*Updated in 2022
In the past twelve years, I have coached hundreds of clients online. If I went back and added them all up, it’s probably approaching a thousand at this point if it hasn’t already surpassed it.
Beyond that, I try to answer every fitness question that hits my inbox from people who follow my work. I have created fitness content for over a decade, so it has generated a lot of questions. If you look, you can find numerous articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, and books spanning a wide range of topics, including building muscle, losing fat, and gaining strength in detail. However, when I look at my inbox, most questions are about nutrition.
The good news is, I love talking about food. In fact, during the early portion of my career, I cut my teeth on helping people with their nutrition. At the time, macronutrient-based dieting was in its infancy. Depending on how old you are, you might not even remember a time when flexible dieting was not mainstream. But, in the early 2010s, it wasn’t. The concept of tracking macros was just starting to branch out from bodybuilding and reach the general public.
In my opinion, the topic of nutrition generates so many questions because everyone disagrees on the best approach. If you talk to five experts, you may get five different answers. Low carb, low fat, intermittent fasting, paleo, flexible dieting, vegan, and carnivore all have their champions. The truth is adherence is the critical factor for any diet. I call this nutritional consistency. The best diet is the one you can follow.
The “secret” to any diet in terms of body composition comes down to calories and macronutrients. Every diet is a macro diet, whether you track them or not. In my opinion, regardless of what diet you choose to hitch your wagon to, it makes sense to learn how to calculate calorie and macronutrient targets.
Understanding the basics of energy balance, portion sizes, and food tracking is the best practical nutrition education you can get. This knowledge is the key to demystifying nutrition and setting you up for long-term success.
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The Basics of Energy Balance
Gaining an understanding of quality nutrition is very important if you want to see results. Eating the right foods at the right times and in the correct amounts will not only help you perform better it will also play the principal role in regulating body weight.
Every talk on nutrition needs to start with calorie intake. You may be wondering, what is a calorie? In layman’s terms, a calorie is a unit of measurement for energy. We need calories (energy) to live and perform daily tasks. We get this energy through the food we eat. Simply put, calories are the main factor for losing, maintaining, or gaining weight.
When it comes to building muscle and losing fat, it’s all about energy balance. Energy balance is the relationship between calories consumed through food and drink (energy in) and calories used for all daily functions (energy out). In other words, energy balance can be defined as calories in vs. calories out. When the goal is to build muscle, you need to consume slightly more calories than your body requires to maintain weight. On the other hand, when the goal is fat loss, you need to eat slightly fewer calories than your body requires to maintain body weight. I hate to put it that simple, but that’s how it works. Did you lose weight when you started eating higher-quality food? Or, how about when you cut out carbs? It was because you ate fewer calories.
How to Calculate Calorie Intake
Before we get too far, we have to figure out how many calories our body needs to maintain weight. We can go about this in multiple ways. The most accurate is to use real-world data by actually tracking food intake and consistently weighing yourself for a couple of weeks. However, since we just need a starting point, I recommend using a calculation instead.
First off, any diet calculator or formula is just an estimation. It’s important to understand that up front. Basal metabolic rate can vary between people, even with identical stats. When we calculate calories, all we really need is a starting point. From there, we can adjust based on how the body responds.
To determine maintenance calorie intake, we find Basal Metabolic Rate and multiply it by an activity factor. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the total amount of energy (calories) your body requires daily just to maintain normal bodily functions, including digestion, circulation, respiration, temperature regulation, cell construction, and every other process in your body. BMR is the total of all the energy you use for bodily functions at rest.This does not include physical activity.
There are a few popular formulas used to determine BMR. Personally, I don’t use any of these formulas. However, I think it’s beneficial to know they exist. You can play around with each to see what numbers you get. Each one will give you a slightly different number. This is far from an exact science. As I said, a formula will only give you a starting point, but that is all we need. The key will come down to making adjustments over time based on how your body responds.
Harris-Benedict
The Harris-Benedict formula is old school. It’s the one you most likely have seen online or in old nutrition textbooks. However, it was revised in 1984. Below is the new revised formula.
MEN: BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 × weight in kg) + (4.799 × height in cm) – (5.677 × age in years)
WOMEN: BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 × weight in kg) + (3.098 × height in cm) – (4.330 × age in years)
Mifflin – St Jeor
In my opinion, the Mifflin-St Jeor equation is a slightly better option than the Harris-Benedict.
MEN: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age in years) + 5
WOMEN: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) – (5 x age in years) -161
The Owen Equation
The Owen formula is a simple option that requires a little less calculation.
MEN: BMR = 879 + 10.2 (weight in kg)
WOMEN: BMR = 795 + 7.2 (weight in kg)
Katch-McArdle Formula
The unique aspect of the Katch-McArdle formula is it accounts for lean body mass. Overall, it’s pretty good if you have a relatively accurate measurement of your body fat percentage.
BMR = 370 + (21.6 x LBM)
*LBM = (total weight in kg) x (100 – bodyfat %) /100
The Baseline Multiplier
My preferred method for determining BMR is as simple as it gets. When I put this in my book, Bodybuilding for Beginners, many people couldn’t believe how basic this could be. Remember, we are just looking for an estimated starting point. I have used this for years, and the baseline multiplier is comparable with the formulas above. No need to make this any more complicated than it needs to be.
MEN: BMR = (Body Weight in lbs x 10)
WOMEN: BMR = (Body Weight in lbs x 9)
Example: 160lbs male x 10 = 1600 calories
Keep in mind this figure doesn’t account for activity. So, once we do this calculation, we need to multiply by an activity multiplier to find out maintenance calories.
Activity Factor Multiplier
The activity factor accounts for everything you do in a day, not just training. After finding your BMR, use one of these multipliers to calculate the number of calories you need to stay at the same weight (maintenance calories).
Be honest with yourself here…this is where most people mess this process up.
Sedentary [BMR x 1.2]:Low activity. 0-3 days of exercise, desk job, and under 5,000 steps per day.
Lightly Active [BMR x 1.3-1.4]:Active a few days a week, work an active job or exercise 3-5 days a week. Typically under 7,000 steps per day.
Moderately Active [BMR x 1.5-1.6]Train 3-6 days a week and lives a relatively active lifestyle. Averages 7,000-10,000 steps per day. I would guess most of you would fall into this category.
Very Active [BMR x 1.7-1.8]:Training hard for a specific sport or purpose 5-7 days a week. Typically one with a hard labor job as well. Averages over 10,000 steps per day.
Extremely Active [BMR x 1.9-2.2]:Hard-charging athlete who spends 10 or more hours training per week and/or lives a highly active lifestyle outside of training. Averages over 12,000 steps per day. Depending on how high activity gets, it’s possible someone could require more calories than this.
Let’s run through an example for a 160lb male.
Step #1: Baseline Multiplier
160lbs x 10 = 1600 calories
Step #2: Activity Multiplier
1600 x 1.5 (moderately active) = 2400 calories
In this example, 2400 would be the number of calories to maintain body weight for a 160lb individual with an average activity level. If this person consistently ate 2400 calories, theoretically, it would involve no change in body weight.
How to Manipulate Bodyweight
Now that we have an ideal starting point for maintenance calories, what direction should you go with your diet? Deciding between maintaining, bulking, or cutting can be tough to navigate for some. As you can imagine, it depends on a few factors.
Maintain
You have probably heard the expression, “if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward.” When it comes to nutrition, that’s not always the case. Keeping your calories at maintenance can be the right approach for some.
For example, most beginners would see a lot of benefit from eating at calculated maintenance calories for the first three to six months of lifting. As a novice lifter, you have the added benefit of making fast gains in strength and muscular development. Additionally, it’s not uncommon for new lifters to build muscle while losing body fat.
Eating at maintenance is also a great way to build consistency. I look at maintenance calories as a baseline diet. The body is always trying to maintain homeostasis for all bodily functions. Because of this, eating at maintenance is a great place to start or re-start making quality food choices. Eating at maintenance creates a happy medium, where you are not overly hungry or full. This allows you to be consistent, focus on making good decisions, and build quality daily habits. After demonstrating nutritional consistency, it is easier to transition into a cutting or gaining phase. Getting your calories right is a lot of trial and error.
Additionally, advanced lifters who are happy with their physique spend a lot of time around maintenance calories.
Remember, calculated maintenance is just an estimation. Calories will need to be adjusted based on real-world weight and body composition changes. It does not matter what “calculated maintenance” is. It only matters what actually happens. After a few weeks, you may need to adjust calories up or down depending on how your body responds.
Muscle Building
Being in a caloric surplus presents the best opportunity to gain muscle and strength. A caloric surplus is like investing in the long-term development of your physique and physical performance.
Beginners who are very lean, under 10% body fat for males and 18% body fat for females, should start out in a caloric surplus.
For intermediate and advanced lifters, it is a good idea to start a muscle-building phase if you are 15% body fat or under for males, or 23% body fat or under for females.
Rate of Weight Gain
Watching muscle grow is like watching paint dry. It takes a lot of work, over a long period, to see anything substantial. We can’t rush the process, regardless of how aggressive we get with calorie intake.
Staying within the guidelines below creates the most efficient way to gain muscle. Gaining faster than this is likely to result in more fat gain than it’s worth.
Beginners: Look to gain 1-1.5% of body weight per month. In terms of calories, a good starting point would be 15-20% above maintenance.
Intermediates: Look to gain .5-1% of body weight per month. In terms of calories, a good starting point would be 10-15% above maintenance.
Advanced: Look to gain up to .5% of body weight per month. In terms of calories, a good starting point would be 5-10% above maintenance.
NEAT
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating, or sports-like exercise. It ranges from the energy expended walking around the house, doing the dishes, typing, performing yard work, and even fidgeting. We often talk about this as it relates to fat loss, and we will, but its effects on gaining phases are underrated. When calories increase, people tend to move around more subconsciously, which cuts into the daily calorie surplus. This is especially noticeable for advanced lifters who work with a small surplus, to begin with. One way to account for this is by tracking daily steps.
Be Flexible During Gaining Phases
Do not be overly strict during muscle-building phases. Make good choices and be consistent, but don’t treat muscle-building the same as fat loss phases. During a fat loss phase, there is little room for error. An extra 100 or 200 calories here and there throughout the week can be enough to negate a week of fat loss progress. 100 or 200 calories during a gaining phase won’t ruin your week. This is the time to go out to eat more frequently, fit some treats into your diet from time to time, etc.
I don’t want my clients to feel hungry or deprived when in a gaining phase. Don’t worry there will be plenty of time to suffer when the goal shifts to fat loss.
Fat Loss
If building muscle is investing, fat loss is cashing out. As we talked about earlier, the only way to force the body to call on stored body fat is to create an imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure. However, knowing the importance of energy balance is different than applying it. It’s easy to say eat fewer calories than you burn, but putting that into practice is a different story. Fat loss is all about developing good habits, learning new behaviors, and trusting the process.
Rate of Weight Loss | Mini-Cut vs. Regular Cut
Determining how long to diet really comes down to how much fat you have to lose. The best method for traditional fat loss is a long, slow, and steady approach, which often involves losing between .5 and 1% of body weight per week for as long as you need. It is not uncommon for people to diet for six months or longer if they have a lot of fat to lose. It’s a long time, but it allows us to lose a significant amount of fat while minimizing muscle and performance loss, at least as best we can. However, if we don’t have much weight to lose, a mini-cut is an option.
A mini-cut is an aggressive fat loss phase, lasting three to six weeks. The idea is a mini-cut is long enough to lose a few pounds but not too long to keep you away from being at maintenance or a surplus for optimal training.
Mini-cuts differ from traditional fat loss phases in a couple of ways.
With conventional fat loss phases, we have a couple of goals. The first is to lose as much fat as possible or reach our fat loss target. Secondly, we want the fat loss to be somewhat sustainable. Most people can lose weight successfully but struggle to keep it off.
Since mini-cuts are shorter in duration, we can be aggressive without the risk of losing muscle and strength. Losing between .75 and 1.25% of body weight per week is a good range for a mini-cut. The shorter the cut, the more aggressive we can be and vice versa.
How Long Should You Diet?
3-6 week mini-cut: Aim to lose between .75-1.25% of body weight per week.
8+ week traditional fat loss phase: Aim to lose between .5-1% of body weight per week.
Determining if you should do a mini-cut or a traditional cut depends on how much weight you want to lose. Let’s look at this through an example.
160lbs male who wants to lose 10lbs
First, let’s see if it can be done with a mini-cut.
160lbs x 1.25% body weight loss per week = 2lbs per week
10lbs / 2lbs per week = 5 weeks
In this example, the person could theoretically do a mini-cut and lose the desired amount of weight in five weeks. However, losing 2lbs per week for a 160lb person is pretty aggressive.
A pound of fat tissue stores roughly 3500 calories worth of energy, which means you need an average daily deficit of 500 calories per day to lose a pound per week. In this example, the 160lb person would need to be at a 1,000 calorie deficit per day to average 2lbs per week. Since this might not be reasonable, let’s see how it would look following a traditional diet approach.
160lbs male who wants to lose 10lbs.
160lbs x .75% bodyweight loss per week = .8lbs per week
10lbs / .8lbs week = 12.5 weeks
Following this approach seems a lot more doable. Let’s run through the math. To lose .8lbs per week, this person would only need to eat on average in a 400 calorie deficit per day.
I came to that number by the following:
3500 calories = 1lb
.8lb x 3500 = 2800 calories
2800 calories / 7 days in a week = 400 calorie deficit per day
Additionally, how much body fat you have to lose matters as well. The leaner you are, the more conservative you should be with weekly weight loss goals.
Cardio
As we know, during a fat loss phase, our goal is to create a caloric deficit. We do this primarily through nutrition. In fact, you don’t even have to do cardio to lose weight. However, to keep calories as high as we can, cardio can help.
In general, I am a big fan of low-intensity cardio. It’s relatively easy to do, it won’t negatively impact lifting performance, and it makes me feel good. Plus, it helps burn a few extra calories. I have a treadmill in my office to make it as easy as possible to get my low-intensity cardio in.
When I say low-intensity cardio, I am talking about Zone two cardio. This is exercising at 60-75% of your max heart rate or about a 5/6 out of 10 on the RPE scale. At this intensity, you should be able to carry on a conversation or enjoyably watch Netflix. It shouldn’t be a walk in the park, but you shouldn’t be struggling for air either. For me, a typical session might be walking on a treadmill at a moderate incline at 3.8-4.0mph for 30 minutes.
In terms of frequency and duration, it depends on where you are in the fat loss process. I recommend starting out with three sessions per week for 30-60 minutes and adding days as needed to help facilitate the weight loss process. Since low-intensity cardio is pretty easy on the body, you can work up to doing it every day.
Another option is to simply track daily steps. I really like this method because most of us live sedentary lives. We sit on our butt all day long except for the hour we are in the gym. The lack of physical labor is a first-world problem but, we need a way to work around our general lack of activity. Plus, there is a strong association between daily activity and health. The more you move around, and the less you sit on your butt, the better off you are. Walk your dog, go on a long walk with your significant other, park further away at the store, just make it a point to move more.
A problem with just adding in cardio is it fails to account for the rest of your day. You can add cardio all you want but, if you end up being less active during the day, it’s all for nothing. In fact, research shows that the longer you diet, the less active you get subconsciously. So even if this phenomenon doesn’t affect you now, it will the longer you diet.
The iPhone makes it as easy as possible with the Health app. Whenever your phone is on you, it’s tracking your activity. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for what we need it to do. You can also get several different devices that track steps more accurately if you want.
During a fat loss phase, 8,000 steps per day are the minimum. For some, 8k steps per day will be easy. However, for us sedentary folk, 8–10k is a challenge. This is also another variable you can manipulate as the diet progresses.
Macronutrients
Up until this point, we have only talked about calorie intake. Macronutrients – protein, carbohydrates, and fat round out the diet. Macronutrients are what make up your calorie intake.
Protein contains 4kcal/g
Carbohydrate contains 4kcal/g
Fat contains 9kcal/g
Protein
Calories are the most important factor for determining body composition and protein intake is the second. To build and maintain muscle, you need to boost muscle protein synthesis and reduce muscle breakdown. The best way to do that is through resistance training and eating enough protein. In addition to helping you build and maintain muscle, protein can help you lose fat too. Out of all of the macronutrients, protein is the most satiating. Getting into the nitty-gritty of protein intake is a subject for another time; just know this, if you want to look and perform at your best, a high protein diet is highly beneficial.
What do I consider a high protein diet? The recommended daily allowance in the USA is only .8g/kg of body weight. However, that is the amount needed to avoid a deficiency. Most of us are not worried about being deficient; we are interested in what’s optimal.
The old-school recommendation of 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is pretty accurate. It is easy to remember, and it puts us right in the ballpark of what the current research supports. If you are overweight, don’t base it on your body weight base it on your goal body weight. For example, if you are 300lbs but your goal weight is 250lbs, consume 250g of protein per day.
For lean individuals, it may make sense to bump protein intake up to 1.2g per pound of body weight during a fat loss phase.
Consume 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight
If you are in a fat loss phase, consume 1-1.2g of protein per pound of bodyweight.
If you are overweight (~30%+ body fat) consume 1g of protein per pound of goal weight.
If this seems like a lot of protein for you, I highly recommend using protein powder. High-quality protein shakes are convenient, tastes great, and make it a lot easier to consistently hit your daily protein goals.
Quality protein sources include eggs, egg whites, chicken breast, white fish, salmon, lean red meat, turkey, lean pork, Greek yogurt, low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat cheese, low-fat milk, protein powder.
Fat and Carbohydrate
After determining protein intake, we move on to the energy nutrients. When I talk about how many grams of fat and carbohydrate to eat, I like to group them together. When we know how many calories and protein we need to consume, all calories left go toward fat and carbohydrates. It really comes down to personal preference. Do you want more fat or more carbs in your diet? In terms of body composition, if calories and protein are controlled, low fat and low carb diets result in similar weight loss.
The word “fat” has a negative connotation but, dietary fat doesn’t make you more likely to gain fat. The truth is, some fat is essential, meaning the body needs to consume it to stay alive. Fat also plays a role in regulating hormones, aiding joint health, boosting brain function, and more.
We want the fat to fall in the range of 20-40% of our total calorie intake. Any lower than 20%, and we start running into issues. Any higher than 40% limits carbohydrate intake, negatively affecting training performance and adherence.
There is an inverse relationship between fats and carbohydrates. As fat goes up, carbohydrates must come down, and vice versa. If you want more carbs in your diet, stick close to 20% of calories from fat. If you want more fat in your diet, consume up to 40% of your calories from fat.
Consume 20-40% of total calories from fat
Side note: Unless you consume fatty fish like salmon multiple times per week, I suggest supplementing with high-quality fish oil.
Quality fat sources include nuts or nut butter, avocado, olive oil, heavy whipping cream, egg yolks, Salmon, full-fat dairy.
Carbohydrates have received unfair treatment in the mainstream media in recent years. Similar to fat, consuming carbs does not lead to fat gain. Eating an abundance of overall calories leads to fat gain. Despite the popularity of keto and other low carbohydrate diets, they have not shown to be more effective at fat loss than a balanced diet when calories and protein are equated.
The amount of carbohydrates to consume comes down to how many calories are left after subtracting protein and fat intake from our daily calorie allotment.
Let’s use an example to break it down.
We have a 160lb male who is planning on maintaining his weight and calculated his maintenance intake to be 2500 calories.
Step #1 Calories: 2500 calories
Step #2: Protein
160g of protein [1g protein per pound of body weight]
160 x 4 = 640 calories from protein
Step #3: Fat
25% of calories [in fat range of 20-40%]
25% of 2500 = 625 calories
625 calories / 9 calories per fat gram
70g of fat (rounded up from 69.4)
70 x 9 = 630 calories from fat
Step #4: Carbohydrates
The remaining calories will come from carbohydrates
2500 calories – 640 calories from protein – 630 calories from fat
1230 calories left for carbohydrates
1230 / 4 calories per gram = 308g of carbs (rounded up from 307.5)
308g of carbs
Step #5: Put it all together
Calories 2502
Protein: 160g
Fat: 70g
Carbs: 308g
The KEY to Long Term Success
If this was as easy as it seems on paper, I probably wouldn’t have a job. The fact is, there is a lot more to the nutrition puzzle than what we went over in this article. However, figuring out how many calories and macronutrients you need to work toward your goals is as good a first step as any.
The key to long-term progress will come down to two factors. The first is your ability to stick to the plan. Adherence is the critical factor for any diet. Nothing will work if you are not consistent. Second, making adjustments based on how the body responds to the diet over time. Look at your calculated calorie and macronutrient goals as just a starting point. It is the first chapter of a book. It sets the stage, but for a novel to be successful, it comes down to the journey from the first page to the last.
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