IIFYM - how important to meet macros at *each* meal?

Bump....so my smart friends will see this and help you.

Hi IIFYMers,

As the subject suggests, I am wondering how important it is to actually meet macros at every meal versus just hitting your daily target.

I am 5'8, 140lb female with 23% body fat and I am mostly trying to gain lean muscle, but I would like to lose about 10lbs of fat as well. My macros are 175c/150p/55f. For those of you with nutrition knowledge, do you know the answer to this question? The protein is SO hard to meet at every meal and I just want to eat a bunch of meat at night and be done with it, ha.

It's not really important at all. Heck, some people view their macros as a weekly goal, rather than daily. Your body doesn't reset at midnight every night. That said, there is some evidence to suggest that there is an upper limit on the amount of protein that one can actually put to use at a time, so eating all 150 grams of protein at once may not be a good idea as some of it is likely to be converted to glucose rather than the constituent amino acids being used by your body. But eating 20-30 grams of protein at a couple of meals during the day, and then eating 50-60 grams for supper and having a protein shake later (as an example) is fine.

For the other macros, I tend to cluster carbs around when I train for energy, and stay low-ish carb for the other meals. There's also a minor benefit in keeping the meals around when you train lower in fat and consuming most of your fat farther away from training. But, I want to stress that these are very small effects, actually hitting your macros and training regularly are far, far, more important.

Also, can somebody explain to me this whole 'maintenance' versus 'bulking' versus 'slimming' cycle stuff? How important is it to do that? Why can't you just reach your ideal weight and then eat the right amount of calories at that level forever to maintain?

Depends on your goals. The only way to gain muscle (ignoring the small "noob" gains that obese beginners can make, which you aren't) is by eating at a caloric excess, which will make you gain weight. You state that you want to gain muscle mass. The easiest, quickest, and arguably the only way to do this is to bulk, where you eat at an excess, gain weight, some of which will be muscle and some of which will be fat (probably in the ballpark of 50/50). You should eat to gain about a pound a week. Once you've bulked up some, then you cut, cut calories until you're losing about a lb a week (or half pound a week). Assuming you're still training hard, most if not all of that weight lost will be fat, leaving the muscle you've gained.

Maintenance is eating at a level to just maintain weight. You (especially as a woman) likely won't gain much muscle mass, although you may notice some small recomposition changes, where you lose a little bit of fat and maybe gain a small amount of muscle. You may look different in a mirror, but the actual changes occurring will be small.

On a similar note, if calories are what really matters, why even count macros at all instead of just meeting your caloric intake a day?

I am new at this, if you can't tell! Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Take care everyone!
~growdahlias

Calories are all that really matter for weight loss (to some degree, but that's a different topic). Macros matter more for body composition. Protein is muscle-sparing, if you are eating to lose weight a high-protein diet will cause your body to lose more fat than muscle. If you are just dieting, not training, and eating a low protein diet a lot of the weight you lose will be muscle, which we don't want. The ratio of fat to carbs is more a matter of personal preference. Some people run better on higher fat, lower carb diets, some people feel like crap on such a diet.

bump to read later

@timbrom Holy moly, thank you so much for your articulate and knowledgeable response. I have a trainer right now who is just so adamant that I meet my macros at every meal (4 meals a day mind you, and I'm a busy trial attorney), which is so insanely hard that I spend all of my free time doing math and pulling my hair out. After reading this response, I might go rogue :laugh:

You mentioned that if I want to gain muscle, I should bulk and then cut calories, which will leave me with muscle. If I already have some excess fat though (I think I've got about 10lbs of fat to lose), do I need to bulk or can I just start cutting and continue to exercise? I lift 4-5x/week and throw in a little bit of HIIT here and there (1-2x/week).

That's really up to you, what you're comfortable with, and your goals. One school of thought is to bulk up first, add maybe ten pounds (for you), which leaves you with 15 lbs of fat to lose (the 10 old ones, plus 5 new ones, give or take), but since muscle mass burns more calories than fat mass you'll be able to eat more while you're cutting, which makes it easier to comply with your diet and you'll lose the weight a little bit quicker, and have the body you want when you're done (or at least closer to it).

Another advantage (and I'm going to assume here that you haven't been lifting for very long, and that you're on a program like Starting Strength, Stronglifts, NROLFW, or at least you're planning on adding weight to your workout regularly) eating more now, while you're a beginner, will maximize the easy strength gains you can get as a beginner. Looking good is all fine and dandy, but being strong is a heck of a lot of fun too

If you aren't comfortable gaining weight (and don't want to buy a new wardrobe) you could try recomposition. It's a slower process, but you'll be eating right around maintenance. You'll (hopefully) gain some muscle slowly, lose some fat slowly, your weight won't change much. You may not get the same strength gains and it will probably take longer than a bulk/cut cycle, but you won't have to put extra weight on in the meantime.

You could cut now, then bulk up later. Although at 5' 8" and 140, you're already fairly light for your height. I'm not sure this would be the best strategy for you. This would also be the worst strategy for strength gains.

If you want some more information about recomp, I'd recommend reading this: http://barbellmedicine.com/2012/07/29/584/

Does 150p sound good to you guys? I get such mixed answers on this. I only eat grassfed/pastured meat that I order online (ex-vegetarian, it's the only way I sleep at night), so it can get expensive, and there's only so many egg whites and cottage cheese I can ingest :frown:

~growdahlias

Your macros look pretty good to me. Stick to it for a couple of weeks and see what a tape measure and the scale say. Those are your best indicators. There can be a decent amount of variance from person to person, so it you aren't getting the results you want you can always adjust them. The article I linked to above has a lot of information about how to do that.

The total is all the matters.

@timbrom Thank you again for your response. That all makes sense. I definitely don't want to add ten pounds during bikini season, so I am going to try recomposition and will eat around maintenance. I'm reading that link now!
~growdahlias

Then you can bulk over the holidays! Everyone else is doing it...