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What is the ultimate secret to living a healthy life? Health specialists have always wondered about the answer to this question. And although there have been some breakthroughs in determining that, the ultimate answer still remains a mystery. As it turns out, there are more than one ways to improve your physical health. You can do it with exercise, or by managing your diet. When it comes to improving your health, relying on medications is never a good idea. Find here – the Macronutrient Ratio and How Do I Calculate my Macronutrient Ratio.
One of the ways you can maintain and improve your physical health is by calculating your macronutrients ratio. It doesn’t matter what your ultimate health goal is, you can achieve that by simply just carefully managing your diet. And for that, macros ratio calculation is a must. If you don’t know about the macronutrient ratio, then you are at the right place. We’ll tell you all you need to know about macros and how you can calculate them to live a healthy life.
What is the Macronutrient Ratio?
Macronutrients include carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. By carefully managing your daily intake for the macros, you can achieve any health goal that you want.
Instead of managing your diet in terms of calories that you need to consume on a daily basis, you need to break it down in terms of the macronutrients and your daily intake for them.
This allows you to come up with a better and more focused diet plan which allows you to cut down on the time it is going to take you to reach your health goals.
How to Calculate the Macronutrient Ratio?
Calculating the ideal macronutrient ratio for yourself is going to require you to perform some manual calculations. It might come off a bit overwhelming but as you get better at it, it can prove to be a valuable skill for you in terms of managing your physical health.
Still, if you don’t want to use the manual approach, you can use a free macro calculator to automatically calculate the ideal macronutrient ratio for yourself. You just need to input the details required by this tool and it will handle the rest of the processing for you. Now, let’s get back to it and talk about the manual approach for calculating macros. We can divide the manual method for macro calculation into 3 different steps
- Calculate your Calories Intake
- Figure out your Macros percentage
- Track your macros
Let’s get into the details of each of these steps and how you can go through them to find the ideal macronutrient breakdown for yourself.
Step 1: Calculate your Calories Intake
You need to find out the number of calories that you need to consume on a daily basis. When you calculate the need for calories, you can further break it down in terms of the individual macros that you need to take daily to reach your health goals.
The calories intake calculation is simple. You just need to find your resting energy expenditure and the non-resting energy expenditure. You need to add both these energy expenditures and it will give you the total number of calories burned in a day.
REE + NREE = TDEE
You can use the following formulas to find your overall need for calories.
Calories Calculation Equations
Calories Calculation Per Day for Women = 10 * weight in kgs + 6.25 * height in cms – 5 x age in years – 161
Calories Calculation Per Day for Men = 10 * weight in Kgs + 6.25 x height in cms – 5 * age in years + 5
Once you have applied the appropriate formula, you need to multiply its answer with your Activity Factor. This measurement is a number that represents the kind of activity that your body goes through daily.
This is what this predetermined set of values looks like
Sedentary: x 1.2 (Little exercise)
Lightly active: x 1.375 (Little/limited exercise less than three days per week)
Moderately active: x 1.55 (light/ moderate exercise most days of the week)
Very active: x 1.725 (Intense workout each day)
Extra active: x 1.9 (Extremely intense workout 2or more times every day)
The result of this calculation is going to give you the TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).
Step 2: Figure Out Your Macros Percentage
When you have calculated your intake for the total calories, you need to decide on the percentage of macros you need to divide the calories into.
Here are the standard recommendations for macros
Proteins: 10 – 35% of total calories
Carbs: 45 – 65% of total calories
Fats: 20 – 35% of total calories
These are the standard recommendations that work for most people. You can make adjustments to these percentages as per your needs. For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to cut down more on the fats and increase your proteins and carbs intake.
So, figure out your ideal percentage and then come up with ratios that work the best for you. You can also consult a dietitian to get a better idea about the ideal macronutrient’s intake for yourself.
Step 3: Track your Macros
Figuring out your macronutrient’s ratio is the first step towards improving your health. Once you have done that, you need to make sure that you stick to the diet plan that you have created for yourself.
Keep track of your health and as you start reaching your health goals, keep track of the macros along the way.
If you feel like you need to change something, follow the above method to calculate your latest need for macros. This calculated approach for managing your diet will allow you to improve your health at a much faster pace.
Final Words
Macronutrient calculation doesn’t have to be a hassle. It is a simple process and if you learn and master it, it can have a drastic impact on the way you manage your diet.
So, use the manual or automatic approach for macros calculation that we have talked about here to calculate the macros ratio for yourself. If you have any questions about macronutrient ratios, feel free to reach out to us.
See here – Prevent Muscle Loss/Sarcopenia