Nutrition & Macros, as practiced by a 30-something Average Jane
I thought I’d post a little something about my personal nutritional plan these days, just because it’s been on my mind and there’s been a lot of chatter at the gym recently.
Like most of us, I’ve gone through phases with my diet. I’ve never been obese, but I’ve certainly cycled up and down through the same 20-25 pound range throughout the course of my adult life, as low as 145 lb (by running marathons, counting calories, and skipping breakfast) and as high as 170 lb (during my freshman year of college, when I became a Ben & Jerry’s cliche). As a 31-year-old CrossFitter, I’ve figured out that my ‘happy place’ in terms of scale weight is somewhere around 150-155 lb – that’s a weight where I can squat heavy AND do unbroken kipping pull-ups, snatch over 100 lb AND run a decent half marathon, eat cheat meals once in a while AND be satisfied with how I look in a bathing suit. More importantly, CrossFit has reinforced the perspective that what matters most is what my body can DO, not what it looks like; that truth has given me a solid sense of peace with my physical self on most days. (The flip side doesn’t hurt either, which is that if you can DO ten pull-ups and a 200-pound squat, you will LOOK like a person who can do those things. Form follows function – and function is way more fun to worry about than form!)
Anyhow, for a lot of reasons, I’m not quite at my ‘fighting weight’ right now, so I’ve been counting macros again for about 2-3 months. I’ve done this before, but I think this is the longest stretch for which I’ve ever been consistent. I had a big work trip that messed me up for a couple of weeks, but I’m back on track, and finally got brave enough to get on the scale the other day – where I was pleasantly surprised to discovered that I’ve dropped 7 pounds in just under 3 months. That’s exactly what I want to do – trend downward, but SLOWLY. I can tell that it’s working in other small ways, too – I did several sets of five unbroken kipping pull-ups yesterday, which I haven’t been able to do in a long time (and it didn’t even feel that hard! Going to shoot for the moon and try for 10 today…!).
At any rate, since there’s been a lot of conversation at the gym lately about macros, and I’ve fielded a lot of questions, I thought I’d share a little bit about what’s been working for me personally. Everybody’s macros are going to work out differently, because bodyweight varies and body composition goals vary even more. However, here’s the basic formula:
1. The starting point is always protein. I tend to use one gram of protein per pound of (DESIRED) bodyweight (which for me is about 150), because it makes the math easier. Some people will use slightly less, like 0.8g; other people (usually guys who are trying to gain muscle mass) might use a little more, like 1.2g.
2. After protein comes fat, which needs to be AT LEAST 25% of one’s daily intake, but can absolutely be more. Some people go as high as 40%, maybe even higher if they aren’t athletes and/or are trying to work on reducing their blood sugar. Our bodies need fat to absorb vitamins (A, D, E, and K specifically) as well as for a lot of other metabolic processes.
3. Carbs are the third and final piece of the puzzle, and basically constitute whatever’s left over of the daily allotment after figuring out the protein and fat.
Since IIFYM.com appears to have ‘sold out’ and no longer has a free macro calculator available, I’m going to do this from the ground up by relating it back to calories, which is something we’re all a little more familiar with. Basically, a gram of protein is equivalent to 4 calories, a gram of carbohydrates is also 4 calories, and a gram of fat is 9 calories. If I’m using 150g protein as my target, that equals 600 calories of pure protein. The remainder of my daily caloric allotment is for carbs and fat, and those two things can be adjusted up or down to complement one another in whatever ratio I choose, as long as fat is at least 25% of the daily intake.
Personally, I’m using a daily target of about 1800 calories… which is enough of a deficit for me to see some slow progress, but high enough to not make me want to Kill All The Things on the way there. :-) 25% of that number is 450 calories, which we divide by 9 to get a daily goal of 50g fat.
The third and final piece is carbs. 150g or 600cal protein + 50g or 450cal fat = 1050 calories so far… so I have 750 calories left over to use for carbohydrates – which, divided by 4, works out to ~188 grams.
…which, side note, continues to seem RIDICULOUS to me. If left to my own devices, I would happily eat chicken and beef and avocado and almond butter and shrimp and fish and vegetables and nuts all day long; apart from the odd sweet potato or serving of French fries, I rarely miss starchy carbs. The problem with this is that somebody who does CrossFit NEEDS carbs in order to function; I’ll confess that since switching to a higher carb intake, I experience a whole lot less muscle soreness. Which makes total sense physiologically, because insulin – the hormone that’s released when we eat carbs – serves as the metabolic ‘key’ that opens up our body’s cells and allows nutrients (LIKE PROTEIN) to enter. In short, our bodies require carbs in order to be able to ‘use’ the protein we’re giving them. I know all of this cerebrally, and yet it just doesn’t come naturally to me on a day-to-day level. Keep your chips and your bread basket; just give me the guacamole!
Anyway, all of the above means that my goals right this minute are, roughly, 190g carbs, 150g protein, and 50g fat. I tend to write the macros in that order when I track them – as in, 190-150-50 – but people can obviously do it in whatever order works for them.
So, on this plan, a typical day for me right now looks like this. (Fair warning, I am terribly lazy – or busy, depending on your point of view – and so I’ve figured out a lot of ‘shortcuts’ in terms of my food. Take it for what it’s worth.)
5:15am: wake up, 1-2 cups of black coffee. Sometimes I eat a Quest bar (25-20-5) and/or a banana (27-0-0), other times I don’t eat anything.
6:00am: CrossFit. I drink 10g of BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) in my water throughout the session… these don’t count toward macros. They serve to spike levels of protein synthesis, meaning they help prevent muscle breakdown and promote recovery.
7:15am: home from workout. Now that my shaker bottle is empty, I dump in 8oz orange juice (26-2-0) and a heaping scoop of protein powder (5-25-1), fill it the rest of the way with water, shake, and drink. (This is one of the biggest changes I’ve made recently; I wasn’t in the habit of eating ANY carbs immediately after a workout before – bad Stormy.) This holds me over until about…
10:00am: when I’m deep into my morning seeing patients, and starting to get STARVING with zero time to stop for a leisurely meal. Confession: I rely heavily on Trader Joe’s pre-cooked chicken sausages (which have about 16g protein per piece – 3-16-6) and their pre-cooked (and peeled!) hard-boiled eggs (0-12-8 for two eggs). The sausage is pretty ‘clean’ and there are even a couple varieties that are Whole30 compliant; I like the Apple Chicken Chardonnay. One of the things I do at the beginning of each week is toss one sausage and two eggs into individual Ziploc bags – boom; breakfast. Their pre-cooked chicken breasts are another of my favorite things; macro breakdown is 0-27-5 per piece, and they’re so easy to toss on top of a salad or rice or whatever.
12:00pm: lunchtime. One of my staples is ‘crockpot chicken’, which was a favorite among my Philadelphia gym crew. It couldn’t be easier: you put 2 lb raw chicken into the crockpot (frozen is OK), dump in a whole bottle of Frank’s Red Hot and half a block of grassfed unsalted butter (like Kerrygold), or 6-8tbsp of coconut oil, and cook on low for about 4 hours. Use a couple of forks to pull it all apart around the 3-hour mark, and continue cooking for another hour or so. You end up with spicy shredded chicken that works great on salads or in lettuce wraps, and has just enough of a ‘kick’ to make it feel fancy. (I usually use chicken breast nowadays because I’m trying to keep my overall fat intake on the lower end, but chicken thighs will shred more easily and taste even better.) So another part of my weekend food preparation is to make this (or something similar), divide the pot of chicken into 6-7 Tupperware containers, and then put some frozen rice and frozen kale on top of each one. Stick ‘em in the fridge, and the frozen stuff thaws while the chicken cools. I take several containers to work at the beginning of each week and leave them in the fridge there; all I have to do is pop it in the microwave for two minutes and there’s lunch.
I calculate the macros by figuring out what’s in the whole pot and dividing by the number of servings I make. If I add rice, that’s a ‘bolus’ of 30-50g carbs to add to that meal. (I don’t generally add in the kale; veggies tend to not be ‘worth much’ in terms of numbers, so it’s easier to just leave them out.)
…confession: I still ALWAYS want a little something sweet after lunch and dinner. Ways that I get around this are: dates, figs, Trader Joe’s fruit bars (two ingredients: apple+banana or apple+strawberry are my favorites) and sometimes Quest bars (bad habit!). Dates are about 5g carbs apiece and it’s easy to just buy a giant bag at Costco and toss 4-5 of them into a few Ziploc bags to keep in my desk drawer.
The afternoon always feels LONG for me and I’m usually really hungry at some point. Sometimes I just power through, other times I give in and have a snack depending on what I’m planning for that night in terms of food or activities. Other times I can just slam a bottle of water and forget about it for a little while… it’s amazing how often I think I’m hungry when I’m actually THIRSTY.
6:30pm: dinner, which for me is usually another crockpot meal. Trader Joe’s sells bags of frozen fire-roasted peppers and onions, and it’s easy to make a delicious sausage-and-pepper stew with that plus some stewed tomatoes, rosemary, thyme, and 2-3 lb pork sausage from the deli counter. Frozen shrimp is another go-to for me, since it has a really high protein content with almost no fat. Other times I’ll dice up a couple of those Trader Joe’s pre-cooked chicken breasts and toss them on top of a green salad or a sweet potato. I LOVE all varieties of Tessemae’s dressing (very ‘clean’ and Whole30-compliant; they have an olive oil base), so I’ll have a little of that if I have enough room left in my fat allotment for the day.
I end up fighting the sugar monkey again after dinner and usually will have a few dates, sometimes a Quest bar (I swear I try to limit these, but I usually end up eating at least two in a day – I hereby warn you to do as I say, not as I do!). Sometimes I can forget about the sugar craving by having a cup of spice tea or decaf coffee. When I’m being less careful about my fat intake, a cup of spice tea with 1-2 squares of 100% Ghirardelli baking chocolate (broken up into tiny pieces) is my usual evening indulgence… the chocolate satisfies the craving while simultaneously being super bitter so that I don’t WANT to eat more than a little bit, and the spicy tea provides a nice contrast.
Anyway, to reiterate, this post is slanted toward ME and MY macros. I’m personally focusing on fat loss right now, AND I’m choosing to do that by upping my carbs and decreasing my fat intake. Someone else might do exactly the opposite and still see great results. I just know that, for me, it’s very easy to ‘crack out’ on high-fat foods, so I’m limiting myself to the lower end of the recommended fat range and making up the rest via extra carbs (which requires a lot of intentional effort!). Once I’m closer to my goal weight, I plan to alter this ratio; I’ll keep the 150g protein, but will probably eat something closer to 80g fat (=720cal, or 40% of my intake) and 120g carbs (=480cal). This still works out to 1800 calories, and would probably work just as well for fat loss for some other people, just not for me and my particular proclivities. (…Cannot wait for the GUACAMOLE! :-))
Common question: no, you don’t have to adjust the overall macros for workout vs non-workout days. That’s just way too complicated. However, you CAN adjust the carb-to-fat ratio for workout vs non-workout days (only if you want to). For me personally, I’ve learned that I have major ‘hangry’ issues when I’m relying on carbs for fuel, and am much more even-keeled emotionally when I have a protein+fat basis for my nutrition. On days when I’m not working out, I might skip the rice with my lunch and instead let myself eat a little hummus or guacamole, or add some Tessemae’s to my salad that night. (I don’t track this on paper down to the gram; I do it more on a gut level.)
Oh yeah, and supplements – a LOT of people have been asking me about these. Here’s what I take:
Every day:
– BCAAs and protein powder (as above, on workout days only)
– krill oil. It’s an omega-3 supplement, but tastes better than fish oil (and is a smaller pill). I’ve heard some people argue that krill oil is actually better for you than fish oil, because it comes from lower down on the food chain.
– ZMAs. This is a combination of zinc, magnesium, and B6 that I take at bedtime. Magnesium is one of those minerals that most of us are deficient in no matter how well we eat, just because the American soil is so depleted nowadays; furthermore, it helps a lot with muscle relaxation and recovery. It doesn’t make you drowsy per se, just sort of makes you ‘ready’ to go to bed when it’s time to sleep. (And makes you remember your dreams. Crazy…)
Intermittently / as needed:
– a good probiotic. Jarrow is one really good brand. If I’m feeling extra stressed / like my immune system is under fire, I’ll take one for a few days. Something like 80% of the immune system is in the gut, and I absolutely believe that these make a HUGE difference in terms of keeping me healthy. I’m probably jinxing myself by saying this, but I work around sick people all day every day, and yet I very rarely get sick myself. I can’t even remember the last time I had a cold.
– rhodiola rosea. Helps enhance the body’s response to stress. (I notice it most during the darkest part of a really intense metcon – if I’m taking this, I don’t reach that ‘breaking point’ where it seems like I’m failing at life and the whole world is falling apart.) This is an adaptogen, so it shouldn’t be taken continuously or it will lose its effect (take it til the bottle’s gone, then take a couple weeks off, then start a new bottle).
– digestive enzymes. If I know I’m going to eat something that probably isn’t going to agree with me (or if I HAVE just eaten something less than great and I’m feeling the effects), then I’ll take some supplemental enzymes. More recent schools of thought are saying that, rather than an ANTacid, what we really need is MORE stomach acid when we feel uncomfortable after eating, because the discomfort we feel is a sign that we’ve consumed something that our stomach is having trouble breaking down. I tend to believe this. I don’t eat much gluten anymore, but, for example, I traveled to Seattle last month and met up with a friend on a beautiful sunny afternoon to have lunch at Salumi, which is the restaurant owned by ‘Iron Chef’ Mario Batali’s family. They bake their own ciabatta bread in-house, slather it with olive oil, garlic, and pesto, then pile on the heaps of cured Italian meat and housemade cheese. So my friend and I both popped our digestive enzymes right beforehand… and then you better believe I ate the shit out of the most incredible Italian sandwich I’ve ever tasted, with no ill effects. (And did not count one single effing macro.) Carpe that diem, people.
Seasonally:
– vitamin D (in the darker months)
– SAM-e (during the darker months / non-daylight-savings time of year. This one is pretty expensive, but I have some whopping seasonal affective disorder if I don’t take it.)
I’ve obviously left out a ton of stuff, but this serves as a pretty good summary of my day-to-day nutritional life right now. Please feel free to message me with any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, and so forth! There’s a ton of trial and error involved here for everyone, myself included, so I’m always happy to discuss! :-)