Ratios
Lesson One - Ratios: Calories, Macros and Portion Sizing
RATIOS
A diet balanced in quality and quantity plays an extremely important role in achieving abundant energy, balanced hormones, and transforming your body. In a world full of dieting fads and endless eating protocols, the best strategy to truly understand what it is to have a healthy diet is to know the key fundamentals of nutritional science such as calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, and portion sizing.
If we can understand that food is energy, can be measured, and is made up of nutrients with different properties that help fulfill different roles in the body, we can make better choices and find what it truly means to have a balanced diet.
CALORIES
A Calorie is a unit of energy. In Australia we technically use kilojoules, but I find the calorie is more universally understood. A Calorie is the amount of energy it takes to boil water one degree. All food has a caloric content that can be measured and is tracked.
Daily calories are needed to keep you alive, for respiration, body function and completing daily activity and exercise. Knowing your daily intake is important to make sure you are eating enough to give your body energy and to support healthy body processes. And also important to make sure you are not overeating which will cause unnecessary weight gain that can have health implications.
If you are wondering why it is necessary to know about calories it is very important to understand that, at the end of the day, body fat stores and building muscle is affected greatly by the basic equation of energy in and energy out. To maintain your current weight your energy in = energy out. To lose body fat your energy in < energy out. If you want to gain muscle and size your energy in > energy out.
While this is very simplified and not absolute (ie you can't just keep eating less and losing more body fat due to hormones), you must have a ballpark target and measured figures to be able to understand how much to eat, how it is affecting your body and what is balanced for you. This will get you familiar with how much food your body needs to function and to achieve your goals.
Firstly your body needs a basal amount of calories to stay alive. This is called your Basal metabolic Rate and this is what your body would burn at rest all day. Then on top of that, you need daily calories to sustain daily activity and extra exercise on top of that.
It is important to note that different factors change how much your body burns per day. If you have more muscle mass, you are recovering or growing you will burn more calories at rest. If you have a hormonal imbalance such as insulin resistance or hypothyroidism or have chronically dieted on low calories for a long time unfortunately that can slow your metabolism down. When this food is ingested many factors come into play such as fibre, digestive health and hormones that affect the final caloric value.
However it is always best to track and measure your food so you KNOW what you have been eating and how it is affecting your body so that you can register how it is changing your body, how your energy is and what works best for you.
Your caloric intake can be manipulated to achieve your goals, whether it be fat loss, muscle gain, or maintenance. For a good estimate of your recommended daily calories head to the guide at https://healthyeater.com/flexible-dieting-calculator and click the “high protein” option at the end.
MACRONUTRIENTS
All food is made of three macronutrients: fat, protein, and carbohydrate.
Each is important in the body, and any diet that aims to eliminate or minimize one will be unsustainable long-term. An optimum balance of overall intake and balance of macronutrients will vary from person to person depending on factors such as hormone status, gender, age, dieting history, and activity levels.
Each macronutrient is very important for different roles in the body, so I do not encourage diets that cut them out!
🍗PROTEIN
4 calories per gram
15-30% of daily intake or 1-2g/ kilo of body weight
Growth (especially important for children, teens, and pregnant women)
Tissue repair
Immune function
Making essential hormones and enzymes
Energy when carbohydrate is not available
Preserving lean muscle mass
🥑FATS
9 Calories per gram
25-30% of daily intake or 0.6-1.5/kilo of body weight
Normal growth and development
Energy (fat is the most concentrated source of energy)
Absorbing certain vitamins ( like vitamins A, D, E, K)
Providing cushioning for the organs
Maintaining cell membranes
🍌CARBOHYDRATE
4 calories per gram
50 - 65% of daily intake or to add up to daily calorie intake.
The body’s main source of fuel.
Easily used by the body for energy.
All tissues and cells in our body can use glucose (the smallest form of carbohydrate) for energy.
Needed for the central nervous system, the kidneys, the brain, the muscles (including the heart) to function properly.
Can be stored in the muscles and liver and later used for energy.
Important in intestinal health and waste elimination.
💧MICROS/WATER/FIBRE
Although macronutrients are very important they are not the only things that we need for survival. Our bodies also need water (at least 8 glasses a day), fibre and micronutrients. Micronutrients are nutrients that our bodies need in smaller amounts, and include vitamins and minerals. Eating a variety of whole foods including vegetables, fruits, lean meats, healthy fats, legumes, and whole grains should support most micronutrient needs. Seek advice from your medical professional if you feel you may have a deficiency.
PORTION SIZING
A great guide to making sure that your meal is balanced is by using your hand for portion sizing. Luckily your hand is in proportion to your body and always with you so is a failsafe tool when you don't have a scale or are out and about. Becoming familiar with foods that contain the different macronutrients and balancing them in your meals is a very useful skill to use. This is based on 4 meals a day (or 3 meals and 2 snacks) for maintenance calories for an average sized woman who is moderately active.
PROTEIN
PALM-SIZED PORTION
This comes to 100-150g of protein
Which is 30-40g of the macronutrient protein
VEGETABLES
FIST SIZED
Get as many veggies in as possible
CARBOHYDRATE
HALF A CUPPED HAND
This comes to 100-150g of carbohydrate
Which is 30g-40 of the macronutrient carbohydrates
FATS
THUMB SIZED
Comes to about 30g of fats
Which is 7-12g of the macronutrient fat
TRACKING YOUR FOOD
In the Powherful Program we focus on tracking our daily intake of food in a Food Diary. This is valuable for accountability, awareness and reflection to know what you are eating, and how it is affecting you. There are two ways you can track, either in a manual Food Diary or in the app Myfitnesspal.
FOOD DIARY
In the Food Diary you can use the Handy Guide to Portions to track in your Food Diary.
For maintenance start with 4 balanced meals (or 3 meals and 2 snacks)
For fat loss start with 3 meals and 1 snack
For muscle gain/performance start with 5 meals
Note how you feel in energy, hunger and body changes, to see if you need to tweak your portions.
MYFITNESSPAL
Myfitnesspal is a great way to accurately track your nutrition. It is a phone application that you can input food with calorie and macro values. You can set your daily targets and log your food from a very extensive library. I would track in the application, but still input your daily numbers into the Journal so you can easily reflect on them.
Start by inputting your calorie and macro goals. Myfitnesspal often underestimates if your goal is fat loss so I would recommend getting an estimate from a website such as https://healthyeater.com/flexible-dieting-calculator to start with. To change your goals in the app go to More>Goals>Calorie, Carbs, Protein and Fat Goals>Change the calories and tweak the percentage to be similar to your calculation. I usually do 40% carbs, 30% Protein, 30% Fats.
At the end of the week, you can see how your measurements are tracking, how your energy, performance and hunger are to determine if you need to make any further changes.