Please help me with my macros!

jo_marnes

Hi all,

I'm currently doing P90X.... am on phase 2 which, according to the nutrition guide, should be a diet of 40% protein, 40% carbs, 20% fat.

The P90X diet guide is aimed at Mr/ Mrs Average though, and this I am not. P90X assumes that we are all out to shred fat, build muscle and we burn 600 cals per workout.

I want to GAIN body fat (I'm at 14% which is too low for women) and muscle. I also only burn avg 250-300 cals per workout.

Now my dietician says I'm not eating enough calories (I'm averaging about 1750 a day). My problem is that I am always left with protein calories and nothing else. P90X has my protein at around 200g a day.... my dietician says 60g!

So I flick through the nutrition guide again and I'm looking at the phase 3 diet - endurance maximiser it's called. Now this is a 20% protein, 60% carbs, 20% fat macro ratio. This is more in line with what my dietician wants me to eat. The P90X guide says "this plan should be earned. It's an athletic diet and you'll only need it if you are pushing your body to the limit". So, my question really is, have I earnt it? Do I need it? Am I pushing myself to the limit? I really don't know how to answer this question..... my body is very fit yet is suffering with the low body fat % - I haven't had a period in over a year (all other reasons ruled out by u/s scans, bloods etc). Yet I feel I have increased my calories and scaled BACK my exercise following the P90X programme. I am burning around half the calories I used to burn with previous aerobic cardio exercise.

I want to get the best results with P90X and have a healthy body. But sometimes there is just too much conflicting information. Can anyone help me see the logical path forward here? Many thanks

Acg67

Ignore that garbage of a nutrition guide, you don't want to rely on ratios, but instead shoot for a MINIMUM of around 1g of protein per lb of lbm and .35g of fat per lb of bodyweight, fill in the rest of your cals how you please. If you want to put on weight you have to eat in a surplus, 10-20% over your TDEE isn't a bad place to start out

gp79

^

jo_marnes

Thankyou... that's actually very close to what I do eat now (which seems sensible to me - please correct me if I'm wrong, diet is public) xx