Weight Training Progress

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Macro-Nutrients Breakdown

Macro-nutrients, simply defined as: A type of food required in large amounts in the human diet.

There are three macro-nutrients:

Protein
Carbohydrate
Fat

While each macro nutrients provides calories, the amount of calories that each one varies.

Protein = 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrate = 4 calories per gram
Fat = 9 calories per gram

So, now that we know that calories come from macronutrients, and how many calories each of these macro-nutrients provides, we can calculate how much they should contribute to your diet.

Macro-nutrients are commonly expressed in percentages and referred to as micro-nutrient ratios, or nutrient ratios. For example, they can be expressed as 40% protein, 40% carbohydrates, 20% fat. This can be simplified to as 40/40/20 and would equate to:

Percentage to grams

3294 (daily calories) x 0.40 (protein) / 4 (calories per gram) = 329.4 grams of protein

3294 (daily calories) x 0.40 (protein) / 4 (calories per gram) = 329.4 grams of carbohydrate

3294 (daily calories) x 0.20 (protein) / 9 (calories per gram) = 73.2 grams of fat

Grams to percentage (vice versa)

(329.4 x 4) / 3294 x 100= 40%

(329.4 x 4) / 3294 x 100 = 40%

(73.2 x 9) / 3294 x 100 = 20%

So, for me to gain muscle and lose fat, I must consume 329.4 grams of protein, 329.4 grams of carbohydrate and 73.2 grams of fat in ONE day.

To break it down even further, if I eat 6 meals a day, then each meal will contain:

Calories per meal:

549 calories

Protein:

54 grams
219 calories

Carbohydrates:

54 grams
219 calories

Fat:

12 grams
109 calories

Rough rule of thumb: 500 calories over maintenance is bulking, 500 calories below is cutting.

Note: your daily calorie needs will differ depending on sex, weight, height, age and your activity levels.

If you’re too lazy to calculate by hand, you can calculate your daily calorie needs with a calculator and as well as your macro-nutrients. Click Here :P

Well, hope that gave you a little insight on macro-nutrients. As a bodybuilder, it's important to consume the correct amount of nutrients in order to grow muscle mass. Though most of the time, I would guess how much I would have to eat. Not really effective. Anyway, I've started to measure my meals now. It's a pain having to measure and scale everything. :(

Stats:

Going to give this a try and will see how it turns out.

3294 calories
40/40/20

Finally!

Exams are over and I'm on 4 months holiday! Now I can properly commit myself to bodybuilding and blogging again! Yay!

Just a quick update:

I ordered some supplements last week and they should arrive sometime this week. Can't wait! Also, going to re-new my gym membership tomorrow that expired 6 months ago. Haha. Back in the gym full-time.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Supplements

Musashi: I decided to give this another go, bad decision. Haha, my stomach can't cope with it and I just end up running to the toilet after taking it.

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey: My personal favourite protein supplement at the moment, just don't buy the Strawberry Banana flavour. I can't even describe the taste, it's so awful!

N.O.-Xplode: I've been gradually increasing my scoops with this, I just don't feel the rush any more, but it's not a bad pre-workout supplement.

Next to try on the list:

Jack3d
Animal Pak

Eats For September and October

Haven't been posting anything lately, so busy with other real life commitments or I'm just lazy to blog now haha. Anyway, here are some of the meals I've eaten in September and October.