Designing a Diet

Counting Calories and Tracking Macronutrients

Is it necessary?

Calorie counting is simply a method for tracking nutritional intake. Several benefits to counting calories are:

• The ability to determine that you are getting optimal protein intake for your goals.
• You can track and limit fat intake.
• You can ensure that you are eating enough and/or not eating too much. This is crucial to lean body mass retention.
• You can tweak the amount of food you are eating based on results Ie., for fat loss you can eat more if losing weight too fast, or less if not losing fast enough. And for muscle gain, vice versa.
• You can try out different macronutrient ratios (ie. lower fat, higher protein, lower carbs) and see how it affects your fat loss or muscle gains.

However, many people can lose fat fine without being strict and counting calories. If what you are doing is working for you, there is no need to start counting calories. On the other hand, if you are getting softer (losing lean body mass), or not losing fast enough on a diet; or gaining too much fat or not enough muscle on a "bulk", you should be counting calories.

Macronutrients

The three macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates and fats. Protein has 4 calories per gram, carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram, and fats have 9 calories per gram. Fiber contains between 0 and 2 calories per gram but we don't explicitly take this into account when doing ratios (just use total carbs, it will be close enough). Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram.

Macronutrient Ratios

A macronutrient ratio gives the percent of calories coming from carbohydrates, protein or fat.

There is no need to be strict with a particular ratio, and the one you favour will be dependent on you. There is also no need to switch ratios when switching from cutting to bulking (although, you may wish to make changes for increased satiety when cutting, or decreased fullness when bulking). A macronutrient ratio gives you the percent of calories from each nutrient in your diet. Here are a few suggestions (again, no need to be strict):

• 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat (higher carb)
• 45% carbs, 30% protein, and 25% fat (higher fat)
• 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat (higher protein)
• 35% carbs, 40% protein, and 25% fat (higher protein, higher fat)

Ensure that you are getting at least 1g of protein per pound of "goal" bodyweight. For fat loss, goal bodyweight is where you would like to end up. For muscle gain, use the bodyweight you expect to be in 6 months. So if you would like to weigh 120 lbs, then you would want at least 120 g of protein. As well, for dieting, 20% fat intake could put your fat intake very low, I suggest for most women to intake at least 40g of fat per day.

How to count calories

The simplest way to count calories and track macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) is through the use of free calorie tracking software such as Nutridiary. You simply add the foods in that you ate that day or, preferably, plan in advance by skipping ahead to the next day(s), and entering ahead of time.

I prefer Nutridiary for the ability to design meals that you can easily tweak to get desired nutritional amounts. Another website that is helpful is NutritionData. NutritionData is good for quick searching of nutrition info, and for calculating calories from recipes.

Advance Planning of Meals

Using Nutridiary you can plan meals based on your desired caloric and macronutrient content. Then you can either add the meals the day before, or you can use a word processor or spreadsheet program to write up week long meal plans in advance. Planning in advance will help with compliance to the meal plan as there are no "last minute" decisions to be made, and you can precook or tupperware meals in advance. Most meats last 3-4 days in the refrigerator, so advance cooking requires cooking twice per week or freezing of some meals.

Determining Caloric Needs

BMR Calculator: calories burned if all you did was sleep
- you should never ever eat less than this number while dieting. I recommend eating 200 to 300 calories above this number at minimum.

Maintenance Calculator: Calculator to approximate how many calories you burn in a day (this is a rough estimate based on your basal metabolic rate and activity level).

Advanced BMR formula: If you know your lean body mass, then you can use a different formula to calculate your resting metabolic rate (it will be more accurate).

Muscle Gain

One pound of dry muscle (muscle - water/glycogen content) contains just 1800 calories. As a beginner, you should expect to gain 1 pound of dry muscle per month. If done correctly, your total weight gain will approximately consist of 1 to 1.5 pounds of dry muscle, about 2 to 3 pounds of water and glycogen, and 1/2 a pound of fat. The 1.5 pounds of muscle and 1/2 pound of fat require approximately (1800*1.5+1800) = (4500)/30 = 150 calories extra each day. However, some people may be able to gain fat at a lower proportion, especially beginners, and eating 300 calories or more over maintenance may be required for optimal gains. I would suggest starting at 300 calories over maintenance, and if you gain too much fat, lowering to 200.

To determine how many calories you will need to intake, you first calculate the calories you need to maintain your weight using the calculator here. Then add 200-300 calories to get your starting point for muscle building.

If you find you are gaining more than 3-4 pounds a month (after the first initial stage of training, the first 3 months as a complete beginner), or you see too much fat gain, reduce calories accordingly.

If you are a "hard gainer", increase your daily calories by 200 each week until you see the progress you are looking for.

Body Recomposition (Muscle gain AND fat loss)

Have both high bodyfat percentage and low muscle mass? Read my article on skinnyfatness

Otherwise, I strongly suggest choosing 1 goal and concentrating on it as your results will be faster.