Need Opinion on Macros

rochelinedolcinederonville

I'm trying to figure out what my macros should be. My calorie intake is 2,590. I am 5'4 and I weight 123lbs. I'm on a bodybuilding.com program. Jackie Eason Live Fit. The first 4 weeks, I did no cardio and simply weight trained and I gained 1lb. I'm on to phase 2, where 30mins of medium intensity cardio will be incorporated 4 times a week. I will lift heavier and stick to hitting my calories in this phase. So my goal is to gain 2lbs in 4 weeks. So what should my macros be? I want to build muscle but lose fat of course. Phase 1, my goal was about 300g for carbs, 129g of protein, and 86g of fat. I don't think it really made a difference. How should I tweak this?

_Bropollo_

Well I will caution you right away that you can't build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Not possible. If you have never weight trained before, you can get away with this for a month or two, but your body will eventually make you pick one or the other.

If you are increasing the amount of calories you expend per week, and want to keep building muscle, also realize you will need to increase your calorie intake. If you are bulking, generally long sessions of cardio are a waste of time, since you are just going to need to eat all those cals back; You can keep your heart/lungs healthy and maintain your aerobic endurance with 10-15 minutes of HIIT a couple times per week. Long sessions of cardio also tend to put your body into a catabolic state, and are counterproductive to building muscle.

You can gain muscle with minimal fat gains if you keep your cal surplus around +250 from your maintenance cals, but you will gain some fat no matter what. The rate you gain it at is dependent on genetics and your current bodyfat % (you gain fat faster at higher bodyfat levels, so bulking at high bodyfat levels is not ideal).

You can drop fat with minimal muscle loss if you make sure to keep your deficit to no greater than 15-20% of your maintenance cals, consistently weight train to "signal" your body that your muscles are still needed and it can't get rid of them, and hit the same protein requirements you would normally need on a bulk (the protein calories will crowd carbs/fats out as a result of needing to intake the same amount of protein with less calories).

I've seen various numbers regarding "optimum" protein intake. I see 0.8g/lbs of lean body mass most often. It's no big deal if you go over, just make sure you are getting at least this. Looks like you are getting right about that, so I would say you are doing fine on protein intake.

This is the gist of bulking/cutting. Hope this helps.

IsaackGMOON

• 0.6-0.8g of protein per lb of body mass
• 0.4-0.45g of fat per lb of body mass
• fill rest of calories with carbs

rochelinedolcinederonville

@_Bropollo_ Thank you so much! That makes perfect sense!!! I will definitely do that and record what happens

rochelinedolcinederonville

So for protein, that would be 98.4. For fat, it would be 55.35. I'm way over the limit. Today alone, I hit 171 grams of protein and I think about 88 grams of fat and 200 g of carbs. I'll tweak here and there to see what works. Thanks for the response!!! @IsaackGMOON

pavstan

Heya, if that's you on the pic, I must say that you already look pretty nice However, I'm wondering if 2600 cals intake is a good number for you - if you've been on a cutting session the last few months, I can advise you to try to reverse the diet - increase the calories intake slowly by around +100 p/w until the moment you actually start getting heavier. Every body is unique and all of these things on the web cannot be valid for all. Long story short, just keep increasing the calories SLOWLY, that's very important if you don't want to gain much fat. As @_Bropollo_ said, you will build some fat, that's inevitable, but you can still maintain HOW MUCH of the gain would be fat and how much muscle. Keep up

rochelinedolcinederonville

@pavstan Yep that's me in the picture that i took a few days ago. It's my first progress pic of the challenge. And yes everything you stated makes sense! I'll increase my intake and a little fat here and there isn't too bad.

sixxpoint

If you're on a bodybuilding / mass program, then you will want more than 0.40 - 0.45 grams dietary fat per 1 lb. bodyweight... that range is a minimum for people who are losing weight / cutting. For someone who is maintaining or bulking, it would be wise to get more.

If your calorie intake as a petite female is 2,590 cals/day, then you are definitely builking. Extra dietary fat will help with that goal. It is 9 calories per gram as opposed to carb & protein's 4 calories per gram.

Post your height, weight, activity level, and bodyfat % so we can help you even more. You can get a rough estimate of bodyfat by comparing Google images.