If you’re reading this, you’re likely in the habit of staying active and fit, and you want to know how to look after your body. Whether you’re building strength or maintaining your fitness, efficiently balancing your consumption of macronutrients helps.
What Are Macronutrients?
Macronutrients are the most important nutrients for keeping your body functioning optimally. Macros are essential to provide energy, insulate your body, keep your vital organs safe, and build and repair your body’s cells and tissue.
To maintain a wholly healthy body, you’ll want to exercise while consuming a balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins — these are all macronutrients. Some people even consider water a macronutrient because it regulates your body temperature and keeps you hydrated. However, it doesn’t have any caloric value the way proteins, carbs and fats do.
Balancing Macronutrients for Optimal Performance
So, you know you need carbs, fats and proteins to balance your macros. However, it takes more than eating an apple and frying up a few eggs or cooking some rice to go with a fatty steak. For your body to perform at its best, you need to balance the macros you eat according to the amount and type of exercise you do. An even split of carbohydrates, proteins and fatty foods won’t typically cut it.
First, it’s important to understand calories — a calorie is essentially a unit of energy. The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans states that adult women should eat between 1,600 and 2,400 calories per day and men between 2,200 and 3,000 daily to maintain suitable energy. However, your calorie intake depends on many more factors, including your age, size, lifestyle and activity level.
Carbs and proteins each have 4 calories per gram of food. Fat gives your body 9 calories per gram of food you eat. Because fats are more calorie-dense, you likely won’t eat as much fat as you will protein and carbs.
The general guideline for healthy adults, known as the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range, is as follows:
- Carbohydrates: 45%-65%.
- Proteins: 10%-35%.
- Fats: 20%-35%.
However, you can experiment with different percentages based on the type of activity you’re doing. Consider the roles that each macro plays in your body’s health and how each of them assists your athletic performance when proportionately balanced.
Carbohydrates
Together with sleeping enough and drinking water often, your diet keeps up your strength, power and endurance levels. Carbs are typically your body’s main source of energy. They are crucial to your diet because they give you the glucose that powers your body and allows you to exercise. During exercise, your body burns excess glucose and stored glycogen, especially during high-intensity activities.
You must proportionately regulate your carb intake. There are two types of carbohydrates — refined and complex carbs. While complex carbs take a long time to digest and provide you energy over a long period, refined carbs are sugars that your body quickly breaks down for an immediate energy boost. The catch is that eating refined carbs causes a rapid blood sugar spike followed by a big drop. So, while you might feel satisfied in the moment, you’re likely to get hungry again soon.
Unless you need a quick energy boost before a sports event or a strength-building workout, try to stick to complex carbs — foods like whole grain bread, whole grain pasta, fiber-rich cereal products, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, quinoa, brown rice and beans. Another tasty and healthy way to energize before workouts is with Salted Caramel Coconut Energy Balls, which contain fiber-rich oats, as well as proteins and fats.
Depending on the type of exercise you’re doing, consider building a diet that includes lots of carbohydrates. The following guidelines can give a better idea:
- Cardio: You’ll condition your cardiovascular system through this aerobic activity, so look at making carbs around 60%-70% of your diet.
- Weight training: Reduce your carb intake to 45%-50% when focusing on weight training and muscle building.
Proteins
Proteins are like the body’s health workers — they build up and repair cells and tissue to minimize injury. When you digest proteins, they result in amino acids, which are released into your bloodstream and taken to other parts of your body.
There are 20 amino acids, but your body doesn’t produce nine of them naturally. These are called “essential amino acids,” and they must come from your food. Animal proteins like meat, fish, eggs and dairy products contain all nine and help deliver enough essential amino acids to your body. Vegans and vegetarians can prioritize eating soy, nuts and seeds to get essential amino acids. As with carbohydrates, finding the best protein balance for your exercise will ensure optimal performance:
- Cardio: With 60%-70% carbohydrates in your diet, add 15%-20% protein.
- Weight training: Up your protein intake to around the 30%-35% mark for strength exercises.
Fats
Fats often get a bad rap. However, fat helps your body absorb vitamins and minerals. It’s also beneficial for inflammation, muscle movement and blood clotting. Long-term, some types of fat are better than others. Monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as olive oil and walnuts, are examples of “good” fats. Saturated fats, such as butter, are less good for you in the long run.
Eating healthy fats is preferable to saturated and trans fats. These healthy fats serve an important bodily function in helping digestion.
Eating sufficient amounts of fat is an essential part of your performance-optimizing macronutrient balance. Here are the recommendations:
- Cardio: Keep your fat intake around 15%-20%.
- Weight training: Strength-training athletes can up their fat intake to 20%-25%.
If you’re hungry for something sweet that covers all your macronutrient bases, consider snacking on Pumpkin Power Bars to provide you with what you crave!
Macronutrient Balance Can Optimize Your Performance
Achieving optimal physical performance is difficult because there are various factors to consider. By balancing your macronutrient intake to suit the exercise you’re doing, you could enjoy more energy and notably increase your strength capacity or cardiovascular health. Remember — the ideal ratio will depend on your goals and your body!
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Author Bio
Jack Shaw is the senior health and fitness writer at Modded as well as a coach and sports enthusiast. For the past 6+ years he's studied and written extensively about how people of all ages and skill levels can stay fit and maintain mental and physical health. In recent years his athletic expertise has been featured in BarBend, TrainHeroic, SimpliFaster and more.