Protein/Carb/Fat Ratio for muscle preservation and fat loss

I'm sure you know this since you're in the competition world, but the macro-nutrient you need to focus on is protein. Since you're cutting, you're basically putting muscle gains on hold (with the exception of 'newbie gains' for the sig. overweight, it's nearly impossible to build muscle at a cal deficit.) So to make sure you lose as little muscle mass as possible, here's my recs (in order of importance):

(Apologies if I over-explain stuff you already know all about! I figured I'd err on the side of too much info rather than too little)


1. Get your body fat calculated, and not with a scale or hand-held device (these are incredible unreliable) . Dunk-tank, Dexa scan, or calipers. Once you know your lean body mass (LBM), make sure you eat .8 grams of protein per pound of LMB. the range really is from .65g to .8g per lb of LBM, but if you shoot for .8 you're more likely to hit the goal. This is the #1 thing that will preserve your muscle mass, because it preserves the nitrogen balance in your muscles. Egg whites, fish and whey protein are my best friends when I'm cutting

2. Continue lifting to preserve muscle. Up cardio and focus on HIIT training to burn max calories for weight loss.

3. You have a year, and since at 5'5" (height twin, heey!) eating at a deficit is HARD (since our BMR is low already) I'd suggest calculating your cal intact to lose .5 to .8 lbs a week. Don't eat back the calories you burn!!!! It's notoriously hard to accurately calculate calories burned from exercise, so it's better to just pull your deficit from your TDEE based on sedentary. Your TDEE's about 1800, so for cutting I'd suggest the 1450 daily cal range, but you know what works best for your body!

4. Now that you've make sure to hit your protein macro and you're staying under your cal limit, the rest of your macros are a lot more flexible-- by priority, it goes Protein>Fat>Carbs. Personally, for fat I like to stay around .6g per lb of desired body weight, mostly because fat's great for keeping me feeling full on a deficit...plus I enjoy bacon and cheese more than pancakes Your ideal fat gram count will be lower than your carb gram count but a bigger percentage of your daily caloric intact since fat's more cal dense.

Ok, so a cutting macro-count for you (not knowing your preferences, lean body mass, etc) might look something like this:

1450 cal per day:
~90g of protein (25%)
~70g fat (45%)
~110g carbs (30%)

The things that REALLY MATTER right now for weight loss and muscle mass preservation are protein and cal count, so feel free to futz around with carbs and fat as long as your protein and cals are in line.

If you aren't dropping weight, buy a food scale and make sure your cal count is accurate. If you still aren't dropping weight, lower your daily caloric intake to 1350 for a week, see what happens. Repeat at 1250 if 1350 doesn't work. The intake # where you stop losing is your maintenance (though I hope you're not in this camp, some of us have lower maintenance than others-- personally, because of thyroid issues, I maintain around 1250 while a "normal" body with my height/weight should have a BMR of around 1400. Yep, it sucks! But I can still lose weight by going slowly and making sure I eat enough nutrient dense foods .)

Side note: When you get closer to competition (like a month out), you're going to want to look into seriously dropping your carbs because changing to a very low carb diet causes a rapid and significant drop in water weight-- but that's just water weight, which you shouldn't worry about dropping until you've already met your fat loss goal and you're just looking for ways to tweak your defintion.


....oh man, I've written you a novel. Sorry!

Imo, those calories are too low that far out from a comp. Putting you at even a moderate activity level with your stats has you at a TDEE of around 2200 cals - 2400 cals (depending on the calc you use).

issydhan wrote: »

MrM27 wrote: »

No ratios

Protein - .6-.87g per lb of bodyweight
Fat - .4g-.45g per lb of bodyweight
Fill the rest with Carbs

Will this help to reduce fat levels?!

If you're in a caloric deficit

issydhan wrote: »

LolBroScience wrote: »

issydhan wrote: »

MrM27 wrote: »

No ratios

Protein - .6-.87g per lb of bodyweight
Fat - .4g-.45g per lb of bodyweight
Fill the rest with Carbs

Will this help to reduce fat levels?!

If you're in a caloric deficit

I'm aiming for 1800 cals to try and lose body fat and maintain muscle mass. I've just introduced protein shakes to help up my protein intake.

I am 6ft 3 currently weigh 200lbs but want to weigh 189lbs with toned muscle - not big bulk.

According to this- could you tell me what protein, fat and carb grams I should aim for at 1800 cals?

My aim is simple- reduce body fat and tone up. Get Eid of the bloody bulges around my chest and waist !

Well for one, you can stand to intake more than 1800 calories. Figure what your maintenance calories are (probably upper 2,000s). From there, eat a few hundred below and apply the above ratios with protein and fats first, Rest into carbs.

Send me a PM so as to not derail the thread from the OP

I'm 5'5" and 42 yo.... My advice would be to set yourself at a moderate deficit. I'd guess that your BMR is close to 1450 cals per day, so I would make that your absolute minimum NET.

Through lots of trial and error, I've discovered that my TDEE is around 2300 cals per day. I too am looking to preserve all of the muscle that I've gained over the last year of a bulk and don't want to lose ANY of it. I am cutting on a small deficit of 300-400 cals per day putting me around 2000 a day for a cut. I am hoping that whatever I lose is mostly body fat.

I think 1450 gross is a little too aggressive if you're looking to maintain your muscle mass, but that's just my opinion.....There's a couple of helpful groups on here. Eat, Train, Progress and EM2WL (Eat more to weigh less). Congrats on the lean gains!

MrM27 wrote: »

No ratios

Protein - .6-.87g per lb of bodyweight
Fat - .4g-.45g per lb of bodyweight
Fill the rest with Carbs

This. There are no magic ratios. Studies show .6-.87g of protein are sufficient intakes for maintenance and muscle gain (as long as your caloric intake is at maintenance or bulking range). However, your current BF% and training experience can play a role in determining optimal protein intake for a cut. Eric Helms published an evidence based paper suggesting the lower the starting BF%, the more training experience and the greater the caloric deficit imposed, higher protein intake to preserve muscle mass may be beneficial under these circumstances ( http://www.jissn.com/content/11/1/20 ).

Since you are doing a women's figure comp, you will not need to get to the ultra low BF% of women bodybuilders (10-12%), but you will still need to get lower than average obviously. With that said, low BF isn't healthy, especially for a woman, so you will want to make sure your dietary fat is closer to .45g/lbs. Many individuals focus on protein intake only, and wreak havoc on their hormones - which can lead to hormone replacement therapy (not to mention missed periods, hair loss, reproductive damage etc). @LolBroscience was 100% correct in his statement. If you are a year out from comp, you want to start as high as possible and slowly decrease caloric intake. Pushing too low too fast is a big mistake (metabolic adaptation). Then when you need to shed more fat later on, you may need to resort to unhealhty caloric and macro intakes to do so.

I'd err on the high end of the protein range listed above. .6g/lb in an energy deficit might not be a good idea. Given your body-weight I'd set protein to around 110-120g to start. Fats anywhere in the .3 to .5g/lb bodyweight range and the rest in carbs with the idea that you can swap between fat and carbs based on preference/satiety/gym performance.