A Guide To Macronutrients – Helping You Hit Your Fitness Goals

When you’re working hard to try and reach your health and fitness goals, exercising regularly is good. But exercise only makes up a small portion when it comes to hitting your fitness goals, losing weight, and becoming healthier.

Not many know, that your diet plays a huge role, even more so than exercise. And learning about macronutrients, or macros, is at the heart of succeeding with your diet and therefore – reaching your fitness goals!

Discover why tracking your macros is more important than you think and learn how using new technology makes this a whole lot easier…

 

Macros

Macros is a word that gets thrown around by every nutritionist, online coach, and PT, and for good reason. All of the food you consume is built up of the three macronutrient groups:

Protein

The body’s building block that helps your muscle growth and repair. Protein requires more energy to digest than the other 2 macronutrients which make a high protein diet excellent for those looking to achieve weight loss and muscle building.

Carbohydrate

The body’s primary source of energy. Complex carbs are extremely good for your health and brain as they are slow releasing. It is widely thought that low-carb diets are the only way to lose weight, however, cutting out simple sugary carbs and focusing on complex carbs like whole grains, vegetables, beans can be the answer.

Fat

Consumption of fats is crucial to the production of hormones and metabolism. Unsaturated fats (healthy fats) are our main source of energy whilst at rest. These can be found in foods like avocado, olive oil, and nuts.

These are the fats that people should try and eat more of if trying to up their fat content for energy on a low-carb diet. Saturated fats should be kept at a minimum.

 

A Rounded Diet Of Macros Is So Important For Your Fitness Goals

Whatever your goal, getting your macros right is a crucial step in making it a reality. For optimal health, the recommended breakdown of these macros is 60% carbs, 20% protein, and 20% fat.

 

Macros Are Important For WEIGHT LOSS

If your goal is weight loss you should be looking to increase your protein and fat intake whilst reducing your carbohydrates. The suggested breakdown would be 40% protein, 30% fat, and 30% carbohydrate, however, this slightly varies depending on your unique needs.

It has been shown that increasing your protein intake can help you feel fuller for longer whilst lowering your overall daily calorific intake.

 

Macros Are Important For BUILDING MUSCLE

Building lean muscle is a goal many people aim to achieve by simply increasing their calorific intake, often referred to as a ‘dirty bulk’. Taking macros into account makes this goal a lot more attainable.

Typically, there needs to be a higher intake of carbohydrates if trying to achieve weight loss to give the body more energy during more grueling workouts.

Suggested macro guidelines are 50% carb intake, 30% protein, and 20% fat, with one key tip being to have a carb-heavy snack soon after your workouts (within an hour).

 

Macros WILL Help You Hit Your Fitness Goals

The reason why so many people fail to hit their fitness goals simply because their motivation runs out before they start seeing the results of their hard work.

Ignoring your macronutrients is the equivalent of running on a treadmill (ironically)! You might be moving and putting in a lot of effort, but in reality, you’re not going anywhere.

If you want to start hitting your fitness goals, whether that’s building muscle or losing weight, you can achieve that by incorporating macros into your daily diet and start hitting your fitness goals faster, to keep you motivated to push on for longer

 

Using APPS like MyFitnessPal makes tracking your macros easier than ever. They allow you to see the nutritional breakdown of each meal as well as calorific intake. MyFitnessPal also has a unique feature of calculating the required macro breakdown to help YOU achieve your fitness goal, and, it’s FREE so give it a go!