The Definitive Guide to Setting Up Your Nutrition, Part 1
Hey. Thank you for reading.
I am truly grateful that you’re here.
I know nutrition and exercise is a tough subject to figure out. Getting the body you want while still living your life and enjoying foods you love is a tough nut to crack. My hope here is that this article gives you some actionable advice and teaches you some of the foundations, the basics of nutrition for any goal. A starting point to living and feeling your best and working towards your best version of yourself. Let’s get started!
Some of the most common questions I get are “What do I eat to lose fat?” or “What do I eat to gain muscle without getting fat?”
It’s usually where most people start when they decide they want to change how they look. You search online for information about fat loss and muscle building. If you’re reading this, I’ll bet you’ve searched for these at some point.
The problem is you find thousands of results that contradict each other and even more that give you extreme methods for those goals. You try some of them, maybe get some results for the first couple months or so but then fall off the wagon or it stops working. I’ve been through that process time and time again as have people I’ve worked with.
The hardest part is finding the good information that is also sustainable long term and doesn’t make you feel miserable.
There is one other thing to consider. Is your body ready to lose weight? Many people are simply not eating enough or haven’t set their body up to effectively lose weight and keep it off. This is why it is so common to lose weight and months later regain that same weight and get trapped in the cycle of losing and gaining the same 10 pounds.
For your body to lose weight and keep it off, it needs to feel it is in a safe place to do so.
If that is confusing or if you are wondering where you stand, send me a message or comment at the bottom of this article.
If your body composition isn’t currently where you want it to be, you need to make adjustments. But what adjustments?
There are a number of different ways to approach this, and individual variance is a huge factor.
What works for someone else may not work for you and what works for you now may not work for you in the future.
But I’m going to focus on one way in particular here that I’ve seen yield greater success for people because it allows people to learn about their bodies and how it is affected by their nutrition AND teaches them the basics of nutrition. This tends to lead to long term success because rather than following a set plan blindly they learn how to make a plan, be flexible within that plan and practice it going forward.
STRUCTURE = FREEDOM
First, let’s go over a brief breakdown of the three macronutrients. Proteins, Fats & Carbohydrates.
PROTEIN
1 gram of protein contains ~4 kcal(calories)
Protein is one of the two essential macronutrients, we need it to survive and have optimal health.
Recent literature suggests intake of about 0.7 to 1.5g per pound of lean body weight to maintain or build muscle mass. There isn’t much change to body composition within those ranges
Anecdotally when trying to build muscle 0.7g/lb is sufficient provided calories are high enough and while cutting (trying to lose body fat) increasing protein intake a little higher is beneficial.
These don’t need to be strict rules to follow except for getting the minimum 0.8g/lb. If you prefer higher protein that works out to 1.2-1.5g/lb that’s fine and won’t be detrimental.
One thing to note, and this will vary between individuals, is that the higher ranges of protein (near 2 or more g/lb can lead to discomfort with digestion, bloating, etc.)
Protein also triggers Muscle Protein Synthesis which in short is what helps us retain or build muscle so eating at least 20-50g of protein per meal will support your training, speed up recovery and growth.
Whichever method you find is more enjoyable and sustainable for you will be what helps you achieve your goals and maintain them.
For the sake of simplicity, I tell people to aim for 1g/lb of body weight (lean body weight if you have a lot of body fat to lose) because the math is easy and makes setting your macronutrient goal easier.
FATS
1 gram of fat contains ~9 kcal
Fat is the other essential macronutrient. It is crucial for hormonal health, nervous system health and is a secondary fuel source for lower intensity activities like walking. Fat is great for daily activities where glycogen doesn’t need to be utilized.
Roughly 20% of total calories (provided you are eating a sufficient amount of calories) from fat is the minimum to maintain hormonal health.
As a broad generalization, most men feel fine on the lower end of the 20-35% range while most women feel better on the higher end.
I typically tell people to aim for 25% of calories from fat, which will be plenty for hormonal health, nervous system function and flexibility within your diet.
CARBOHYDRATES
1 gram of carbs contains ~4 kcal
Carbs are the macro that is not essential but have tremendous benefits for influencing body composition changes.
Carbs will fuel your workouts that demand glycogen as an energy source where they are stored in muscle tissue and they are part of the process in creating ATP.
There is some research suggesting carbs and protein together positively impact muscle protein synthesis and carbs are great for recovery because they replenish muscle glycogen after workouts and can help build muscle tissue when protein isn’t available as they are a protein sparing nutrient.
There isn’t a number or ratio I tell people to aim for with carbs, rather after setting protein and fat macronutrient targets, fill the rest of your calorie needs with carbohydrates.
This brings us to ENERGY BALANCE and finding how many calories you need for your goals.
Energy refers to calories.
When you burn more calories than you take in you lose weight. This is a negative calorie balance aka calorie deficit. When you take in more calories than you burn you gain weight. This is a positive energy balance aka calorie surplus. And when the two are equal you maintain weight aka maintenance calories.
Puts simply,
calories in > calories out = weight gain
calories in = calories out = weight maintenance
calories in < calories out = weight loss
To lose or gain weight you simply manipulate this energy balance by:
Increasing/decreasing the calories you eat
Increasing/decreasing the calories you burn
Any type of diet can work and you can further influence your body composition changes by setting your macros in a particular way. For example, you may be in a calorie deficit but far under consuming protein, which is something I see frequently, and you lose weight but you have lost both fat and muscle mass so you don’t have the “look” you desired. Macros are important here because they can influence how you lose weight. Keeping protein higher will help you maintain muscle mass as you lose weight so more of the weight loss comes from fat being one scenario.
Nutrition is the primary driver for fat loss, if you don’t focus on it you will not get very far. Training is the other side of the equation. Contrary to popular belief lifting weights and cardio doesn’t burn all that many calories. That’s why out-exercising excess calorie intake never works. It is far too easy to consume large amounts of calories than it is to burn large amounts of calories.
For both fat loss and muscle gain, the primary emphasis in regards to training should be done through resistance training. I won’t touch on training much in this article but in articles to come, so keep an eye out for that.
The way you approach training in the beginning should be built around where you are now. If you go from 0-100 it’s likely not sustainable. If you are not training currently a 2 or 3 day resistance training routine might be best. If you have been doing a 5-day split like you find frequently online but you’re stuck searching for results, ironically a 3 or 4 day routine might finally get you some results.
There are so many ways you can set up an effective training routine without needing to live in the gym or workout every single day.
In following articles I will cover some ways you can set up your training program for various goals and provide free routines for you to follow.
Whether you are trying to lose fat or build muscle, the main focus should be placed on doing the work that builds muscle. In a nutshell, muscle tissue is a primary driver of our metabolism. It is expensive tissue to maintain and produce.
A body with more muscle mass is a body that will burn more calories at rest.
Additionally, if you are eating in a calorie deficit AND you train to build muscle you will be sending the signal to your body that it needs that muscle tissue so it will do everything it can to maintain it. It’s like the body is thinking, ‘Ok, I need to keep this muscle here because if I don’t then these workouts will kill me.’ You will likely not build muscle in a calorie deficit, but you can maintain a significant portion of it and primarily lose body fat. We want to send the stimulus to the body to build the tissue that drives most of our metabolic rate.
How to set your Calorie Goals
The first step regardless of whether your end goal is to lose fat or build muscle is to find your maintenance calorie level, that is, the amount of daily calories where you maintain your current body composition at.
There are a couple ways to do this.
Track your regular daily calorie intake as it is in an app like MyFitnessPal or FatSecret, but keeping in mind to eat like you normally have been. Don’t let the fact that you are tracking influence your food choices. Do this for 1-2 weeks and track your bodyweight each day upon waking. After this couple of weeks you can calculate the average daily calories and body weight for each week. You will have a rough idea of whether that calorie level is a deficit, surplus or maintenance. Then adjust your calorie level until you maintain a stable weight for a week or so. This is the longer approach, so patience is key.
Use this generic formula as a starting point based on your lifestyle to set your starting calories and track until you find stable weight for about a week like above.
Sedentary (don’t train) - Bodyweight x 10-12
Light Activity (New to or little training) - BW x 13
Active (Intermediate/train often) - BW x 14
Vigorous (Athlete, Crossfit etc) - BW x 15-16
Once this is done, you now have a daily calorie total that will maintain your current bodyweight. We need to find this number because we can use that information to determine what the best course of action going forward is.
Some examples might be:
If you are only eating 1500 calories and maintaining weight, fat loss will be harder. You simply don’t have a lot of calories to pull from to create a calorie deficit. So your best course of action is to start with strength training and slowly bring calories higher. The benefits here could be body recompositioning, meaning you could build muscle and lose fat. You will likely also start to feel better, have better energy, sleep better and the increase in food and metabolism will improve hormone and thyroid function.
If you are eating 2200 calories and maintaining weight, you have some room to pull calories from and you could do a short diet or take the above approach and build those calories and the metabolism higher.
It is incredibly individualized and this is where hiring a coach to help you through this becomes so beneficial. It wasn’t until I hired a coach that I began to really learn how to periodize and phase my nutrition for whatever my goal was at the time.
Define Your Goal
Do you want to build muscle or lose fat?
BUILDING MUSCLE
Likely, if you want to build muscle you are probably comfortable with your level of body fat and you can set your new daily calorie goal by multiplying the maintenance calories you found by 1.1 to 1.15. It is best to keep the surplus conservative to limit the amount of body fat that you put on in the muscle building process. Provided you are following a well written program to build muscle, coming in another Part of this series.
Set your macronutrient targets to the ranges mentioned earlier (protein roughly 1g/lb, fat at 25% of calories and the rest of calories with carbs).
For example, let’s say you found your maintenance calories at 1800 calories and you weigh 150lbs.
For new surplus calories: 1800 x 1.15 = 2070 calories
For Protein: 150 x 1 = 150g protein x 4 cal/g = 600 calories
For Fat: 2070 x 0.25 = 517.5 calories/9 cal/g = 57.5 (so 58g fat)
For Carbs: 2070-600-518 = 952/4 cal/g = 238 (so 240g carbs)
Totals are 150g Protein, 58g Fat, 240g carbs
This is a good starting point for our individual at this weight and maintenance calories. It will give he/she adequate protein to gain muscle and strength, enough fat for your hormones and nervous system (though women may want to use closer to 30%, but it is very individual, so go by how you feel and try some slight variations in these ratios) and sufficient carbs for recovery.
As you consume this new calorie level and train each week, continue to track your bodyweight to help with making additional calorie and macro adjustments. This is ALL highly individual and but some rough estimates of what you can expect to gain for a natural lifter are:
1-2% BW/month as a beginner (1-2 years lifting)
0.5-1.5% BW/month intermediate (3-4 years consistent)
0.5% or less BW/month advanced (5+ years consistent)
Some people may need a larger surplus than others to build muscle whereas some gain just fine on the lower end. The only way to know where you fall is to track consistently and make adjustments if needed. If you are gaining weight too fast, then reduce calories by 5% and vice versa for not gaining any weight or minimal weight. I generally advise clients to adjust calories up and down at this point through carbohydrates because they will have the most carryover to training performance.
When trying to build muscle, as bodyweight levels out and becomes stable, recalculate the calories using your surplus as your new maintenance. I typically recommend people to build some muscle until they reach ~15% body fat for men and ~25% body fat for women (very generalized numbers) which is roughly where nutrient partitioning starts to decline and then transition into a fat loss phase.
Ideally at this point we have built the metabolism up through strength training and periodically increasing calories during the process. That gives you more room to cut from when reducing calories to make fat loss a much easier process. If you start a fat loss phase with a calorie maintenance of 3000 calories you have much more total calories to pull from while you create a periodized deficit for fat loss. There will be more on that later and making adjustments in another part of this series.
LOSING FAT
If your goal is to lose fat after you have found what your maintenance calorie level is it can be a bit more nuanced based on what your maintenance actually is and whether or not you have a lot of body fat to lose. The main focus should still be training to build muscle as that will help you keep muscle while you lose fat.
When you want to try and lose body fat one of the key components will be how ready your metabolism is. Are you currently eating enough to effectively lose the weight?
One of the most common scenarios when people try to lose weight is going about it in a way that causes both muscle and fat loss. But what you want to do is aim to retain as much muscle as possible while dieting and telling the body to primarily lose weight through fat loss. This will give you a much better result towards the end of the diet, give you the body composition or “look” that you want rather than simply becoming a smaller version of yourself as you are now.
Part 2 will cover different scenarios that people may be in but also want to lose body fat and dive into how to influence weight loss to be primarily fat loss. It will get into whether or not that will be a good goal for you currently or if there is other work to be done before a fat loss phase to prepare the body for fat loss.
CONCLUSION:
My goal with this article is to help you find a starting point for your nutrition. A place where you can take the information here and apply it for a few weeks to learn where your bodyweight and daily calories are in relation to one another. Take this article and start to learn how your food affects your weight. Contact me or comment here with any questions. I’ll point you in the right direction.