Macronutrient Ratios

How important are macronutrient ratios? What are they exactly. Micronutrients are vitamins and mineral because we only need small amounts. The macro nutrients are Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat.

Carbohydrates are your bodys preffered source of fuel and burns cleanly. Carbohydrates are stored in your muscle cells and in your liver. Protein builds and repairs body tissue, this includes muscle. The human body does not store Protein, however in the absence of enough carbohydrates protein from your muscles will be converted into glucose, a (process known as glucogenesis)and used as Carbohydrate fuel. This is what you don't want in a weight gain or weight loss program. Fat is also fuel, it does not burn easily or as cleanly as carbs. Fat can be thought of as your reserve fuel tank. Stored away for emergencies. Fit people burn fat more easily than the unfit. The fitter you get, the more fat you brun in exercise

Macronutrient ratios usually look something like this
40/40/20
50/30/20
60/20/20
40/30/30

The first number represents the percentage of calories from Carbohydrates, the 2nd from protein and the 3rd from fat.

Different diet books or programs recommend any of the above or more extreme ones. The fact is the total number of calories is the most important detail. If you are not tracking your calories and are worried about macronutrient ratios you need to take a step back and sort the calories out first. If yoru calories are correct any of the above will work. At best they can be thought of as tweaking an already good program.

One popular diet, lets just call it hmmm..The Zone diet, claims some magical fat burning zone with 40/30/30. A closer look reveals it is made up of low calories. It works because the calories are low.

Even though they are overrated don't fully ignore them. Here are some real facts that may help you decide which to use. The weight control registery keeps a record of how people have lost weight, it must be a significant amount and be kept off for over a year before they accept you into the database
The average percentage of fat was 25%.
The average percentage of carbohydrate was 50-60%.
The average percentage of protein was 15-25%.

Knowing that protein has a high thermogenic effect (its burns calories in digestion) so 100 calories of protein is actually only 70 calories entering your system. Furthermore you are training hard, so you need a little extra protein.

With that in mind you will keep protein between 25-30% This now means carbs and/or fat need to come down. If you are carb sensitive (if you are very overweight and inactive, you most likely are) reduce your carbs to 45-50%. leave the fat ratio as is. If you are not carb sensitive, reduce your fat percentage to 20%

If you still don't know your daily calorie count, if you are not tracking it, the above is really irrelevant. Make sure calories have been tracked consistantly for svereal weeks. Calories first, macronutrient ratios later.Return to Diet Nutrition from Macronutrient Ratios