Mastering Macronutrients: Unlock Better Performance, Health & Body Composition
‘Is it really as simple as calories in vs calories out?’
‘Should I track macros?’
‘How much protein do I need?’
‘Is meal timing important?’
It can be confusing knowing where to start with nutritional changes - with so many areas you could change, it’s important to prioritise the areas that will have the most impact - then you can fine-tune the finer details later down the line.
This blog post is designed to help you learn what to prioritise when it comes to your nutrition, and more importantly, why.
I want to help you build a long-term understanding of exactly how your diet can help you feel, look, and perform your best.
Let’s start with the most important factor…
Calorie Balance
Calories serve as the currency of energy within our bodies. The equation is simple: consume more than you expend (aka ‘use’), and you'll gain weight; expend more than you consume, and you'll lose weight; maintain equilibrium between intake and expenditure, and your weight remains stable.
When a calorie deficit is present, weight loss inevitably follows. While certain health conditions may complicate the process of consuming fewer calories or burning more (for example, an under-active thyroid results in lower energy expenditure), the fundamental principle remains: anyone who consumes less energy than they expend will lose weight, regardless of hormonal or other factors. Thus, creating a calorie deficit is an essential component of weight loss.
However, understanding calorie balance isn’t solely about weight loss. You might want to gain or maintain weight, particularly if you’re focused on performance goals and intense training. If that’s the case for you, ensuring you’re eating enough calories to fuel training sessions is paramount.
Understanding calorie balance can help us maintain a healthy weight range, as our bodies and metabolic rates change throughout our lives. Maintaining a healthy weight range (which is highly individual) is linked to a reduction in health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.
You can manipulate your calorie intake through various methods, including indirect approaches like mindful eating, portion control, and substituting high-calorie foods with lower-calorie alternatives, but the most accurate and precise way to master calorie balance is through directly tracking your food using an app such as MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, or Nutracheck (to name a few!).
Calorie balance is the foundation for achieving your health, aesthetic, and performance goals - the next step is building on these foundations!
Next stop: protein
Macronutrients - also called ‘macros’ - are the next pillar of nutrition, and the foundation of this pillar is protein. Understanding this begins with recognising that each macronutrient - carbs, fats, and protein - contains calories. Specifically, protein and carbs provide 4 calories per gram, while fats offer 9 calories per gram. Consequently, our total calorie intake is directly influenced by the grams of each macronutrient we consume.
Often when you start tracking for the first time, trying to stick to specific protein, carbohydrate and fat targets (also known as a ‘macronutrient split’) can be overwhelming, so I strongly recommend simplifying things by starting off with just a calorie and protein goal.
When you set a target for protein intake, you can allocate the remaining calories to a combination of carbs and fats that suits your preferences and current eating habits. This approach provides flexibility in meal planning while ensuring you meet your most important nutrition targets.
New to macros? Click here to check out my beginner’s guide to understanding macros blog post.
Why is protein so important?
Protein isn’t just a buzz-word, and it’s not just for body-builders or those looking to build serious muscle (although it is essential for that, too!). Let’s explore just some of the reasons protein is the most important macronutrient to focus on:
Health
Protein plays numerous essential roles within the body beyond just muscle building: from aiding in immune function and hormone regulation, to regulating gene expression, to catalysing all chemical reactions in the body, and comprising most structural elements of cells and organs. If you want to feel good day-to-day, and live a long, healthy life, protein is your friend.
Muscle gain
When we digest protein, we break it down into its building blocks - amino acids - which our bodies can then use as building blocks for muscle tissue, which means that consuming enough high-quality protein is essential for promoting muscle growth and strength, when combined with effective strength training.
Performance
You don’t get fitter and stronger during training - in fact, during training, you’re actually stressing and damaging muscle tissues. It’s when you’re resting that your tissues can repair and become stronger in the process - but only when you give them the right fuel. This doesn’t just apply to muscles, but also to tendons, ligaments and other structures that are put under physical stress during training. Training is the stimulus, but rest and nutrition is what turns the stimulus into results.
Supporting a calorie deficit
Protein can support a calorie deficit in a number of ways. Protein has a higher thermic effect than carbs and fats, meaning that your body actually uses more energy digesting and metabolising protein than it does other macronutrients. This can contribute to increased calorie expenditure and enhanced fat loss over time. In addition, protein is more filling than carbs or fats, per calorie, meaning consuming plenty of protein can help keep you fuller for longer, enabling you to actually stick to a calorie deficit consistently, which is where most people struggle!
Fat loss
Being in a calorie deficit doesn’t guarantee fat loss - just weight loss. Keeping your protein intake high when you’re in a deficit (when combined with consistent strength training!) is what allows you to maintain and even build muscle as you lose weight, and ensure as much of your weight loss as possible is coming from fat. This results in a healthier, stronger physique, with a more ‘toned’ or athletic appearance. Higher muscle mass also supports metabolism, making fat loss easier to maintain!
So, whether your goals are health-, performance-, aesthetic-based, or a combination of the three, prioritising the right calorie intake for your goals, combined with the right protein intake is essential!
The final piece: carbs + fats
If your protein intake is on point, any remaining calories will come from some combination of carbs and fats. Many people get amazing results without ever paying attention to what exact combination of carbs and fats their consuming, but if you truly want to get the most out of tracking macros, and use nutrition to look, feel and perform your best, then your ratio or proportion of carbs vs fats (‘carb:fat ratio’) is your next step.
Before diving into mastering carb:fat ratios, I want to stress that fixating on how many grams of carbs and fats you’re consuming becomes futile if you're either exceeding your calorie intake, or falling short on protein. Dialling in your carb:fat ratio is only a logical step to take IF you’ve covered the steps before that - otherwise you’d be better putting your efforts towards getting consistent with calories and protein!
Why do carb:fat ratios matter?
By understanding the roles of both fats and carbs in the body, we can see why striking the right balance is essential. Carbs and fats both provide energy, but carbs are your body’s preferred source of energy during high intensity activities - such as strength training - since they provide large amounts of energy quickly.
A graph depicting fuel use during exercise, illustrating how your relies increasingly on carbs and less on fats as exercise intensity increases.
Fats, on the other hand, are a slow-burning energy source, meaning we can’t get as much energy from them as quickly as we can from carbs. So, if we’re trying to rely solely on fats for fuel, we can’t perform at such high intensities. Does this mean we should neglect fats and just eat carbs and protein if we’re training hard? Absolutely not! Beyond being an energy source, fats are integral to hormone production, vitamin absorption, nervous system function, and tissue protection; consuming too little fat would significantly impede your performance and health.
So, whilst carbs and fats each have their own essential roles and benefits, determining the optimal ratio of fats to carbs hinges on several factors, including your individual needs, preferences, and goals.
Calculating your minimum fat requirement is a great first step: keep your intake above 0.6g fat per kg bodyweight, or ensure fats make up at least 20% of your total calorie intake. From here, you might add some additional fats to suit your preferences and current habits, and then allocate the remaining calories to carbs. This approach means that when you decide to increase or decrease your calories, you’ll typically make most of these changes by adjusting your carb intake.
Don’t forget to pay attention to your preferences. No plan works without consistent execution, so if you’re constantly struggling to hit targets because you prefer higher-fat foods, for example, adjusting your carb:fat ratio to accommodate this preference can help you stick to your targets and ultimately get better results over time.
This is why within The Athlete Nutrition Blueprint, the first step is setting your ‘Blueprint Baseline’. I’ll get you to track what you’re currently eating for 2 weeks, then set your initial calorie, protein, carb and fat targets based on this - not by using a generic calculator! This way, you can dive straight into getting results with a plan that’s personalised not only to your body and your goals, but also your current habits - making it far easier for you to actually follow!
Nutrition doesn’t end with your macro split…
It’s easy to assume that once you’ve dialled in your calorie intake and mastered the right balance of protein, carbs, and fats for your goals, you’ve covered everything. And whilst calories and macros are the foundations, there are still so many areas that can take your results - including your performance - to the next level, if you’re ready to take it up a notch:
Nutrient Timing
Strategically planning when to consume your nutrients will allow you to optimise performance and body composition by giving you the right fuel, at the right time. You’ll have more energy to push in training, and the right nutrients to recover between sessions!
Food Composition
Getting your macronutrients from high quality, varied, nutrient-dense sources is essential for health (which is a prerequisite for big performance goals!). You’ll be getting all the vitamins, minerals and fibre you need, plus you’ll likely have more stable energy levels, and feel full for longer.
Hydration
Every cell in your body, from your muscles to your brain, needs water to function. Poor hydration affects concentration, performance, recovery, and overall health. You can focus on hydration alongside your focus on dialling in calories, macros, or nutrient timings.
Supplements
Certain supplements have evidence to support their use - in particular, creatine and caffeine, but they should still be viewed as an optional "cherry on top" rather than the first place to focus your efforts. It's crucial to prioritise foundational elements such as calorie intake, macronutrient balance, nutrient timing, and hydration before considering supplementation. Supplements won’t fill the gaps left by neglecting the foundations.
Consistency comes first
Achieving your goals requires more than occasional bursts of effort; it demands a sustained commitment to the a long-term nutrition strategy. With this in mind, every one of the priorities covered in this article must be underpinned with consistency to be effective, and to warrant moving onto the next step.
For example, if you’re not consistent with a calorie and protein intake that aligns with your goals, you’re wasting time and energy stressing over whether a specific food is ‘bad’ for you, what carb:fat ratio you need, or what meal timings you should stick to. Look at what you can do consistently first. Once you’ve nailed that, move onto the next step.
Need a plan for getting started?
The Athlete Nutrition Blueprint will guide you through every step of fuelling for your performance and body composition goals. Ditch the diets, generic meal plans, and quick fixes and finally learn exactly what to eat - and why - for your goals.
With personalised macro targets, extensive trainings to help you get consistent with hitting your targets, and detailed guidance on how to adjust your nutrition and even implement effective nutrient timing strategies, you’ll have everything you need for a lifetime of results - all in one place!
➡️ Click here to discover The Athlete Nutrition Blueprint today!
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