Calculating Macronutrients to Meet Your Goals

Get Traditional Meals out of Your Head

 By Jim Rial 

I know we talked in a previous article about developing healthy eating plans and the proper foods to eat. We even discussed an app that can be used to track your plans and progress. The problem is that most of us have busy lifestyles and we are not movie stars with personal trainers and chefs. Tailoring your macronutrients in a healthy eating plan will optimize your results whether you are trying to lose weight or gain mass.

 

When it comes down to your meals, not every one of them is going to be a gourmet feast. Honestly, none of them needs to resemble one of mom's home-cooked meals. In fact, getting the proper nutrients for each meal correct might look more like your cookbook blew up and you’re piecing together the fragments. To get the proper nutrition, your meal might be something as simple as a hardboiled egg, a piece of whole-grain toast, one slice of turkey, and a cup of berries. It seems weird but adding up the nutrition in those items might fit better into your plan.

 

One of the biggest keys to losing weight and building lean muscle is a meal plan with the correct nutrients that meet your goal. The best way to look at it is to get traditional meals out of your head. Yes, you still need fruits and veggies and yes meat and poultry, as well as fish all, fit into your plan but not every meal needs to be put together like the perfect entree. Plan your meals accordingly. Maybe your morning is extremely hectic. You have to rush to get ready for work while getting the little ones up and ready for school. They also need nutrition and well, guess what? Your meal gets moved to last place and more often, just forgotten. While skipping a meal here and there won’t kill you. Meeting your macronutrient goals is very important when trying to lose weight and put on lean muscle. 

Let’s just say you’re on a 5 meal per day 1800 Calorie meal plan with a macronutrient target of 50% Protein, 30% Carbs, and 20% Fat. So you plan each meal to be 45 grams of protein, 27 grams of carbs, and 8 grams of fat. Now, these can be manipulated by tracking to be sure you meet your goals and the tallies may change per meal, remember, this is just an example. If you look at the chart below you can see how this was accomplished for one meal. The numbers are not exact, but it's close and meets the plan's goals. 

 

As you can see from the illustration, one chicken breast and a banana are a very close match to the macronutrients in the meal plan. Now you may also make some changes depending on meal timing as well. One example of this may be to increase carbs in the meal you prepare before your workout and another manipulation could be your final meal before bed containing more protein. This is why I suggest a tracking app at first. The app will make it much easier to plan the meals around your macronutrient goals. This will also aid in finding easier items to make or fit into the times when your schedule does not allow you to slave over the stove. Perhaps the morning could just involve a meal replacement smoothie. Consider some almond milk or coconut milk with a scoop or two of protein along with some fruit and maybe a tablespoon of natural peanut butter. Again this is just an example but with some ingenuity, you can make your plan work for you. 

 

Another thing to consider when designing your meal plan around macronutrients is making sure they come from good sources. Especially when it comes to carbohydrates. Carbs are not the enemy, especially when you're getting carbs from clean sources such as fruits and veggies. Some of the best sources of good carbs are sweet potatoes, apples, bananas, raw oats, kidney beans, and chickpeas. Try adding these to salads, smoothies, or any meal and reap the rewards. 

 

 To sum it all up. Plan your meals wisely and it will be easy to fit a good meal plan into your everyday life. Not all of your meals need to look like you're presenting them for an award. Keep track of your macronutrients at first and over time everything will fall into place. It can be a lot of fun building a solid meal plan and you will feel much better about yourself and the way your body feels will be incredible.