people regardless of the goal. Okay. So if you want to lose weight, if you want to lose body fat, if you want to build muscle, if you want to improve athletic performance, if you're looking at a better cognitive health, there's even studies that show that this is beneficial for longevity, especially as you get older, a higher protein diet works better, especially for body composition change.

13:15Adam Schafer:Almost always. Almost always.

13:17Sal Di Stefano:Yeah. I would say, unless you have that rare condition, because occasionally you do have somebody who has digestive issues at a high amount.

13:28Adam Schafer:Which I have a remedy for that. I was just going to say. There's other options.

13:30Sal Di Stefano:So a lot of times what that is is actually playing with the type of protein many times.

13:35Adam Schafer:And or bumping fiber. Right. So I've had lots of clients where we'll get real high protein. They get constipated. We'll add more fiber. We need movement. And they're totally fine. Yes. Agreed.

13:45Sal Di Stefano:So I would say that what you're saying is more often the rule than the exception. Yes. Yes. Very, very rarely did I have to put somebody on a moderate or on the lower end of protein. Typically, a higher protein diet for all goals tends to serve most people.

14:02Adam Schafer:So I'll go over what the data says on high protein, and then I'll go over what coaches tend to recommend because they're a little different. Okay, and then I'll explain why, or we'll explain why there's a difference there. So here's what the data says on the upper limit from where you can see the benefit from protein intake. So in other words, they've done lots of studies on protein intake, controlled calories for different goals, fat loss, muscle gain, athletic performance, health, all that stuff. And what the data seems to show is about 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight is the upper limit of when you're going to see benefit.

14:43In other words, once you go above that, you tend to not see any more benefit.

14:47Adam Schafer:But right around there is where you're going to get the maximum benefit. Now, here's what coaches tend to promote. Here's what I tend to promote. Here's what my co-hosts will promote. One gram of protein per pound of target body weight. So let me explain why. Number one, I round up to one. Easier number to remember. And 100%, you're not going to hit this number every day. So it's a hard number. 0.6 to 0.8 is hard to hit consistently. And what I found as a trainer is when I tell people aim for one, more often than not we fall within the 0.6 to 0.8 range a lot closer to where you need to be then when i say 0.6 to 0.8 we also use target body weight because if you're really overweight and you just heard me say 0.8 uh or 0.6 per pound of body weight you're like well i weigh 300 pounds like i gotta eat 250 grams now you got a math problem yeah no no no one gram of protein per pound of target body weight so take whatever body weight you want to weigh that you think is probably good for you.

15:44Adam Schafer:That's your goal in grams of protein that you eat every single day.

15:48Sal Di Stefano:You have to talk about too, the importance of hitting that number every single day consistently and it resets.

15:54Adam Schafer:It's not like a - You don't store it like carbohydrates or fat on your body. Amino acids are not, we don't really store amino acids very well. Muscle tissue, but for your body to start consuming amino acids from muscle, you're actually starving. So yeah, no, protein is one of those things. It's like, you could carb load, you could go you know your body has body fat but protein doesn't work that way uh it's pretty much a good idea unless you're doing like a digestive system break or something like that um uh every day you want to hit this every single day yeah so in other words high days and low days don't

16:27Sal Di Stefano:average out right is what you're and that's and why that's so important is because i think a lot a lot of clients will look at it like oh i average this much but then what they they'll have these they'll have two three days that are really low and a lot of other days are really high and so I found that most people struggle to do what you said, which is hit that 0.6 to 0.8 consistently day in and day out. Yeah.