#14: The Basics of Macronutrients

Hey fitness friends,

We’re gonna continue our talk about nutrition by taking a look at the macronutrients. Understanding macronutrients is fundamental (see what I did there) to achieving any type of fitness goal.

Weekly Action Point

🙏 Start every day this week with a moment of gratitude and a smile. Here are the steps I want you to try each morning for seven days:

1. Alarm goes off. You get 30 seconds to feel sorry for yourself and complain about not wanting to get out of bed.

2. While laying in bed, I want you to think of three things from the day before that you were grateful for. Doesn’t matter how small or simple they are. Just find three small things in your life. It could be a relationship, having a house and a bed, something that happened at work, or anything in between.

3. Smile. Doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like it. Fake it until you make it. Put a big smile on your face before you even get out of bed. It might feel cheesy (pun intended), but who cares? Studies have shown that forcing a smile can actually increase your level of happiness. Don’t believe me? Check out this meta-analysis.

   Most importantly: Do these steps before you look at your phone or get out of bed. This really shouldn’t take you more than two minutes each morning.

What are Macronutrients:

Macronutrients are the nutrients that your body needs in large amounts in order to function properly. They’re essential for providing energy, building and repairing tissue, and maintaining performance of your body systems. When we talk about macronutrients, we are mainly about the big three: protein, carbohydrates (carbs), and fats.

1. Protein

My favorite macronutrient. Responsible primarily for building and repairing tissue (including muscles).

One gram of protein contains four calories, but because it’s the most difficult macronutrient to break down, it’s only really used for energy if carbs and fats aren’t available.

Protein is made up of twenty different amino acids, often thought of as the building blocks of protein. There are nine amino acids that your body cannot make, and thus you must get them from the foods you eat. These are called the essential amino acids.

Benefits:

• Helps to support muscle growth and repair. Tough to build muscle if you are not eating sufficient protien

• Increases satiety, which is basically the feeling of being full. Increased satiety levels help with monitoring how much you eat and improve weight management

2. Carbohydrates

The easiest of the macronutrients to break down, and as such acts as the body’s primary energy source at 4 calories per gram.

Carbs are essential for brain function and providing energy during physical activity. Carbs are broken down into glucose which is the primary fuel source for the brain and muscles.

Types of Carbs:

Simple carbs are broken down rapidly and are found in foods such as fruit, baked goods, white flour products like breads and pastas, and pretty much any processed food. Generally speaking, simple carbs are foods that are refined and thus contain a lot of sugar and very little fiber (except for fruit).

Complex carbs on the other hand take much longer to break down and contain a lot of fiber. Examples of complex carbs include rice, oats, potatoes, whole grains, vegetables, and legumes.

Benefits:

• Provides energy during exercise

• Supports brain function

• Provides fiber which aids in digestion and helps gut microbiome

• Helps the body with recovery

3. Fats

Fats often have a negative view around them, but they serve a whole bunch of vital purposes in the body.

• They’re the most concentrated source of energy at 9 calories per gram.

• Fats play a major role in maintaining optimal levels of the fat soluble vitamin A, D, E, and K.

• Essential for hormone production and balance in the body.

Types of Fats:

• Saturated fats - the fats the are found mostly in animal products such as meat, dairy, and eggs

• Unsaturated - found in nuts, fish, avocados and seeds. Often these are referred to as “healthy fats” in things you see on social media

• Trans fats - found in highly processed foods, as trans fats do not occur naturally. Avoid these as much as possible because there is substantial evidence of negative health impacts related to trans fats

Macronutrient Intake

How do you know how much of each macro to eat? Is there a way to balance them for the best results in your fitness goals?

Well in short, yes. Macros form the foundation of our nutrition and play a large role in whether you’re able to lose fat or build muscle.

The most important one in my opinion is protein, regardless of what your goal is.

As a general rule of thumb, I try to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of target (goal) body weight each day.

So for example, I am 198 pounds currently, and I aim to get about 200 grams of protein every single day.

As far as energy balance goes, carbs and fats are just different forms of energy. I personally don’t worry about how many carbs or fats I eat as long as I get 200 g of protein and stay within my total daily calorie goals.

I say this with the goal of giving you a teaser into next week’s newsletter, because next week I’m going to be talking about how to track your calories and how to know how many calories you should even be eating in a day.

That’s all I have for you this week. Remember, the goal of this newsletter is to give you small pieces of information that over time will lead to results. Keep coming back each week as I expand on what I’m talking about!

Ben

Ben’s Best

🥗 Food for the week:

• I made a firecracker chicken bowl that ended up being fantastic. I wrote up a recipe for you guys that you can find by clicking the link below

• My favorite snack to bring with me to work recently has been 250 g of low fat cottage cheese, 2 carrots chopped into sticks, single serve hummus container, and 1 serving of mixed nuts. This gives me tons of micronutrients and protein that keep me feeling great throughout the day.

🎙️ Podcasts I loved this Week:

• Mind Pump 2392: Steps to Overcoming Addiction with Tom Conrad & Ben Bueno

• Noah Kahan Presents: The $500,000,000 meat stick company

  • This is more of a business podcast, but I thought it was really interesting. They talk about chomps, which is a great snack option for your health goals so I thought I would include it.

• The Peter Attia Drive: Longevity 101: a foundational guide to Peter's frameworks for longevity, and understanding CVD, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and more

  • As always with Peter Attia, it gets very science-y, but very useful information if that’s your thing.