Calculating Macronutrient / Calorie Percentages

[transXisomer]

Calculating Macronutrient / Calorie Percentages

I will start off by saying this article is mostly geared towards beginners learning how to calculate their macronutrient / calorie percentages on a diet. I myself remember a while back when I was first getting into bodybuilding, that I did not know how to calculate anything, what the terms people were using meant, and so on. So, this article is meant to briefly go over some of the terms used and how to carry out the different calculations used in creating a diet.

Whats your Macros?

When the word 'macronutrient' is used it refers to either carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Oftentimes it is asked 'whats your macro split?' or some variation of that phrase, meaning what are your protein/carb/fat tallies. Oftentimes the response will be a split or some sort, 35/35/30, 40/20/20 and so on. These macro splits are usually designated as Protein to Carb to Fat splits, so if a person is saying 35/35/30 they mean they are getting their total daily calories as 35% from protein, 35% from carbs, and 30% from fat.

Macro Split

35 / 35 / 30
Protein / Carbohydrate / Fat
P / C / F

35% from Protein
35% from Carbohydrate
30% from Fats

These percentages are from total daily calories, so for the entire day, they will get 35% of their calories from protein and carbs, and 30% of them from fats.

How many calories do Proteins, Carbs, and Fats have?

Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbs = 4 calories per gram
Fats = 9 calories per gram

How do I calculate how many meals I eat daily?

From my article on how to calculate maintainance calories, you should know how to calculate your maintainance, cutting, or bulking calories. Now we can look at taking these macro percentages and calculate how much we should be eating in terms of calories and grams of each macro.

Say a person has a cutting calorie level of 2500 calories daily

They want to use a 35/35/30 split, so we must calculate how many calories each that is first:

2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Protein
2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Carbs
2500 calories x (.30) = 750 calories from Fats.

All you do is take your percent you want to multiply by, and move the decimal place 2 places to the left, and multiply this by your calorie level.

So daily, we will eat 875 calories from protein and carbs, and 750 calories from fats. How many grams is this?

We take our daily calorie numbers, and divide by how many calories per gram they are, so:

875 calories from Protein / 4 = ~219g of protein per day
875 calories from Carbs / 4 = ~219g of Carbs per day
750 calories from Fats / 9 = ~83g of Fat per day

Now, how many meals we eat per day is the next number we divide by to get how many grams of each per meal, we eat. So:

219g of protein / 5 (if we eat 5 meals per day) = 44g of protein per meal
219g of carbs / 5 = 44g of carbs per meal
83g of fat / 5 = 17g of fat per meal

And you can divide by whichever number of meals you want to eat daily, whether it be 5, 6, 4, whatever.

So there we have it, you can now take any macro percentage and calculate how many total daily calories you should eat, how many calories per meal, and how many grams per meal each macro should be. Again, this article is mainly aimed towards beginners learning how to get these things calculated. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

transX

[GotTest]

Thanks for laying out all the math brother.

[transXisomer]

Originally Posted by GotTest

Thanks for laying out all the math brother.

No prob man, hope it helps some

[MasterX]

Very very good read!

Please, Could you explain How to choose the appropriate macro split?

Why did you wrote macro splits that do not reach 100% (40/20/20)?

thanks,
Mx

[newguy2008]

typo prob meant 40/40/20

how do you calculate the calories you need to cut/bulk/maintain?
btw awesome post!!!

[MasterX]

Originally Posted by newguy2008

typo prob meant 40/40/20

how do you calculate the calories you need to cut/bulk/maintain?
btw awesome post!!!

To cut or bulk you use your Basal metabolic rate (Daily calories intake)

let s say 2500calorie per day, to cut or bulk you will add a percentage of calories 10% 20% 30%..... you choose and try what is best for you.

If you decide to go with 20%
You do the math 2500x (0,20) = 500calories.

Either you substract 2500 - 500 if you want to cut or add 500calories to 2500.




Mx.

[transXisomer]

Originally Posted by MasterX

Very very good read!

Please, Could you explain How to choose the appropriate macro split?

Why did you wrote macro splits that do not reach 100% (40/20/20)?

thanks,
Mx

Yeah the split didn't reach 100 cause it was a typo

The choice of appropriate macro split is really based upon your goals, whether you are bulking, cutting, or maintaining. For bulking, depending on your bodyfat / how well you tolerate carbs, you could do P/C/F 35/35/30 or 40/40/20, I prefer the former for most people. For cutting, I would do P/C/F 35/35/30 or lower carb end with 20% of total calories coming from carbs. Some tolerate low carbs well, some do not. Usually I try to start off with small dietary changed and work up, for example first eliminating all carbs except vegetables and fruits, then from there some vegetables and fruits, and from there no carbs except from very fibrous veggies / fruits. Tons and tons of ways to do it, its very individual.

Originally Posted by newguy2008

typo prob meant 40/40/20

how do you calculate the calories you need to cut/bulk/maintain?
btw awesome post!!!

This question can be answered by the other stickies I wrote.

[B-natural]

nice lil read there ti.
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