HOW MACROS ARE CALCULATED

Persist Nutrition

While we provide an easy way to calculate your macros with our Macro Calculator, it can be helpful to further understand what goes into the process to help you refine.

Step 1: Your Energy Expenditure

Our roadmap to getting the right starting point for your nutrition.

  • Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) – First you need to figure out a ballpark for how much food our bodies need on a given day to fuel our activities and bodily function. Calculators are never totally precise because our day-to-day requirements fluctuate. What they can do is give us a ballpark of what our caloric needs are daily. These calculators take into consideration our sex, age, bodyweight, body composition, daily activity level, and training demands. Each of these contribute to how much energy our body burns. TDEE calculators will first find your Basal Metabolic Rate (how many calories you need to simply exist) and then adjust for activity levels to arrive at an estimate of your daily total caloric expenditure. There are different formulas for this, which give slightly varying results. In our experience, the most accurate formula is the Katch-McArdle, which works off of your body fat percentage. If you are curious, you can compare your results from entering a body fat percentage vs. leaving this number out and following the alternate formula below. Here is a tool to estimate your body fat percentage – but it is best to work off the most accurate number possible such as from an InBody or Dexa Scan.If you do not have a body fat percentage, the calculator will use the Mifflin-St. Joer Equation, which estimates your Basal Metabolic Rate based on your age, height, weight, and gender (males and females are assumed to have different amounts of lean mass; if you are not cisgender, you may prefer to calculate with a body fat percentage instead). Next we need to adjust for activity level. This is where many people need to fine-tune, as different levels of activity can lead to a large caloric difference in your TDEE. It is easy to think, “Well, I work out an hour per day and I go hard! I must be in the Heavy Activity category.” Yet if you have a desk job or are largely inactive the rest of the day, you will still likely fall on the light activity side of the scale. Here are the descriptions we use to help guide your choice:
    • Limited Activity – Desk job, mostly sedentary all day, and training is 3-5x/week for under an hour each time.
    • Low Activity – Some activity throughout your day but still minimal and you train 3-5x/week for around 60mins
    • Moderate Activity – Moderately active throughout your day and you train 5-6x/week for 60-90mins (many of our PERSIST or ID clients)
    • High Activity – Active job or moving a lot throughout your day and you train 5-6x/week for 90mins or more
    • Heavy Activity – You are very active outside of your training and you also perform 5-6 workouts for 90+ minutes, or even double days
  • Establish Your Goal – Now that we have your TDEE estimate, let’s adjust it based on your goal so that your daily caloric intake will support the changes you want to see.

    • Challenge goals vs. Sustainable change – one isn’t necessarily better than another, but it is important to know what you are up against. Challenge goals will require substantial reductions or increases in food that can make long term adherence difficult. With that said, they can help you to see more immediate changes that are motivating. A sustainable approach will likely be easier to follow long term and can always be made more aggressive later once you get into a good rhythm.
    • Challenge Fat Loss – 25% Deficit
    • Recomposition (sustainable fat loss) – 10% Deficit
    • Maintenance – Energy Balance
    • Lean Muscle Gain – 10% Surplus
    • Challenge Muscle Gain – 25% Surplus

Step 2: Your Macros

This is where we will build your macronutrient profile and prioritize Protein, then Carbs, then Fats based on your goals. Understanding how to spread your daily calories over the 3 macronutrients is a good skill to have when you need to adjust estimates based on your own individual needs.

 

Keep in mind that our macronutrient needs will change and flux over time. Building an understanding of the WHY behind specific macronutrients have a place in our diets, and furthermore, building self awareness of how those macros make you feel and digest, is key to owning the long game.

1. Determine Your Protein Needs (Foundation to build Macros)

When choosing your protein level we want to consider a few things, the most important of which are your current level of leanness and the type/amount of training you do. Protein is an essential macronutrient to prioritize for fat loss and muscle gain.  Protein supports fat loss, muscle gain, satiety, and energy levels. With that said, more isn’t always better. When you are aiming to fix your caloric intake for weight loss, high protein means fewer grams of fat and carbs each day. Determine your optimal protein amount to make your macros effective and sustainable below. Most of you will fall into the High or Moderate categories.

  • Heavy (1.2g/lb) – Maintenance or muscle gain clients that are very lean, perform heavy resistance training, and already have a history of eating high protein diets.
  • High (1g/lb) – Maintenance, muscle gain or fat loss clients that are relatively lean; or if you’re not sure what your needs are, this is a good place to start.
  • Moderate (.825g/lb) – Maintenance clients that have low or moderate activity, or fat loss clients that have slightly more fat to lose (>20/30% BF)
  • Low (.65g/lb) – Fat loss clients that don’t train much and have a substantial amount of fat to lose (>30/40% BF)

1 gram of protein = 4 calories, so multiply your grams by 4 to see how much of your daily TDEE to eat in protein.

2. Establish your Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the one macronutrient that our bodies don’t have an essential need for. We can manufacture carbohydrates and derivatives as needed. Carbs have a profound impact on your hormones, energy, and body composition, and should be a macronutrient that you investigate amounts of in order to find optimal function.

 

Choosing what carb approach to take is very dependent on your goals and your past experience with macro nutritional approaches. With your protein set above, your carb selection will conclude establishing your macros. Most fat loss clients will utilize Low or Cycling.

  • Low – This sets your carbs at 20% of your daily energy needs. If you are aiming to lose fat either sustainably or with a challenge goal, this is generally a great option. If you are holding more body fat than you desire it is likely that your body will respond better with lower carbs.
  • Moderate – This sets your carbs at 33% (1/3) of your daily energy needs. If you aren’t sure where to start this can be a good first step. You can always change later when you get more clear on your goals and get the hang of counting your macros.
  • High – This sets your carbs at 50% of your daily energy needs. This is appropriate for high-performance athletes or individuals looking to build muscle.
  • Cycle – Carb Cycling is an approach in which you follow low carb most days with periodic high carb days to replenish glycogen, give you an anabolic boost, and in some instances help those in a fat loss cycle to find the approach more sustainable.

Sustainability is also an important consideration.  What do you feel will be sustainable for you? Do you find yourself craving more sugar when you eat carbs? Does a meal more rich in fat and protein feel good and give you energy? If you answered yes to these then choosing a lower carb approach might give you more success. Vice versa, if eating low carb always has been problematic for you and you cannot sustain, then choose a moderate to higher carb number. In the end if your total caloric intake is correct, and you are doing resistance training as a backbone of your exercises, you can lose body fat and retain muscle mass on either approach. The key is finding the macronutrient numbers that make this a sustainable practice while you try to manipulate your body, health, and performance.

 

1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories, so multiply your grams by 4 to see how much of your daily TDEE to eat in carbs. If you are carb cycling, you’ll calculate both Low and High and alternate them on a schedule such as 3 days Low Carb/High Fat, 1 day High Carb/Low Fat, 2 days Low Carb/High Fat, 1 day High Carb/Low Fat. During the Challenge we suggest a repeating schedule of high carb on Wednesday and Saturday, and low carb on the other days – this makes it easier to get into a regular rhythm.

3. Establish Fat Needs Last

General Guidelines for Fats – take care of your protein requirement first and then determine where you want to settle with your carbohydrates. After that, the remaining energy requirements you have go to fat. As an example, if your protein is 25% of your total calories, carbohydrates are 35%, then you would make your fat the remaining 40%.

 

Fat Adjustments – our formulas have a lower limit set point for fat. Low relative fat and higher carb diets are appropriate for certain clients; however, in some instances if your daily caloric goal is low and you are eating higher carbs, the resultant fat amount can become too low. Fat is essential for great hormone function, tissue healing, and energy. Our formulas won’t let your fat drop below 33% of your body weight in grams. If you see that your numbers for Carbs don’t perfectly match the above-outlined numbers, this is likely the reason why. Our calculator will also note if your fat and carbs have been adjusted.

 

For caloric calculations, 1 gram of fat = 9 calories.

Step 3 – Track and Adjust (aka Learn and Refine)

Refinement of numbers can happen as frequently as weekly, but every 14 days is more appropriate when you are getting started. We need to allow the body time to adapt to a new intake process before you determine that something isn’t working and adjust. You can use the following process of refinement at later time points in the challenge, or in the future beyond the challenge if you continue to pay attention to your numbers.

 

Depending on what you are working towards, you may want to change some numbers in order to help your body trend towards those goals. Remember that when we first calculated your daily caloric needs (TDEE) we make some estimations and assumptions. Those might not be playing out exactly as we had estimated and therefore we need to adjust.

  • Gain – if your goal is to put on a little muscle and your weight has been stable during a 7-14 day period, then increase your calculated numbers or weekly averages by 10-20% and make those your target calories and macros for the coming weeks.
  • Maintain – if your goal is to simply improve your health, digestion, or under go some body recomposition, and weight gain or loss is not a priority, then keep your calculated numbers or weekly averages from the 7 day period the same if your weight remains stable. Dial back or ramp up if you are deviating from your baseline weight you want to keep.
  • Lose – If your goal is to lose body fat and your weight remains stable after the 7-14 day period, then reduce your calculated numbers or weekly averages by 10-15% from your previous set point.
  • NOTE – If your bodyweight went the opposite direction during week one, don’t freak out. There is often an adjustment that happens as you change food quality, timing, and behaviors. Simply adjust your numbers to the higher end of the range provided (ie 15% of the 10-15% range)