We have access to a lot of information available on the internet related to nutrients & macro nutrients. You just enter your age, sex, weight & height into macro nutrient calculator & you will get information on how much calories/macro nutrients you need to consume to reduce, maintain or increase weight. It is relatively easy to know how many calories you should consume & how much you should burn to maintain a particular level of weight.
However, it is difficult to ascertain how much each macro nutrient one should consume, in what quantity & at what time to get the right kind of nutrient & maintain body metabolism. I am going to share today how much calories you intake from each type of macro nutrient & what should be correct ratio of each of them to have a balanced diet.
Generally people follow, If it fits your macro(IIFYM) diet/lifestyle which allows them to eat whatever they want to provided it fulfills their daily need for calories & macro nutrients. However, this differentiates diet lifestyle. As shared in my previous blog if you eat a lot of junk stuff, it may give you required calories however it would also impact your insulin sensitivity & blood sugar level. Ultimately it will have unhealthy consequences on your body.
This is an important learning for those looking for adopting healthier habits as you consume the same amount of calories by consuming more of healthier recipes, more fruits & vegetables, fibre & good fats. IIFYM can also lead to healthy eating habits by noticing what you are eating during the day however tracking it through IIFYM can become a tedious task.
- Calculating calories & macros
To evaluate what your calories & macronutrient goals should be, how much you are eating presently broken down into protein, carb & fats. Calories are nothing, but the amount of energy used through breakdown of various micronutrients: protein , carb & fats. It is not required to record the calories as the same can be calculated through macronutrients:
1 gram of protein & carbohydrate each equals 4 calories
1 gram of fat equals 9 calories.
Accordingly, depending upon the amount of protein, carbohydrate & fat, you can calculate the number of calories consumed. For instance if you are consuming 200 grams of protein, 100 grams of carbohydrate & 50 grams of fat, your total calorie consumption comes out to be 1650 calories.
By fixing up a macronutrient ratio, you can also calculate the grams of each macronutrient required to consume given your daily calorie consumption.
- Achieving your goals
You can both calculate calories & use macronutrient ratio to ascertain the number of calories you have consumed. If your target is weight loss, you can reduce calorie consumption by reducing carbohydrate consumption. Although, reducing fat consumption will help you reduce more calories since each gram of fat gives 9 calories. However consumption of good fat is less damaging than carbohydrate, since it directly impacts sugar/glucose level. All this will help you evaluate what are the gaps in your current diet & how you can make changes in macronutrients to adopt healthy habit.
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