A simple way to calculate your macro nutrient breakdown is to use the following formula:

Work out your BMR

This is your basal metabolic rate, which is how many calories your body needs on a daily basis just to perform normal functions like breathing.

Roughly calculated by the formula below:

For Men
• BMR = BW (Kg) x 24

For Women
• BMR = BW(Kg) x 22

Now, adjust this to suit your daily activity level

- Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job): BMR x 1.1

- Lightly active (some standing/walking at work): BMR x 1.3

- Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 4-5 days/week): BMR x 1.5

- Very active (hard daily activity i.e. building): BMR x 1.7

This will give an estimation of daily energy expenditure (not counting specific exercise, which you will need to account for, see below)

Weight training will account for approximately 3.5 x BW(kg) cals/hour, so an 80kg person, training for 60 minutes a day, could expect to burn 280Cal/ session

Once you have found your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure to maintain body weight), we can work out our total calorie needs.

Now, calculate protein intake

A good aim is approximately 2g per kg or body weight - this makes for easy maths, and will put you in a good place to maximise muscle gain, but don’t worry if you can’t hit this target 1.7g/kg+ is still sufficient for the vast majority of people to gain muscle. (1-1.2g/lb of ideal body weight)

Calculate your fat intake

A good aim from a muscle gain perspective is to aim for 20-30% of your daily calories allowance to come from fat - 1g fat/kg body weight should put you in this region.

Calculate your carbohydrate intake

The remaining calories that you have left over after totaling the protein and fat can be given to carbs.