Track everything you eat (in CALORIES) each day for about a week (4-7 average 'typical' days is good). Try not to make any dramatic changes to your intake during this tracking period. Along with intake, you'll want to take your scale weight every morning. Without scale weight this option won't work!

By the end of the 4-7 day tracking period you'll have a list of your daily calorie totals AND a snapshot of what your weight did during that time. It's typical for weight to fluctuate on a daily basis (water, sodium intake, digestion, etc.) but if your weight stays about the same, the average of your total daily calories will be YOUR starting point or ‘maintenance’ calories.

If you notice a downtrend in weight, maybe 2-3 pounds over a week, you know you aren't eating enough to offset your daily activity! Depending on your goal, you can add 200 calories in per day, track another week, and see if you can get closer to a maintenance number (where your weight stays the same). Same with an increase! If your weight goes up consistently over your 4-7 day tracking period, you are eating OVER maintenance. Depending on your goal you can drop 200 calories a day, track another week, and try to get it to stabilize.

Ideally you want to start this project with maintenance calories, but if your goal is weight loss or weight gain and you discover during tracking that you’re already moving in the right direction, feel free to use the average of your tracking period and get rolling!

With our ‘burn rate’ maintenance calorie estimates in hand, we're ready to convert to macros! I'm going to use an example calorie total that is purely for example purposes. Everywhere you see my value (2,500 calories) insert YOUR calculated or tracked result for maintenance calories.

Let's calculate our protein, carbs, and fat to total the 2,500 example maintenance calories.

Protein is not only the easiest and most straight-forward macro to track on a label, it's also the ONLY macro value that can be set based on a simple equation! Adequate protein intake is based on your LEAN BODY MASS. This is the weight of your body if you removed ALL body fat. We're talkin just muscle, bones, organs, and fluids. If you know your current body fat %, you can find a Lean Body Mass calculator here (click here to open a new window). If you don't, think back to the leanest you've been in your and subtract another 10lbs. Yes, this is another estimated value but it works for our purposes!

Since we've established that muscle grows at the rate of grass, your Lean Body Mass isn't going to be changing all that often. So don't feel the need to update this value every time the scale moves.

Your total Protein intake should be 1g-1.25g per pound of lean body mass.

Using the example above, the daily protein intake could be anywhere between 185g and 231g per day. Why the sliding scale? What does this mean? In order to maintain my current muscle mass, you’d absolutely need 185g per day but over 231g would be unnecessary! When cutting and running low on calories in general, keep that value closer to 185g. You want to make the most of every calorie you put in my body, and I personally would rather have extra carbs or fats! When bulking and calories are higher, scoot closer to 231g. I want to make sure I have adequate protein coming in and no mistake in tracking could pull me below that required amount.

Let's say for our example you set it right in the middle of the range: 208g of protein.

QUICK MATH BREAK & PROGRESS REPORT:

So far we know we have 2,500 total calories to work with. We 'spent' 208g on protein which equates to 832 calories (208g x 4 calories per gram = 832). That leaves 1,668 calories to divide up between fats and carbs (2,500 - 832 = 1,668)! No matter how you decide to divvy up carbs and fats, just make sure the combined caloric values add up to 1,668 to stay within your 2,500 daily total.

No way around it, calculating Fats and Carbs is part-guess and part-personal preference. If you're someone who prefers foods that are higher in fats, you're going to want a higher percentage of fats so you can eat more of the things you love! If you're a die-hard carb lover, you might want to spare some of your calorie-dense fats to allow for more space on the carb side. Take performance into consideration as well. If you perform better eating a higher percentage of carbs, go with it. Getting a good workout in and being able to think clearly are more important reasons than food preferences, at the end of the day.

I personally prefer carbs over fats, but I never want to cut fats out completely (balance!) I keep my fats between 50g-70g. If you're a person with an insane metabolism (so-called hard gainers) your total calories will be upwards of 3500 - 5000 or more and you'll want to give yourself more fats! It's not uncommon for someone with a high metabolism to have fats set at 100g/day or higher.

Let's use 70g of fat in our example. I don't have a ton of calories to work with, but I don't want to be at the bottom end of the range either.

QUICK MATH BREAK & PROGRESS REPORT:

Of our remaining 1,668 calories, we've now allocated a few more to fats. 70g of fat = 630 calories (70g x 9 calories per gram fat = 630) Leaving the rest (1,038 calories to be exact) to use for carbs! If we know carbs are 4 calories per gram, then 1,038 calories divided by 4 calories per gram = 259.5g carbs

Our final result in this example of 2,500 calories:

> 208g protein, 70g fat, 259.5g carbs <

Could this be tweaked? Totally! You have room to adjust on protein, to alleviate more calories to put towards the other values. You could pull some calories from carbs and add to your fats as well. But this would be a solid place to start. Remember, these values will need to be adjusted anyway as you head towards your goal of adding or losing weight. So don't get too attached!

If your goal is to lose weight:

adjustments will need to be made to your carbs OR fats OR cardio. After tracking your intake according to your macros for a full week, if you don't see a drop in weight on the scale choose from the following adjustments:

- cut 20g from your daily carbs
- cut 9g from your daily fats  
- add 15 min steady state cardio (incline treadmill, stairs, bike)
- add 5 min HIIT cardio intervals (40 seconds on, 20 seconds easy pace alternating cardio of choice)

If your goal is to gain weight/build muscle:

adjustments will need to be made in the same areas! But in the opposite direction AND at a different rate. When losing weight, adjustments can be made every time you don't hit a new low on the scale. But as we discussed before, muscle doesn't grow as fast as body fat sheds off! If you were gaining 1lb each week on a bulk, most of that would be added body fat. During a bulk you want to make sure the scale is not going down, and if it does you’ll want to make one of the adjustments above but the opposite direction.

- add 25g to your daily carbs
- add 11g to your daily fats  
- remove 15 min steady state cardio
- remove 5 min HIIT cardio intervals