On Monday, May 2nd, we’re kicking off a 4-week nutrition challenge, focusing on the macro diet!
If you’ve never heard of macros, we’ll teach you what they are and how they can help you meet your fitness and body composition goals. If you’ve heard of macros, but you’re intimidated by them, we’ll break it down and make it simple, so you can succeed. If you’re an old pro at macros, join us for a month of strict, clean eating. This challenge is FREE for all participants. Who’s ready?!?!? Read on for more details…
1. What are Macros?
“Macro” is short for macronutrient. They’re the three main categories of nutrients that comprise our food and give us energy: protein, carbohydrates and fats. When you’re counting your macros, you’re counting the grams of proteins, carbs and fat that you eat each day.
2. Why should I count macros?
Keeping track of your macros gives you the power to fine-tune your eating to meet your body’s needs. It ensures you’re getting the right amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrate to fuel your body and build muscle but not support body fat. Tracking macros takes the guess work out of nutrition and helps you make smart food choices.
3. How do I know how many macros to eat?
A good starting point, for active adults, is to get 40% of your calories from carbohydrate, 30% from protein, and 30% from fat. What’s neat about macros is we can play around with those ratios over time based on what works best for you. It’s a real-life science experiment!
If you’re new to macros, we will assign you starting set of macros. The best way to do that is to get an InBody scan. The scan will provide an estimated basal metabolic rate, which we can use to assign your macros. However, getting an InBody scan is not required to participate in our “Spring into Macros” Nutrition Challenge! Our coaching staff can use our experience to “guess-timate” a set of macros for you, and we’ll tweak from there based on how you’re feeling.
If you already have a set of macros that you’ve used for previous nutrition challenges, and they worked for you, feel free to use those numbers again.
4. How do I track macros?
There are a number of macro tracking apps available; the most widely used is My Fitness Pal. Each day, you’ll enter everything you eat, and the app will calculate your macros. It even has a bar code scanner, so you can scan most packaged items. For the best results, you should weigh and measure your food – this requires using a food scale and measuring cups so you can accurately quantify how much you’re eating.
We are in the process of creating several “sample” meal plans, which will show what one full day of eating would look like for various calorie goals, using the 40% carb, 30% protein, and 30% fat breakdown. We will make these sample meal plans available later this week!
5. How do I sign up for the “Spring into Macros” Challenge?
Add your name to this spreadsheet. Indicate whether: (1) you already know you macros, (2) you’d like an InBody scan to determine your macros ($50 for a pair of before-and-after scans), or (3) if you’d like a coach to assign macros to you (free). If you select option 2 or 3, a coach will be in touch with you to set up your Inbody scan and/or macros.
Please sign up by Friday April 29 at the latest, but the sooner the better, so we can get you set up with your macros and you can start grocery shopping and meal planning!
In Summary:
- Dates: Monday May 2 – Saturday May 28
- Cost: $0
- Downsides: None
- Benefits: Improved energy and performance in the gym, “get toned” for summer!
- Sign up? ASAP at this link!
- Questions? Reach out to us at ironcrossathletics@gmail.com
