How to Calculate Your Personal Macros
Let’s talk about how to figure out your own personal macros.
I want to emphasize from the top that your macros must be individualized. There is no fixed standard that will work for every person. These are only guidelines that you must adjust for yourself. You must listen to your body and become very good at hearing what it is trying to tell you.
You must understand the goal - which is to achieve a high enough metabolic rate to allow your body to be constantly renewed - to achieve resilience. The way this is accomplished can be slightly different for every individual, but the general principles will be the same for everyone.
Here is the way the Armstrong sisters put it:
“The goal is to provide the body with the building blocks needed to create energy. With adequate energy, the body will regenerate, heal, balance and organize itself to create health and eliminate symptoms of disease conditions.”
Your body will utilize all these to create energy:
burning carbs
burning fats
creating carbs from protein (gluconeogenesis)
All of these are utilized at various times in a healthy person. You don’t only burn fat or only burn carbs. True, a single mitochondrion will only burn one or the other. But you have 10,000s upon 10,000s of mitochondria in your body and they will burn different substrate (guided by thyroid hormones and other hormones) at different times.
But remember, properly burning carbohydrates is the preferred energy pathway. With all that said, let’s begin.
You need an app, like Cronometer or MyFitnessPal, to log your food and enter your goals. You should get the app and go ahead and log a few days worth of food to see what your typical Calories look like.
Then, using the Calories that you entered, you need to figure out your macros. My examples are going to be for a typical woman, so please adjust to your own individual needs.
First, let’s start with daily protein. You want to eat 0.6-0.8 g of protein per pound of ideal body weight per day. If you have a lot of stored body fat, use 0.6. If you have minimal stored body fat, use 0.8.
EXAMPLE: 150 lbs (ideal body weight) X 0.6 (you have plenty of stored fat) = 90 g protein
If you are eating 1800 Calories (we want to get that up to at least 2000, but you need to start at the Calories you are currently eating - which should not be below 1800), and we know there are 4 Cal per gram of protein, that will be:
90 g protein X 4 Cal = 360 Calories (which is 20% of an 1800 Calorie diet)
Next, figure out your daily fat. You want your daily fat to be 20-40% of your total Calories, dependent upon your current metabolic state. If you have any signs of metabolic dysfunction (pre-diabetic, diabetic, obese, overweight, fatty liver, cardiovascular disease, low thyroid, etc), you must keep your daily fat close to 20%. I would recommend every person that is trying to get to a high metabolic state to start with fat at the lower end and then work their way up as goals are met.
EXAMPLE: 0.20 X 1800 Calories = 360 Calories of fat = 40 g fat (9 Cal/fat g)
Finally, daily carbs. Your daily carbohydrates will just be the remainder of your Calories once you take away the protein and fat. Take your total Calories and then subtract your protein (in Calories) and your fat (in Calories) and what is left is what you want to eat in carbohydrate.
EXAMPLE: 1800 Calories - 360 Calories (protein) - 360 Calories (fat) = 1,080 Calories carbs
There are 4 Cal per gram of carbohydrate.
1,080 Calories of carbs = 270 g carbs per day
There you have it!
Remember, this is just a starting point for you to work from. A woman should work to get to a 2000 Calorie a day diet (at least) and a man should be at a 3000 Calorie a day diet (at least).
If you are at a super low Calorie level right now (say 1100 Calories), don’t immediately jump to 1800 Calories. Try adding 100 Calories a week, concentrating on mostly simple carbs (fruit, raw honey, maple syrup, fruit juice, white rice, potatoes, etc).
Keep these ratios consistent and concentrate on the foods that we have recommended in our previous posts. Until next time, be well!