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Calculating Macro/Calorie Percentages
I will start off by saying this article is mostly geared towards beginners learning how to calculate their macronutrient / calorie percentages on a diet. I myself remember a while back when I was first getting into dieting, that I did not know how to calculate anything, what the terms people were using meant, and so on. So, this article is meant to briefly go over some of the terms used and how to carry out the different calculations used in creating a diet.
Whats your Macros?
When the word 'macronutrient' is used it refers to either carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Oftentimes it is asked 'whats your macro split?' or some variation of that phrase, meaning what are your protein/carb/fat tallies. Oftentimes the response will be a split or some sort, 35/35/30, 40/20/20 and so on. These macro splits are usually designated as Protein to Carb to Fat splits, so if a person is saying 35/35/30 they mean they are getting their total daily calories as 35% from protein, 35% from carbs, and 30% from fat.
Macro Split
35 / 35 / 30
Protein / Carbohydrate / Fat
P / C / F
35% from Protein
35% from Carbohydrate
30% from Fats
These percentages are from total daily calories, so for the entire day, they will get 35% of their calories from protein and carbs, and 30% of them from fats.
How many calories do Proteins, Carbs, and Fats have?
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbs = 4 calories per gram
Fats = 9 calories per gram
How do I calculate how many meals I eat daily?
From my article on how to calculate maintainance calories, you should know how to calculate your maintainance, cutting, or bulking calories. Now we can look at taking these macro percentages and calculate how much we should be eating in terms of calories and grams of each macro.
Say a person has a cutting calorie level of 2500 calories daily
They want to use a 35/35/30 split, so we must calculate how many calories each that is first:
2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Protein
2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Carbs
2500 calories x (.30) = 750 calories from Fats.
All you do is take your percent you want to multiply by, and move the decimal place 2 places to the left, and multiply this by your calorie level.
So daily, we will eat 875 calories from protein and carbs, and 750 calories from fats. How many grams is this?
We take our daily calorie numbers, and divide by how many calories per gram they are, so:
875 calories from Protein / 4 = ~219g of protein per day
875 calories from Carbs / 4 = ~219g of Carbs per day
750 calories from Fats / 9 = ~83g of Fat per day
Now, how many meals we eat per day is the next number we divide by to get how many grams of each per meal, we eat. So:
219g of protein / 5 (if we eat 5 meals per day) = 44g of protein per meal
219g of carbs / 5 = 44g of carbs per meal
83g of fat / 5 = 17g of fat per meal
And you can divide by whichever number of meals you want to eat daily, whether it be 5, 6, 4, whatever.
So there we have it, you can now take any macro percentage and calculate how many total daily calories you should eat, how many calories per meal, and how many grams per meal each macro should be. Again, this article is mainly aimed towards beginners learning how to get these things calculated. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
I will start off by saying this article is mostly geared towards beginners learning how to calculate their macronutrient / calorie percentages on a diet. I myself remember a while back when I was first getting into dieting, that I did not know how to calculate anything, what the terms people were using meant, and so on. So, this article is meant to briefly go over some of the terms used and how to carry out the different calculations used in creating a diet.
Whats your Macros?
When the word 'macronutrient' is used it refers to either carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Oftentimes it is asked 'whats your macro split?' or some variation of that phrase, meaning what are your protein/carb/fat tallies. Oftentimes the response will be a split or some sort, 35/35/30, 40/20/20 and so on. These macro splits are usually designated as Protein to Carb to Fat splits, so if a person is saying 35/35/30 they mean they are getting their total daily calories as 35% from protein, 35% from carbs, and 30% from fat.
Macro Split
35 / 35 / 30
Protein / Carbohydrate / Fat
P / C / F
35% from Protein
35% from Carbohydrate
30% from Fats
These percentages are from total daily calories, so for the entire day, they will get 35% of their calories from protein and carbs, and 30% of them from fats.
How many calories do Proteins, Carbs, and Fats have?
Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbs = 4 calories per gram
Fats = 9 calories per gram
How do I calculate how many meals I eat daily?
From my article on how to calculate maintainance calories, you should know how to calculate your maintainance, cutting, or bulking calories. Now we can look at taking these macro percentages and calculate how much we should be eating in terms of calories and grams of each macro.
Say a person has a cutting calorie level of 2500 calories daily
They want to use a 35/35/30 split, so we must calculate how many calories each that is first:
2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Protein
2500 calories x (.35) = 875 calories from Carbs
2500 calories x (.30) = 750 calories from Fats.
All you do is take your percent you want to multiply by, and move the decimal place 2 places to the left, and multiply this by your calorie level.
So daily, we will eat 875 calories from protein and carbs, and 750 calories from fats. How many grams is this?
We take our daily calorie numbers, and divide by how many calories per gram they are, so:
875 calories from Protein / 4 = ~219g of protein per day
875 calories from Carbs / 4 = ~219g of Carbs per day
750 calories from Fats / 9 = ~83g of Fat per day
Now, how many meals we eat per day is the next number we divide by to get how many grams of each per meal, we eat. So:
219g of protein / 5 (if we eat 5 meals per day) = 44g of protein per meal
219g of carbs / 5 = 44g of carbs per meal
83g of fat / 5 = 17g of fat per meal
And you can divide by whichever number of meals you want to eat daily, whether it be 5, 6, 4, whatever.
So there we have it, you can now take any macro percentage and calculate how many total daily calories you should eat, how many calories per meal, and how many grams per meal each macro should be. Again, this article is mainly aimed towards beginners learning how to get these things calculated. If you have any questions feel free to ask.