Nutrition 101 – Part 2: Macro-nutrient Breakdown

Part of what we try do here in Dre’s Fitness Group is try to help you by answering your questions... we won’t always have the answers, but we will do our best to assist when possible. A common area of questioning is nutrition... So I decided to put a 5 piece article together to help overcome some of the confusion!

The cornerstones that guide my personal philosophy on daily nutrition are:

• Total calories (Part 1)
• Macro-nutrient breakdown (Part 2)
• Meal timing (Part 3)
• Current training goal - ‘Refeeding, Calorie & Carb Cycling’ (Part 4)
• Prep – ‘Contest prep or Photo shoot’ (Part 5)

Macro-Nutrient Breakdown

In Part 1 - I discussed how to determine your daily calorie requirements. Calories however, are not the only part of the equation. The next big question is where do the calories come from?

In order to achieve large gains in muscle mass or significant body fat decreases, many hormonal events need to occur in the body.

These events are affected to a large extent by the quality, timing, amount and ratio of the macronutrients consumed on a daily basis. There are three major macronutrients that the human body needs in order to function properly;

Fat - 9 calories per gram

Protein - 4 calories per gram

Carbohydrates - 4 calories per gram

There are many different methods and thoughts when it comes to calculating the ideal ratios.

Unfortunately there are a considerable amount of people have no idea of how to eat correctly. Depriving your body of carbohydrates, proteins, or fats (yes, even fats) can be very detrimental. I think the problem is that many people really do not know what your body does with these types of foods

Macro-Nutrient Basics

Let’s take a closer look at the 3 macronutrients that the human body needs in order to function properly.

Carbohydrates

Contrary to the belief that carbs are evil, carbohydrates are a very helpful macronutrient when one is trying to gain or maintain muscle. Carbohydrates assist the muscle building process in a couple of ways. Carbohydrates spare amino acids from oxidation by providing a more readily available source of stored energy.

Carbohydrates are your body's main source of energy. When you ingest carbohydrates your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin.

Insulin is very important because:

• It interacts with carbohydrates and either stores them in the muscle or stores them as fat. 
• It latches onto amino acids (protein) and shelters them inside the muscle cell for recovery and repair.

Insulin also inhibits the action of catabolic hormones such as glucogen and cortisol, the main catabolic hormone released during intense exercise sessions. Due to its anabolic and anti-catabolic effects, one can clearly see that insulin is a very useful tool in stimulating muscle protein synthesis.

Carbohydrates are also helpful in maintaining stored glycogen levels.

What Is Glycogen?

Glycogen is the principal stored form of carbohydrate energy (glucose), which is reserved in muscles. When your muscles are full of glycogen, they look and feel full.

Low glycogen levels can increase fatigue while training, leading to less productive workouts and lower energy levels.

Low muscle glycogen stores are not advantageous to people who lift with high intensity. Therefore, eating carbohydrates throughout the day to keep muscle glycogen high is very important.
 
Why I am not an advocate of Low Carb/Ketogenic Diets

Ketogenic dieting refers to reducing carbohydrate intake to practically nothing, while simultaneously raising fat and protein intake. With little glucose for the brain to utilize for energy, the body will begin producing ketones. Ketones are by-products of fat oxidation and the brain can use ketones for energy. This does indeed have a potent fat burning effect, as insulin levels will be severely reduced due to lack of carbohydrate intake. Low insulin levels correlate with high rates of fat oxidation.

The ketogenic diet may be the single fastest way to lose the maximum amount of body fat in the shortest amount of time. However, maintaining lean muscle should always be number one on our list, with fat loss second. If one has not properly scheduled enough time to lose body fat and they are in need of drastic measures, then using a ketogenic diet may be their only choice. Unfortunately, they will not maintain an optimum amount of muscle mass.

You may get ripped to the bone... you just wont have any muscle left!

For those who have given themselves ample time to prepare, I do not suggest using a ketogenic diet. Instead, I recommend reducing carbohydrates, but keeping them high enough to possess the muscle sparing benefits of carbohydrates while still losing body fat.

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that long-term exposure of cells to ketones retard insulin sensitivity.

This causes one to become extremely sensitive to carbohydrates when they begin eating them again after they finish dieting and could lead to an undesired post diet fat gain.

The other problem with extreme low carbohydrate diets is they cause severe reduction in cell size.

As mentioned previously the body stores carbohydrates inside cells as glycogen. For every gram of glycogen stored, the body stores around 2.7 g of water. Therefore, cells that have greater glycogen levels will also have more volume. One can see then how low carbohydrate diets severely decrease cell size due to severe glycogen depletion.

One more issue to consider is performance. If performance begins to suffer, then a person will undoubtedly lose strength. This could lead to a subsequent loss of muscle mass due to decreased stimulation from a decreased training overload. Therefore, it is important that performance be kept at an optimal level.

So in conclusion... Don’t be afraid of carbs – just be smart!

Protein

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, just as many glucose molecules make up glycogen, amino acids make up proteins.

There are numerous functions of proteins in the body, but I'll just concentrate on the most important: proteins are involved in the growth, repair, and replacement of tissue, all tissue... including muscle, hair, skin, and nails etc.

Without protein, building muscle and burning fat efficiently would be impossible. Its importance is paramount.

That being said more is not always better - Too much protein can have side effects. If they take up too large a part of your diet it can cause gastro-intestinal disorders the likes of which you have never seen and may be the reason for many a single status of bodybuilders on facebook!

Nitrogen balance

This is referring to protein synthesis and degradation in the body.

Negative Nitrogen State - If you excrete more nitrogen than you consume, your body will break down muscle tissue to get the nitrogen it needs. This puts your body in what is called a catabolic state. Ultimately, you cannot grow if your body is in a catabolic state.

Positive Nitrogen State - If however, you consume more nitrogen than you excrete, you will be in an anabolic (muscle building) state.

Fats

Things to NOTE:

• All cells in the body contain some fat.
• The bodies hormones require fat to be manufactured.
• Fats also lubricate your joints.

So if you eliminate the fat from your diet, then your hormonal production will go down and a whole array of chemical reactions will be interrupted. Your body will then start accumulating more body fat than usual so that it has enough fat to keep on functioning.

Unfortunately, fats are also easily stored as adipose tissue (body fat) So there must be some type of compromise between ingesting enough fat for hormone & muscle maintenance and reducing fat intake enough to decrease body fat.

Macronutrient Needs

The purpose of this article is to give a basic understanding of the 3 macronutrients, not specifically to go into enormous detail on the different types of carbohydrates, proteins and fats and how they affect you and your efforts. These specifics will be covered in more detail in separate articles at the conclusion of the 5 part series.

It is now time to determine how much of each macronutrient you should aim for.

Most people usually determine this using some form of percentage ratio... I personally believe this should NOT be based on a generic RATIO of total calorie intake such as 30:40:30 or 40:40:20

Your body doesn't care what percentage intake you have for macronutrients. It works in terms of sufficient quantity per total body weight or more accurately lean mass. This means that everyone's individual ratios will vary depending upon total calorie consumption and total body weight.

How to calculate your Macros

Let me start by saying - regardless of what your macronutrient breakdown if you eat an excess of anything, it will be stored as fat, so determining your correct total daily calorie consumption is critical.

Protein Intake:

The “golden standard” generally when it comes to protein intake for a bodybuilder is around 1g per lb of bodyweight.

I prefer to use the following guidelines:

• If body fat UNKNOWN but AVERAGE = 1-1.25g per lb of total body weight.

• If body fat KNOWN = 1.25-1.5g per lb of LEAN weight.

If you are VERY LEAN or if you are on a LOW TOTAL CALORIE INTAKE then protein becomes more important:

• Avg. body fat, low calorie intake/OR very lean = 1.25-1.5g per lb of total body weight.

• If body fat known, lower calorie intake = 1.33-2g per lb lean weight.

If you are VERY OVERWEIGHT, VERY INACTIVE, and NOT on a lower calorie diet then you can decrease slightly BELOW the above levels:

• Overweight/Very inactive = 0.8-1g per lb of body weight

Fat intake:

• Mesomorphs – 20% – 24% of total calories
• Ectomorphs – 24%-28% of total calories
• Endomorphs – 26%-30% of total calories (fat intake is increased in order to reduce carbohydrate intake, as endomorphs may have a difficult time losing fat with higher carbohydrate intakes).

 
Carbohydrate Intake:

Whatever calories that have not been allotted to protein and fat intake will make up total daily carbohydrate intake.

Always remember - although your goal may be to achieve improvements in your phyZique, doing so does not have to come at the expense of taste or your health!

In conclusion

This process, if followed will lay a good foundation for your nutritional plan and allows enough flexibility to take into account different body type and varied goals.

Nutrition is what gives us the raw materials for recuperation, energy, and growth. Without a good nutrition plan, your dreams of achieving your ideal body will never be reached.

Stay tuned for Nutrition 101 – Part 3 ‘Meal Timing’