What you are about to discover is a sure-fire, effortless
way to easily determine an appropriate nutrient ratio for
your own personal goals. First, dividing up the number 3,000 in our example by 6 will
give you 500 calories per part.
Second, knowing that one part equals 500 calories we can
figure out the number of calories for each part based on
the 1-2-3 rule-of-thumb.
Fat: 1 part x 500 = 500 calories allotted to fat
Protein: 2 parts x 500 = 1000 calories allotted to protein
Carbs: 3 parts x 500 = 1500 calories allotted to carbs
Note: If you don't know how many calories are in fat,
protein and carbs, let me show you really quick so we can
continue on with figuring the proper ratios. You'll
use this later to keep it handy.
Fat = 9 calories per gram
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram
Finally you should begin to notice that if you take the calories
allotted to each part and divide that number by the numbers
above you get:
Fat Calories: 500/9 = 55g of fat
Protein Calories: 1000/4 = 250 grams of protein
Carbohydrate Calories: 1500/4 = 375 grams of carbs
Figuring out the ratios at this point is just as easy as
dividing the nutrient totals by the overall calorie totals.
For example, 500 fat calories / 3000 overall calories =
16% fat. Carrying on you'll see this is broken
down into:
Fat: 17% (rounded up)
Protein: 33%
Carbs: 50%
How's that for determining your own custom ratio? Now
you know how to figure out how many grams of what nutrient
you need per day using this simple rule.
Using a diet tracking program, that task should be as easy
as cutting a fresh apple pie! But we aren't finished
yet...
Method 2 - Determine Nutrient Ratios
But what if you don't want to just follow the simple
1-2-3 rule to lose weight? What if you really want to build
muscle and you know you will need more protein?
That's where you simply modify the above rules to ensure
protein is the #1 factor in your calculations. If
you're thinking you have to reverse the formula, you are
right but it's easy if you know how.
Example: Male, 200 lbs, 15% body fat, competitive
athlete; using 1.14 grams of protein per lb of body weight
for this example.
Protein:
1.14 x 200 lbs = 228 grams of protein a day. If you
recall, we know that protein has 4 calories per gram right?
228 grams x 4 calories per gram = 912 calories from protein
Based on the daily calorie needs we used above, 912 protein
calories / 3000 overall calories = 30%
30% of the overall calories we need a day are from protein.
Fat:
While the RDA might recommend 30% or less of your calories
from fat, keep in mind the 1-2-3 rule which states that
1 part is fat.
1 part in this guideline is roughly 16.6% (but we'll just
round that up for now).
All this means is you want to get 17% of your total daily
calories from fat.
17% x 3000 total daily calories = 510 calories from fat...
Are you with me still?
Let's figure out how many grams that is simply by recalling
that a gram of fat is 9 calories.
So 510 fat calories / 9 calories per gram = 56 fat grams
per day!
Note: This may be a reduction for some people considering
that it's quite possible you were getting 50% of your total
calories from fats. If this is the case, you might
just have to adjust the ratios at this point so it's not
too drastic of a change. Slow and steady changes
win the race.
Let's keep going.
Carbohydrates:
3000 daily calories - 510 fat calories - 912 protein calories
= 1578 carb calories.
Again, if you recall there's 4 calories in a gram of carbohydrates.
1578 carb calories / 4 calories per gram = 395 grams of
carbs per day.
If you ever wanted to know the specific ratios, it's just
as simply as taking the nutrient calories divided by the
number of overall calories.
In this example, 1578 carb calories / 3000 daily calories
= 52%. So 52% of your overall daily calories come from
carbs. You can do the same formula for the rest to
see the exact nutrient percentages as shown in Method 1
above.
Hopefully you are still reading and if you are then just remember no matter if you use Method 1 or Method 2 of the 1-2-3 rule-of-thumb that is 1 part fat, 2 parts protein and 3 parts carbohydrates, it's valid for most people who are trying to melt fat while exercising. The rule can be changed to allow for muscle gain or fat loss.
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