Hello athletes, welcome and thank you for tuning into the Coach Katie Danger Podcast recorded live from Omaha, Nebraska. I'm your host, Coach Katie Danger, U S army veteran, fitness coach and founder of Red H Nutrition. Here's a fact for you, 99% of us are not elite athletes. We're individuals from all backgrounds, juggling life priorities, including jobs, our families, their needs, and trying to find time to take care of ourselves every single week. When you tune in, I'll be discussing clear, concise and actionable strategies you can use to get the most from your fitness, nutrition, and mindset. So you can optimize your life without compromising your time. So athletes settle in and get comfortable. I'm here to educate, inspire, empower, and entertain you to help you enjoy the unique fitness journey that you are on.
(00:52): Hey, there athletes, how's everybody doing? This is coach Katie, Andrea, and welcome to the coach Katie danger podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. We're at episode number 38 and Hey, I'm going to be talking about the, if it fits your macros diet. And when we talk about macros, so macros that word macros, it is so trendy. It's thrown out there everywhere. Macro seemed to be what everybody does, right? If you want to lose weight macros, if you want to gain weight, macros performance, macros, like everything's about your macros, but it just seems like this concept is just really misunderstood. So I wanted to just bring it back to something simple. I've done podcasts before on time, restricted feeding, also known as fasting. And I like to talk about things and how they can be simple. These ideas don't have to be complex.
(01:44): So if you're into simplicity and into understanding these things so they can be applied to your life or somebody else's life, you know, it could benefit. That's what the essence of the coach, Katie and your podcast is all about. So my first experience with macros, it was about 10 years ago and it's when I first got into my competitive CrossFit world. I was just looking for, how can I use food as fuel? How can I get more for my food? So it's when I started filling in the zone diet, the zone made it really easy, macros, like it just seemed like this complex idea of weighing and measuring and portion control and blah, blah, blah, all these things that, I mean, I'm a disciplined individual, but I've never, I've never really struggled with food or diet. So this whole portion control thing, it just like didn't really seem like something I wanted to take place.
(02:29): But when I found the zone, it helped me just become more aware of things. And it honestly just made it more simple for me to understand, but here's what the zone is about. So the zone creates meal plans and this caloric awareness through blocks, they call food blocks and each block brings an awareness of how much each macronutrient you should get. And in case I've gotten too far ahead, already a macronutrient, really for this, I'm going to talk about four different macros. Usually there's three, but here's the deal. It's proteins, it's fats carbs. But then we got to talk about alcohol. So a lot of people consume alcohol on a regular basis. And if you're following a macros for muscle building, weight loss, caloric control, whatever it may be, you got to take in that account because there are calories in alcohol generally, for the most part.
(03:14): So with macros, the measuring, when we're talking about macros, we're going from the zone, which we're talking about blocks. But then we were just talking about macronutrients. The measuring becomes related to the total percentage of calories from each macro. So how much of your hundred percent daily diet comes from proteins, fats and carbs, and then potentially alcohol. Now, generally when we're discussing macros, the total caloric need is the start of the equation. So that's where you start. When we're talking about programming for macros. First, we want to know how many calories does this person does. This athlete need to function? Optimally macros can get complicated. Like I said before, and it can be a turnoff for a lot of people. They just think there's so many moving parts to macros, but when it comes to, if it fits your macros concept, the macros for fueling performance and weight loss are actually very, very simple.
(04:03): You only got to know three numbers, that's your proteins, your fashion, your carbs. That's all you got to know. So you'll often see the, if it fits your macros in an acronym, I F Y M and it just stands for if it fits your macros. And this whole concept originated on bodybuilding message boards. And it was a result of aspiring bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts to get away from that typical, like eating the same old clean foods, like the chickens, the rice, the potatoes, you know, those blah things that are clean. Now, when a person can just no longer eat a bunch of rice, chicken broccoli, sometimes these people in these old school forms are asking like, well, you know, I don't want to eat broccoli, but can I eat X? Because if it still meets my macro needs, why can't I have it? If we're talking about calories in equals calories out, most of the time you're going to get the answer to that yet, if it fits your macros, you can have it, whatever it may be.
(04:54): If you don't want chicken broccoli anymore, but you seem to get your protein and carbs in. And somehow you find that through a dairy and a chocolate, then I guess so be it right? So when these questions started becoming prevalent, like, can I have this instead of this, as long as it fits my macros, then we just kind of started talking about like, if it fits your macros, I guess you can have it. So what this diet holds is that so long as you hit your macronutrient goal, your proteins, your fats and carbs, you can eat whatever you want. You can still see progress. And, you know, potentially that'd be weight loss, muscle gain, or a total body recomposition. And you know, you might think this is too good to be true. And the truth is that it really is calories behind the weight loss and the weight gain equation, calories in calories out.
(05:36): Then it gets a little complicated. When we start talking about each person's metabolism, their stress level, their genetic disposition, how they break down food, the health of their gut, that is for a different discussion. That is for more high level scientists. Who've got the time and effort to put into the research, you know, to find out how all of these factors in various plans. But when we're talking about calories, calories out at its surface and how somebody can start with a macronutrient concept and not be overwhelmed. It's if it fits your macros, I, I F Y N. And if you consume fewer calories and your body needs, you're gonna lose weight. And then conversely, if you consume more calories than your body needs on a day-to-day basis, you're going to gain weight. It's thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is their principles, their laws of science. Okay. But how you choose to divide those calories up becomes important.
(06:24): If you're looking to maximize performance and appearance, where macros enters the picture for a lot of athletes. So what foods can you eat on? If it fits your macros, according to the principles, you can eat whatever you want so long as it fits your macronutrients. And as a general rule, I mean, let's just be real here. If you eat more processed foods, that's eating dirty, even though you're still falling with your macros, it's not going to be as healthy. You're going to miss like trace micronutrients that are helpful to you. So if it's healthier food, a more whole food, it's just going to be better for you from that micronutrient perspective, right? That's just a general rule. So why follow the, if it fits your macros diet, then why would anybody, you know, why would you choose the zone or maybe fasting or anything like that?
(07:05): There are lots and lots of people out there who have followed the traditional bodybuilders diet. They eat the chicken, the egg whites, the cottage, cheese, rice, broccoli, you know, that same thing repetitively for years. And well, a lot of them get the results they want. They're miserable. As humans, we do get enjoyment from eating some foods. And personally, as a coach, the 99% of my clients, they're not in the realm where being imperfect as part of the human condition, it's part of who we are enjoying food is something that humans do. So really, there's no reason to forego that pleasure, even if it's just 1%, right? I believe that humans should enjoy food. Now, when it becomes a crutch, when it becomes bad, obviously those are things that are not optimal. But when you're looking for something that fits into simplicity of a diet and gives you some control and gives you some awareness, because that's a lot of times what these diet and habit changes are about is like, how can somebody become more aware of what they're putting in your body?
(08:02): And if it fits your macros is a good way to start. You only got to worry about three numbers, proteins, fats, and carbs. So you don't have to hate your diet. You don't have to give up the things that you love. You're not forced to eat the six to eight, seven foods day in and day out. And even if you enjoy chicken and rice and broccoli, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of spice in your life, right? So how do you follow if it fits your macros? And there are lots of other popular fat loss fads that have come and gone over the years. And the great thing about if it fits your macros, is it doesn't really place any restrictions on what foods you can or cannot eat. I'll be, I'm going to put a disclaimer, a little asterix right there. Please talk to your doctor about any diet that you may start.
(08:43): If you have any underlying health concerns, okay? End of asterix. So what if it fits your macros in again, I'm going to say this, as long as you're hitting your macro goals, staying within those calorie limits, anything is fair game, but first, the first thing you need to do here is we need to calculate your macronutrients, your proteins, your fats, and your carbs. And to start, we need to know how many calories you need to eat in order to reach your goal. So what's your number one goal. Any coach out there should say, Hey, yo, athlete, what is your number one goal here? And that's usually fat loss, muscle gain, body recover. Those are the big ones. And obviously if there's fat loss, we've got to look at a clerk restriction. If there's a desire to gain weight and put on muscle, perhaps we need to look at caloric surplus right now.
(09:24): If you need any help, figuring out how many calories you need. If this podcast can't give you enough information to do the calculations, just email me. Okay. I do this and I love helping athletes reach those perfect optimal numbers. So send me an email. Katie@Coachkatiedanger.Com, and I'll get you started with the perfect macronutrients. Then once you have the total number of calories and eat per day, like take into consideration how many workouts you do and how sedentary are you. What's the intensity of your activities of daily living. And yeah, that includes like maybe you work in an office all day, but then when you get done, you know, seven days a week, your CrossFit and or maybe your five days a week CrossFit and your construction worker, you know, in your day job, what I'm saying is your activities of daily living are a little bit higher than it would be if you were office workers.
(10:03): So all of those things come into account, Hey, how's your current training program? One of the most underrated ways to train is body weight movements, squats, push-ups pull-ups anything without our barbell and just using your body as a resistance is a body weight movement because of their importance. I created the body weight muscles training program, and the program consists of body weight workouts that anyone can do anywhere because you don't need a barbell or a gym to do these workouts. And the best part is the entire program is free and you get your copy@bodyweightmuscles.com. So head on over to bodyweight muscles.com. After this podcast is over and download the program and start adding body weight workouts, your routine. So you can build real functional strength.
(10:49): Then do you know how many calories you need per day to get to your number one goal and taking in all those other factors in consideration, we need to divide up the calories across the various macronutrients, okay. That's protein fats carbs. And then I mentioned alcohol per gram. This is where a little bit of math is needed on your parts. If you've got a pen and paper now would be the time to take notes. If you aren't already familiar with this per gram of protein, there's four calories per gram of carbohydrate. There's four calories per gram of fat. There are nine calories and per gram of alcohol. There are seven calories. So four and four calories for protein carbs, nine calorie per gram of fat and seven calories per gram. Alcohol. I always like to set protein first. I like to set protein first, because really no matter what the goal is, whether it's fat loss, body, recurrent muscle gain, amino acids are the building blocks proteins.
(11:41): The broken down form proteins, amino acids are what your body needs to build and repair muscle tissue. So that is what I always like to set first. And I typically set it depending on the activity level 0.8 to one gram per pound of body weight. If you're trying to maintain muscle mass and you aren't doing anything, you're just like, you're, I'm gonna take like a two to three month break from lifting anything. I just need it at least try to get in one gram of protein per pound of body weight a day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you'd be looking at consuming 120 to 150 grams of protein per day. Now, ideally this is spread out through three to five meals, depending on what your timing and feeding schedule is and how you want to maximize that aspect, which is again, timing, feeding, what windows to eat.
(12:22): And that is a whole nother podcast. In fact, episode number 33 is why you should skip breakfast. Maybe take a listen to that one. If you're curious about fasting, but for this, we're just sticking to like a traditional food plan, three to five meals a day. However you break that up next, we set our fat. So we set our protein and about point a to 0.1 gram pound. And now we're going to go to fat. And generally speaking fat, is it 0.3, 2.5 grams per pound. Now, again, we go back to the 150 pound person. This would mean you're looking at 45 to 75 grams of fat each day. And then what we've got is carbohydrates. So now we've got to fit the carbohydrates in here in an order to figure out how many carbs you need to consume each day. You got to subtract the protein, the fat calories, and then divide by four.
(13:00): Because remember I mentioned before that four calories per gram of carbohydrate, this is where having a coach is important. Some of this math, it's all not complicated. If you do it a few times with a coach, then you can do it again on your own. I promise you, I worked with a coach for a while getting these numbers down. And now, you know, now that I've become a nutrition coach myself, it's so much easier. So do not be afraid to ask a coach for help with this. So I'm gonna say that again. When we talk about cars, we've got the protein, the fat, and we've got to figure out the carbs, subtract the protein, the fat calories from that daily total number that you found, and then divide by four. That's going to give you your grams of carbohydrates. So with that 150 pound person we talked about, they got 150 grams of protein for the day and 50 grams of fat a day.
(13:43): We've got 600 calories, respectively from protein, 450 calories, respectively from fat. Then we subtract that from the total. Let's just assume we have this person at a 2000 calorie diet, right? That's standard American diet on the back of every nutrition facts label. So 2000 subtracting, 604 50, we got 950 calories left. Nine 50 divided by four is about 237 grams of carbs. So what we look at this person, we just did the macros for this one, 150 pound individual, 150 grams of protein, 50 grams of fat, and approximately two 37 grams of carb. And that equals 2000 calories. Now, as you noticed, I gave just a range up the tough for both the protein, the fat here. I had mentioned that it was 0.8 to 0.1 for protein, and then 0.3 to 0.5 for fat. And I just, I rounded up here. I went on the higher end of it.
(14:35): And I did that. Yeah, because it's highly customizable. I wanted to give you an idea about these ranges then depend on what works best for the individual. A lot of times what you'll find is even working with them, very, very specific coach. Who's taking your individual needs to account. You have to work the plan, your whole fitness experience is going to be an experiment. And if you go in these coaching relationships, if you go into this data analysis and what works for you with an open mind and understanding that it is an experimental and experiential journey, you're going to get so much more out of it because when you hit roadblocks, when you hit plateaus, because you will, you're going to keep driving through, you're gonna put one foot in front of the other because you realize this is part of the process. So another thing that you can think of is if you personally enjoy eating more fat and less carbs, you can always scale, scale one, reduce the other and you know, increase the other.
(15:24): This is where the personal preference of, if it fits your macros, it's really, really awesome. It may not be about performance. It may just be about finding some discipline in what you consume and then adjusting it and tailoring it to your needs and preferences. So, you know, you can have your cake and eat it too with if it fits your macros and a good drink of water there, I got really fired up about this because honestly, the deal here is athlete's life. It really shouldn't be complicated. You should enjoy what you do and you should get out of fitness, what you want to get out of it. And by following macros and understanding how they work and influence energy systems, performance, caloric, surpluses, and caloric restriction, you can really get a lot out of your nutrition. It doesn't have to be complicated either. You know, and there's also cons of if it's your macros and that's the main con here is those influencers that I see on Instagram and Facebook, the ones who are like all I eat all days, cake cookies and chocolate.
(16:22): And look at me, I got 18 pack abs and people just got comments and they're drooling over these people. And I highly doubt, I highly doubt that that is all they're eating. Obviously a lot of the social media and our influencers out there, they're, you know, it's a little bit shock value. It gets the clicks, it gets the likes, the eyeballs are on it. But please take that information with a grain of salt. Okay. After so long, especially as you get older. I mean, when you're younger in your twenties, I'm going to attest. You can get by with a lot more than what you can get by with when you're in your thirties or forties and so on. You can't get away with things forever. So try to instill some discipline yourself that if it fits your macros, doesn't mean being with food completely because by just eating, eating cakes and cookies and pop tarts, and strudels, and all those things that taste delicious and make our mouth water, it really is a bastardization of what if it fits your macros is all about.
(17:13): It's supposed to help you on your health and wellness journey. Not give you a free pass to be an idiot when it comes to what you're consuming, there is another shortcoming on if it fits your macros. And this is if you know, if you happen to be maybe making a mockery of it like 50 50, or, you know, really not paying attention to the quality of your food, you got to think about micronutrients as well. And this is where I love supplementation because micro nutrients are just important for cellular energy production, cellular turnover, antioxidants, DNA, repair recovery, all of those things is making sure we're getting our macros. In. In fact, I would that micros are the foundation of what we do in the macros is like, that's how the house is built. That's how the house is built. But if our foundation sucks, if you're not getting in the micronutrients that your body needs to keep its physiological systems at homeostasis balance, you're going to have a really, really hard time with a lot of these things.
(18:07): And ultimately, you know, macros are like the least of your concerns. So it may be a shortcoming. Just be smart about this. I mean, if you look at a food and you say, I should probably eat an Apple for my carbs instead of this delicious cake, we all know that it's just, how many times do you make one decision over the other 80, 28 times out of 10, choose the Apple. I'll let you two times out of 10 have that cake because in this, if it fits your macros, you can have your cake and eat it too. You see, I brought it all back around. So here's the bottom line. The bottom line is it's flexible. It's great for people who want to lose fat or build muscle mass, and you don't want to be confined or restricted. And since really any food is allowed, that ability to choose actually brings us back to discipline because you don't feel restricted.
(18:50): It's human psychology, it's finest, right? So athletes, if overall, you really enjoy being able to call your own shots and you can be disciplined with your tracking and smart with your nutrition choices. If it fits your macros is a really great nutrition protocol to follow. And there you go. That's if it fits your macros, in a nutshell, you know, during my early days across the competition, I had one summer where I had a really, really dirty bulk. And what I mean is I wanted to put on muscle mass. I wanted to gain some weight because I'm traditionally, I'm, I'm 115 pounds, five, six female, and even soaking wet. That's as heavy as I can get. So anyway, before I digress, I wanted to gain some weight and I read some information on if it fits your macros and, you know, found some idiots to believe in science.
(19:34): And I had like pop tarts and toaster strudels and donuts as my post-workout binges. And it was okay because in air quotes, it fit my macros, but I felt so much more, sorry. I mean, I was in my mid twenties. So like, you know, nothing's supposed to affect you your twenties, right? But I felt really sore. I wasn't losing strength. I was still gaining strength, but like I was sore and my joints hurt and training. Wasn't really like the most exciting thing because of this. But I got smarter, I got more discipline and I felt better about my performance when I ate better. When I went back to 80 20 and chose that Apple eight times out of 10, I still got to enjoy my cake. I had the best performance I've really ever had in any of my competitive years. So I really believe if it fits your macros, I believe in 80 20 principle of that.
(20:18): And then I really think that you should work with a coach on this. If you're a competitive athlete or you want to be, then I can help you. I've done this for myself. Macros have played such a huge part in getting the metabolic response that I wanted. It was able to help me maximize my muscular endurance, my strength and my recovery. Like I just stated. And if that's what you want to better muscular endurance, better strength, better recovery. Then you don't want to leave any macro on the table. Let's work together. I want you to head over to coach Katie, andrew.com now, and I want you to sign up for the easy macros nutrition plan. Your engine needs fuel. And those macros are that fuel. If you need more than just this podcast to get to where you want to be, let's do this athletes. Thank you so much for tuning in to episode number 38 of the coach, Katie danger podcast. And I hope you'll join me again next week. If you ever want to chat, send me an email. Katie@Coachkatiedanger.Com. And don't forget if you need your supplementation needs filled right now. Go over, ready to attrition.com. Use coach Katie danger, and you'll save 30% on your first order. 30% on all your supplements. You know where to go reddish nutrition.com until next time athletes. This is coach KDD over and out.
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