Macro Nutrients: protein, carbs, fat, and FREE custom macro template!!

Today we're going to tackle macro nutrients.

For some, this is exciting, for some it's a hard eye roll, and for some it's just terrifying.

So, what we're going to to is break it down, explain it in pieces, make it simple, and then provide a free self-populating macro template for knowing what your protein, carb, and fat levels should be, as an athlete, regardless of your goal!

For starters, this is for everyday athletes.  What does that mean?  Well, for these purposes we'll call an athlete someone who works out 4-6 days a week, utilizes active recovery days, and has a generally responsible caloric breakdown.  The "everyday" part is that it is assuming someone who is not an athlete for a living.... your life doesn't literally revolve around fitness.

Protein:

Protein levels for everyday athletes can go between 1.2g/kgbw and 1.8g/kgbw (with no positive return above 1.8g/kgbw).  

On the low end, you may see protein suggestions as low as .8g/kgbw (or even lower) but this is for sedentary individuals, not athletes.

On the other end of the spectrum you may hear from your broscience sources that you need up to 2 grams per pound of bodyweight.... no..... just... no.  That number would be nearly impossible to hit no matter what means you employed and 100% impossible to hit while keeping your carbs and fats anywhere remotely close to where they should be.  Furthermore, there has been no scientific demonstration of benefit beyond 1.8grams/kg of bodyweight in protein consumption.

Carbs:

Carbs are.... complicated.  

But first things first, say it with me:  "carbs are our friends"

Again, carbs are a tale of two extremes.  On one hand, many will say that athletes need as much as 6 grams all the way up to 10 grams per kg of body weight.

Not only will most people be able to successfully perform at much lower levels (between 2.5g and 5g per kg of body weight), most will find these lower levels still provide enough glycogen stores for energy, performance, and recovery while maintaining current body weight on the scale.

On the other extreme (super popular right now...) is people suggesting sub-optimal carb levels in order to lose weight.  These plans suggest 65g a day on a regular basis, many opting for as low as 35g per day, some plans even lower.  Here's the thing....  most people can maintain a state of ketosis at 50g of carbs a day and almost everyone will be in a full state of ketosis at 35g per day.

With that in mind, regardless of body weight, 100g - 150g of carbs a day should be considered your bare minimum (this is your "floor") when not in an aggressive, short term cut phase (*note that a cut phase should be no longer then 12 weeks and shouldn't be entered into more often than every 6-9 months).  Furthermore, most people can completely fill their usable carb fuel tank with ~6g-7g per kg of body weight (~500g) - this is your "store".

Fat:

Fat can actually be ignored, for the most part.  As long as you are keeping your protein and carbs where they are supposed to be, your fat will typically fall in line.

That said, your fat intake will vary some, depending on your goals, but should always remain in the .5-1.5g/kgbw range.

For most athletes the sweet spot for fat intake during maintenance will be between 44g and 78g per day.

So, what now?

Everyone will need to play with the carbs and protein a bit to find their sweet spot and this will take a few weeks (you haven't "proven" yourself anything after one "bad" week.....).

Yes, you can check the scale, but remember what a poor overall representation of health weight really is.  

You are an athlete.  

Listen to your body.

How do you feel during the workout?

Did you have enough fuel in the tank to finish Strong?

Do you sleep well at night?

How is your DOMS the next day?

What about on day 2?

What is your mood like?  Are you hangry?

Do you feel like you are depriving or thriving?

Here are some general starting points based on your specialization:

For endurance athletes:  Your protein should be on the lower end of the spectrum (1.2g/kgbw)

and your carbs will be on the higher end (closer to your "store").

For Olympic lifters and power lifters:  Your protein will be the top end (1.8g/kgbw)

and your carbs will be at the lower end of mid-range (2.5g/kgbw).

For Crossfitters and HIIT:  Your protein will be nearer to the top end (1.8g/kgbw)

and your carbs will be fall somewhere in the midline (2.5g-5g/kgbw) depending on how many days a week you workout, how many wods you do per day, and at what level of intensity you operate.

For people wanting to actively Cut:  Move protein towards 1.5-1.8g/kgbw 

while moving carbs to 2g/kbbw and fat to .67g/kgbw.

If you plateau, you can adjust one step further while still maintaining these median ranges by taking carbs to your "floor" (100g a day) and fats down to .5g/kgbw.

The majority of athletes, regardless of your specialization, intensity, or frequency, can find a successful level of carbs between 2.5g and 4.5g per gram of body weight.

Example:  Maintenance levels for providing excellent energy for 6 days a week of HIIT, while transitioning body comp (dropping body fat and building lean muscle) could look like 

1.2g-1.8g/kgbw in protein, 2.5g-3.5g/kgbw in carbs, and .75g-1.3g/kgbw in fats.

Macro Levels:

Protein:  1.2, 1.5, or 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Carbs:  100 carbs per day, 2.0, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5, 6, grams per kilogram of body weight.  As a general rule, male athletes will approach their "store" at about 6.25g/kgbw and female athletes at 7g/kgbw.

Fat:  .5, .67, .75, 1.0, 1.3, 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Click HERE to get my self-populating template with full instructions (Excel).

All you have to do is click the 3rd tab at the bottom ("Macro Calculator") and enter your weight in Pounds and the spreadsheet will convert everything and give you all of your macros!

Renaissance Periodization : RP

So, in my last 2 posts I talked about my journey out of and then back into fitness and shared some initial before and after photos.

While I said my wife and I used RP  I wanted to share a few more specifics on why we chose RP, what it is, and what we used of theirs, specifically, as well as what we're doing now.

What is RP?

They're a company who is made up of a large board of PhDs, RDs, and current college professors, which is cool.  What's more cool is that they largely agree on everything (which is shocking) and the things they don't all agree on (alcohol consumption, for example) they're open about.  What's even cooler than that is that they are all Olympic lifters, power lifters, endurance athletes, and/or CrossFitters so they understand the needs of athletes and they are not here for your starvation diets (yay carbs!).

Who uses RP?

I mean, other than the super famous me and my wife.... you can go look through the "RP Transformations" group on instagram.  Oh, and they have a few no-name clients too, like Annie Thorisdottir and Rich Froning jr.

What do they offer?

They have nutrition templates as well as workout templates.
They have mass and cut programs, including plans for athletes, non athletes, vegan, gender specific, hypertrophy, etc. 
For nutrition they have a Standard Template, for serious athletes, which is macro counting
A new app that is macro calculating
Then they have what my wife and I used:  The Simplified Template

The simplified template is macro based, but RP has done all the macro counting for you and all you see is a list of foods from each category (protein, fruits and grains, veggies, and fats) and how many ounces (or tbsp) you are to each of each for each meal.  All the meals are the same so you don't have to think about which day it is, which type of meal, or calculate workout times or intensity.  It's.... simple.

For us, the Simple plan worked well for our cut, which is what we were using it for!  I lost 30 pounds in ~90 days and my wife (who weighed much, _much_ less than I did) lost 12 pounds.

It got us back down to fighting weight, got us exposed to thinking about how macros look, disciplined our food choices, and let us practice meal prep.

We are now nearly 7 weeks past completion of our RP simplified template cut and here we are
(the photo was taken on August 3rd, ~4 1/2 weeks post RP):

In the next blog I'll share what macros we are focusing on now, how you can incorporate that into your life, whether you are wanting to cut, mass, or maintain and whether you are a distance runner or a CrossFitter!

Stay tuned!

Transformation Tuesday: Coach Dodd edition, 2019

*Before and after photos at the bottom*

So, in my last blog I introduced my journey over the last few years....

The tale of the tape:
I come in at a towering 5' 6"
I didn't break 100 pounds until I was a freshman in high school.  I graduated high school at somewhere between 120 pounds and 130 pounds.  Yes.. yes... I know... a monster.  "Mammoth of a man" I think is the name you're looking for *flex* #bodybysoccer

Throughout my 20's I stayed between 140 and 165.
31-33 I stayed right at 180.
34 I hit 200 pounds for the first time.
At 36 I was a sloppy 205.

A few things to hear me out on:
1.  Weight alone is a terrible indicator
2.  I despise BMI.  It's stupid.  No, I do get it.  Yes, I still think it's 90% useless at best, detrimental more often.

I could be 205 if I was a powerlifter, CrossFit games athlete, body builder, etc.  But I wasn't... I was just an out of shape 205.  You can be cut up at what BMI says is "morbidly obese".  You can also be obese at that same weight.  The scale is not a good primary indicator of health.  It can be a tool, but just one small tool in a very large tool chest... full of tools... other tools.... better tools.

My wife:  over the last 25 years my wife has been a 4 1/2 foot tall 160 pound overweight adolescent, a competitive gymnast, an anorexic madly in love with "Ed" at 87 pounds (zero muscle mass, hair falling out in clumps, digestive issues, hiatal hernias, faint, etc), and she has birthed 2 children that included gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and emergency c-section.  She has tried every crash diet, fad diet, pill diet, starvation diet, and pay-for-pounds diet you have ever heard of.  All the bad ones, that is.  She has believed what most girls are taught:  All food is bad, carbs are bad, fat is bad, calories are bad, it's all bad, and the only way to lose weight is to starve your body to the point of misery. 

We both were fed up.  We both got "done" at the same time.  So, we tried what some good friends suggested.  A crazy program that we had never heard of:  Renaissance Periodization.  Crazy name, but we liked what we saw.  I'll do another post specifically about RP in the next few days (what it is, what it isn't, who it's for, why we chose it, what we thought, how we did it, tips and tricks, etc.), so look for that.  Also, I'll detail what we're doing now and how things are going!

In the meantime, here were our before and after photos (before photos taken the first day of our cut and the after photos taken on the last day of our cut, which was 7 weeks ago):

30 pounds down

12 pounds down

My weight loss numbers each week (notice the up and down)

"What's the Point?": 3 Deadly Words and A New Lease on Life

5 years.

That's how long it's been since I was actively taking care of myself, on a daily basis.

2 years.

That's how long I completely let myself go and allowed myself to fall into full on "screw it all" mode with my fitness.

If you've been a blog reader here and or have read my book  then you know I've had a _lot_ of knee surgeries over the years.  2 years ago I was hired to lead a conditioning and skills camp for a high school boy's soccer team.  Most of the time I'm hired to operate a "hell week" to run people off.... which I love ;)  During this week, while I was out of shape and had already let myself get too far out of bounds, I still had to play.  I. Can't. Help. It.  Much to my wife's chagrin.... but that's for another blog, lol

Anyway, there rolled a 50/50 ball and my foot met the ball at the exact same instant as one of the kid's foot met the ball.  Standard fare.  Only my knee cap slid out to the side of my leg and hung... it got stuck.  So, there I was, on the field, with my knee cap locked to the outside of my leg, decisively where it was _not_ supposed to be.  I grit my teeth, grabbed it with both hands, rolled hard one way while I pulled with hands the other, all while trying to relax the muscles (ha!), and I was able to pop it back into place (about 15 minutes later).  The physical damage sucked, it scrambles everything around when this happens and then "freezes" your quad as well.  The psychological damage is what I let take over, though.  I was done.  I told myself that was it.  I was washed up, I was old (I wasn't), and what I let ring in my ears over and over again was the death nail of "what's the point?"

What's the point?  What's the point of rehab if you're just going to do it again?  What's the point in getting your mileage back up if you're only going to get hurt again and have to start all over?  What's the point in pushing in the gym when you're going to inevitably have another surgery that will cause you to lose all your gains and go back to square one, again?  What's the point?  Those three words froze me in time.  It wasn't pretty.

I lost my engine, lost my gains, lost my drive, lost my fire, lost my desire to run, lost my push to workout, lost my ability to write this blog, and I gained about 30 pounds of pure body fat.  All from 3 little words.  My words, in my own head, my three deadly words: "What's the point?"

In my next blog I'm looking forward to detailing a bit of how I came out of that 3 word hole and where I am now (pics included...)

Don't give up.  It's worth it.  You will get hurt.  You will get injured.  You will have setbacks.  You will start over.  And, most importantly, you will have Life.