Macronutrient Guide to Cutting

To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” – La Rochefoucald

The key to behavior change is self-awareness, and when it comes to changing your body what you put in plays the most significant role.

By gaining control over your consumption you are maximizing the most important variable. There are three big categories in nutrition that I will cover in detail, these are fats, carbs, and protein.

Getting in enough protein is going to be the most important variable of the three regardless if you’re trying to lean out or bulk up.

Before you eat a meal are you considering how many calories you’re about to consume, or where most of those calories are coming from? How often are you checking the nutrition facts label to see how much protein you’re getting per serving?

If this answer is never and you have a goal of bulking up or cutting down get into the habit of checking, or at the very least become curious and conscious about the foods you’re eating.

This is even more important when you are leaning out and trimming up because you still need to provide your body with all the nutrients it needs with less food.

When you consider the importance of maintaining the effectiveness of your workouts and recovery for overall health and well-being, getting the nutritional component down is the priority.

Protein

The value of protein in our diet cannot be understated, most people generally think of muscles when they think of protein. While this is absolutely true and necessary to build a strong and fit body there are far more benefits from consuming enough protein than most people realize.

Everything in our body is made of protein, the genes we’ve inherited are coded to make specific proteins. A deficiency will cause disease, muscle wasting, an imbalance of our pH, improper hormone production, and brittle bones as a short list.

From a psychological perspective, a higher protein diet will be more satisfying and can have a more positive effect on mood during dieting phases. Often times people will have an easier time controlling cravings and managing their appetite.

Researchers showed that a higher vs. lower protein diet did not show significant effects on body composition over two weeks; a difference of 1.27 grams and 0.72 grams per pound of bodyweight. However, they did find that the participants in the study reported having more energy, less stress, and lower dissatisfaction with their diets.

People will often search or ask about what the best diet is, the answer is simple, the one you’ll stick to.

So while you may think that if there is not much of a physical difference between the two protein amounts over time it will. This means the longer you stick to your cutting plan and keep your food in check the results will come.

The more you cheat and overconsume calories the slower it’s going to be before you reach your goals. Keep in mind this was only two weeks, but imagine what you can accomplish in ten by keeping protein high and total calories within range.

An additional benefit to increasing protein during a diet is that some of it will also be used as fuel to power your workouts and recovery.

Below are some guidelines for protein intake as you’re leaning out.

• A general recommendation is to consume 1.0-1.2 grams per pound of body weight. This means if you weigh 150 pounds your goal should be to eat between 150 and 180 grams of protein.
• Individuals that have a high BMI, meaning there’s a high amount of body fat relative to height, should use a different method to calculate. In this case, use your height in centimeters for a more accurate daily protein intake. For example, an individual who is 5’8 would be 172 cm which would make 172 the daily protein goal. This works for people who are not in the extreme ranges of height so anyone between 5’2 and 6’4 will have a better target than body weight.

Fats

Both fats and carbohydrates are primarily used to provide the body with working energy that we can use to maintain our efforts throughout the day but more importantly to sustain our exercise and allow us to recover more fully.

Fats in the diet provide the most energy per gram than protein and carbohydrates which make them a very good fuel source. Aside from the energy they provide, they are very important when it comes to nutrient absorption.

For example, vitamins A, D, K, and E can only be metabolized with the help of fat. Whenever there is excess energy that hasn’t been used by the body whether it comes from protein or carbohydrates is stored as fat for later use.

When the body burns fat for energy it provides the body and our muscles with a lot of readily available energy. They also play a very important role in providing structural support to all of our cells.

Every cell in our body is surrounded by an outer coating, like a bubble, and this bubble is made out of fat and cholesterol. Without this solid but malleable outer wall our cells would not be able to transport vital nutrients in and out to sustain their function.

Another supportive role that good fats play in our diet and lifestyle is their effect on our immune system and our hormones. Both are absolutely essential to maintaining a healthy and active life by allowing us to heal and recover from everything we are exposing ourselves to on a daily basis.

They play a role in wound healing and the inflammatory process as a whole as well as blood clotting. The other side of recovery that fats, but more specifically cholesterol, play in recovery is its foundational role in the formation of hormones like testosterone.

For these reasons, it’s very important to have a sufficient amount of fat in the diet to support all these bodily functions necessary for growth and repair.

Here are some guidelines for fat consumption.

• While leaning out you should aim for 15-25% of the total calories should come from good fat sources.
• For someone who needs to eat 2,000 calories per day 300-500 of those calories need to come from fat, which is anywhere from 33-55 grams.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are not considered an essential nutrient due to the fact that our bodies can make them from the fats and protein we’ve consumed.

If someone is on a ketogenic diet (high fat low carb) and is eating foods that are fats and proteins the body will still be able to maintain a consistently elevated blood sugar level without ever consuming sugar.

While this is true it’s also true that having a balanced ratio between all three of these nutrients will optimize performance and lead to better health outcomes. The fact that our bodies will adjust based on the amount of carbohydrates we are consuming will make this an easy factor to manipulate when dieting.

If you are someone who is not very active and does not do any weight training eating in a low carbohydrate mindset it will have less of an impact on energy levels.

However, if you have any conditions that are associated with metabolic syndrome then reducing carbohydrates will cause an improvement in overall health. These conditions include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, and a high waist-to-hip ratio.

Individuals who are very active and train hard but are looking to lean up will want to keep in as many carbs as they can while still progressing toward their desired look. This is because most of the carbohydrates in our bodies are stored in our muscles as readily available energy.

When we exercise and lift weights this easily accessible source of energy and power is very important to gains in strength and muscle mass. Other storage sites are the liver and fat, when we don’t burn the carbohydrates that are stored in our muscles they get converted to fat and stored for later use.

People who go on low carbohydrates have been shown to lose more weight than low-fat diets, however, this is over a short-term period. Often the weight is gained again because of low compliance and adherence to the diet long term.

It’s very important to consider this when beginning and new dietary plan, because if you can’t see yourself eating that way six months to a year after you start then think twice.

When beginning a cut or having a desire to drop much more body weight consider the guidelines already established above for protein and fat. The amount of calories that are left over in your daily calorie budget will be what’s used for your carbohydrate goals. For example;

• Using the same individual described above who weighs 150 pounds and eats 2,000 calories per day will have these goals:

  • Protein: 150-180 grams = 600-720 calories
  • Fat: 33-55 grams = 300-500 calories
  • Carbs: 195-275 grams = 780-1,100 calories.

I will emphasize that this is an overview that will work for the majority of people. However, you should use this as a guideline to make sure you’re consuming enough of each nutrient to maintain health and performance.

Some people will do better with lower carbohydrates and therefore would be able to consume a greater amount of fats.

In this case, the breakdown for each would look different but the total calories would still be the same with 2,000.

The total calories consumed and the protein intake are the two numbers you want to pay the most attention to, by consistently hitting those you’ll be on your way to your desired weight and look.

• Summary of main points

  1. Leaning out creates a greater need to be mindful of our nutrition in order to achieve our weight loss goals while maintaining our health and vitality.

  2. Protein is the foundation of a healthy diet and strong physique, meeting these needs is priority number one.

  3. Carbohydrates are considered less essential than protein and fat while dieting due to the fact that your body can maintain blood sugar levels without them.

  4. Both fats and carbohydrates are used to provide fuel for our activities and recovery.

  5. Macronutrients range based on total calories consumed per day.

     1. Protein: 1.0-1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight
     2. Fats: 15-25% of total calories
     3. Carbohydrates: Whatever is remaining in your total calorie budget

• Call to action

Use a calorie counter app and track one day’s worth of food and see how many total calories you’re eating and what the breakdown is for each of these macronutrients.

If you input your goal weight and how long you would like to take to achieve it a breakdown of what you need to hit will be given to you.

I use the MyFitnessPal app whenever I change my diet to give myself an idea of where my calories are currently. Don’t worry about what you need to do just yet, awareness of what you’re consuming on a daily basis is the priority in the beginning.

Don’t feel like you need to have it all figured out from the start, losing weight and leaning out happens over months.

Let your rate of progress determine what changes need to be made and by how much. But you won’t know what else to try if you don’t even know where you’re at currently.

Carbone JW, Pasiakos SM. Dietary Protein and Muscle Mass: Translating Science to Application and Health Benefit. Nutrients. 2019 May 22;11(5):1136. doi: 10.3390/nu11051136. PMID: 31121843; PMCID: PMC6566799.

https://www.eufic.org/en/whats-in-food/article/facts-on-fats-dietary-fats-and-health

Kurowska A, Ziemichód W, Herbet M, Piątkowska-Chmiel I. The Role of Diet as a Modulator of the Inflammatory Process in the Neurological Diseases. Nutrients. 2023; 15(6):1436. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15061436

Ludwig DS, Hu FB, Tappy L, Brand-Miller J. Dietary carbohydrates: role of quality and quantity in chronic disease. BMJ. 2018 Jun 13;361:k2340. doi: 10.1136/bmj.k2340. PMID: 29898880; PMCID: PMC5996878.

Venn BJ. Macronutrients and Human Health for the 21st Century. Nutrients. 2020; 12(8):2363. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12082363

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