If you are trying to lose some body fat or gain muscle, your nutrition ratios can have a huge effect on your success. What I mean by nutrition ratios is basically how much protein, carbohydrates and fat make up the calories that you are eating.
Unfortunately there are many different views on this and many different ratios that you can use. For example you could use a 40:40:20 which means 50% of your total calorie intake would be from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 20% from fat. The ideal ratio to use depends on your goal, be it fat loss or muscle building, and it also varies from person to person.
You should remember that each of these nutrients don’t have the same amount of calories, they are as follows:-
- 1 gram of protein = 4 calories
- 1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories
- 1 gram of fat = 9 calories
As a beginner trying to achieve fat loss or muscle gain, rather than trying to work out your requirements exactly you should just try and get roughly in the right area. My advice is to spread your calorie intake over six meals a day, and to make sure that you eat both carbohydrates and protein with each meal. This will give you a good starting point, and as you get more experienced you can adjust as you feel necessary. If you are trying to lose fat you might find that you need to drop your carb intake, or if you are trying to gain muscle you may need to increase your protein intake. A good figure to aim for with protein if you are trying tolose fat or build muscle is about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.
You should also make sure that you are getting at least 15-20% of your calories from good fat, the unsaturated fats, avoiding saturated fat and especially trans fatty acids.
Give that a try and you should start to see some good results!
Tags: bodybuilding, fat loss, weight gain