Insanity Carbs, protein, fat question

BarryWilson1108
BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all,

I am set to start my insanity workout next week and I am at the moment trying to get some good meal plans in my head.
Slightly confused though, can someone help please?
Insanity recommends 40%carbs, 40%protein, 20%fat make up of meals.
Does this mean 40% of the calories or what?
I am struggling to work out what this means - I have entered my food for today into myfitnesspal -

Breakfast - Oatso simple x 2 sachets, with skimmed milk.
Whey protein shake
Lunch - scrambled eggs x 3.
Banana snack

Already I am over my daily allowance of protein....can this be right?

Replies

  • BarryWilson1108
    BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
    Can anyone help here?
  • mrmj59
    mrmj59 Posts: 2
    Yes, the 40, 40, 20 pertains to the calories. So at the end of the day, you are striving for 40% of your calories to be from carbs, 40% from proteins and 20% from fats. Myfitnesspal will give you the breakdown based on the amount of calories you've had so far so at any time of the day, it always works out to 100%. I hope this helps.
  • JJordon
    JJordon Posts: 857 Member
    Insanity requires you to use the Harris-Benedict Equation or Mifflin St. Jeor Equation to determine your intake and activity levels. But from there, you are supposed to get 40% of your total daily intake from Carbs. Another 40% from Protein, and the remaining 20% from Fats.

    Problem is? Man, achieving this is pretty darn hard. Youll have to mess around with what you are eating. However, MFP entries do allow you to check how much you've had throughout the day and week of these three values in pie chart form.

    Example, last night, I found out I was deficient in my last meal for protein, so I had nothing but a large EAS vanilla whey shake with non-fat milk, and it brought that value up by more than a few percentage points.
  • mrmj59
    mrmj59 Posts: 2
    Yup, it's hard to hit the numbers right on. I aim for different #s and I'm happy when I'm close to them, not necessarily right on. Likewise, I do alter my meals later in the day to reach my #s.
  • BarryWilson1108
    BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
    OK here is where my confusion is coming from - I had my Gaspari protein shake yesterday and the numbers are below.

    Calories 300 / Carbs 18 / Fat 4 / Protein 48

    So the carbs, fat and protein only make up 70 of the 300 calories. What are the rest of the calories made up of?
    And how can I have a calorie intake of 40, 40, 20 when there is so much other stuff making up the calories??

    Am I being really stupid here? Help!
  • BarryWilson1108
    BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
    Can anyone clear this up for me please???
  • girlie100
    girlie100 Posts: 646 Member
    is that 18g of carbs, 4g of fat and 48g of protein?

    then that would be:

    72 cals from carbs
    36 cals from fat
    192 cals from protein
    = 300 cals

    1g carb/protein = 4 cals 1g of fat = 9 cals
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
    OK here is where my confusion is coming from - I had my Gaspari protein shake yesterday and the numbers are below.

    Calories 300 / Carbs 18 / Fat 4 / Protein 48

    So the carbs, fat and protein only make up 70 of the 300 calories. What are the rest of the calories made up of?
    And how can I have a calorie intake of 40, 40, 20 when there is so much other stuff making up the calories??

    Am I being really stupid here? Help!

    The numbers for the macros as in grams. 18 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fat, 48 grams of protein. To get the calories from the grams, multiply carb and protein grams by 4 and multiply fat grams by 9. So the 300 calories is 18(4) + 4(9) + 48(4). To determine percentages of the meal, take the calories of each and diviide by the total. For example, the fat: 4*9= 36 calories which is 36/300 or 12% of the total meal. Does that make sense?
  • trud72
    trud72 Posts: 1,912 Member
    it wouldn't hurt if you had more protein tbh,it helps when building muscles :drinker:
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    have you manually changed the macros here on MFP?

    if you do that, it tells you how much of each you should be eating each day.... then you can just pre- log and check your macros balance.
  • girlie100
    girlie100 Posts: 646 Member
    working out your total cals for each is just dividing the percentage, for example your daily cal intake should be 1500cals

    40% of which is protein, so 1500/0.4 = 600 cals
    600/4 = 150g from protein

    40% carbs is the same

    20% fat is 1500/0.2 = 300 cals
    300/9 = 33.33g of fat
  • BarryWilson1108
    BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
    Yes, that makes perfect sense....Thanks so much, that has totally cleared up my confusion. I wondered why everyone seemed to understand it and I was getting it so wrong!
    Thanks again!
  • GoTeamMeaghan
    GoTeamMeaghan Posts: 347 Member
    If you follow the Insanity nutrition plan, you'll meet your numbers pretty easilly. The plan is easy to follow and gives you lots of options. I just finished my 2nd round of P90X and am on day 3 of Insanity, but I started the nutrition plan a week early. Feel free to add me or check out my diary for ideas.
  • mbow1977
    mbow1977 Posts: 213
    You can change your goals in MFP to reflect your 40:40:20 macros so that you can check it to see how your doing, I have mine set to this and it makes it alot easier.
  • BarryWilson1108
    BarryWilson1108 Posts: 47 Member
    Thanks for all the replies. I finally understand it and have changed my MFP goals to the correct ones.
    Thanks again!

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