Geschatte leestijd: 5 minutenA problem you encounter when you want to lose weight, or gain weight, is how much of which food you can eat. Calculating the number of calories you need to eat per day to lose weight or gain weight – your daily calorie requirement – is often difficult (that’s why we have the FITsociety app for it), but in addition, you usually also want to know exactly how much of that should come from carbohydrates, how much from proteins, and how much from fat.
This seems like a simple question, but an answer is a bit harder to give. There is no “best” ratio between the amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that can help you achieve your goal.
To make it easy, trainers, doctors, and dietitians all have different opinions on what the best ratio is.
If you want to follow a diet, each diet also uses a different ratio between the macronutrients.
What is a macronutrient and what should I do with it?
Your diet consists of nutrients, divided into macronutrients and micronutrients.
Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are macronutrients, the main nutrients in food.
Micronutrients are also nutrients, but less than one gram per person per day is consumed. Examples of micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and trace elements (for example, zinc, copper, iron, magnesium). The small amount of micronutrients you consume per day also has little or no effect on your daily calorie intake.
If you eat healthy food, you don’t need to worry about micronutrients. You can completely focus on the macronutrients or the “real” nutrients.
Known diets and their ratios
Dietitians usually recommend eating between 30% and 45% carbohydrates, between 25% and 40% proteins, and between 20% and 30% fat.
There are quite a few diets you can follow, and each diet has a slightly different ratio between the nutrients.
A popular diet like the Zone diet, for example, uses a ratio of 40% carbohydrates, 30% proteins, and 30% fat.
If you want to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, for example, you might see a ratio of 10% carbohydrates, 45% proteins, and 45% fat.
Looking at the Paleo diet, opinions differ there. When you look at how our ancestors ate, the ratio of nutrients in breast milk, how our bodies are built, and how other omnivores (eaters of everything) eat, you end up with a ratio of 20% carbohydrates, 15% proteins, and 65% fat.
(In the calculator at the bottom of this article, I’ve loaded a large list of well-known diets and their ratios that you can use in your calculations)
There are hundreds of ratios you can use to combine the three macronutrients, and they all work differently.
Nutrients and their calories
I want to help you by telling you at least how to calculate the amounts of nutrients in your diet.
For this, it’s important to know how many calories are in a gram of nutrient. This varies depending on the nutrient:
- Carbohydrates: 4 calories per gram
- Proteins: 4 calories per gram
- Fat: 9 calories per gram
- Alcohol: 7 calories per gram
I recommend forgetting about alcohol when you’re dieting (and preferably otherwise too… unhealthy habit). The seven calories per gram you spend on alcohol are better eaten than drunk.
Calculate the ratios of nutrients in your diet: an example
Let’s do a simple calculation to determine the grams of nutrients in your diet.
In the example, I’ll use the Zone diet, and I’ll stick to the ratio of 40% carbohydrates, 30% proteins, and 30% fat.
Step 1
First, calculate your calorie requirement. I’ll use 2000 calories per day in the calculations (I can make it easy for myself too, can’t I?).
Step 2
Calculate the number of grams of carbohydrates you need to eat. As mentioned, carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram.
40% of 2000 calories = 800 calories. 800 divided by 4 grams = 200 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Step 3
Calculate the number of grams of proteins you need to eat. Proteins are also 4 calories per gram.
30% of 2000 calories = 600 calories. 600 divided by 4 grams = 150 grams of protein per day.
Step 4
Finally, calculate the number of grams of fat you need to eat. Fat is 9 calories per gram.
30% of 2000 calories = 600 calories. 600 divided by 9 grams = 67 grams of fat per day.
Step 5
Try to distribute the grams of carbohydrates, proteins, and fat as evenly as possible over the number of meals you eat each day.
If you eat six meals – I highly recommend eating multiple smaller meals to maintain a continuous flow of nutrients – then you eat 33.3 grams of carbohydrates, 25 proteins, and 11 grams of fat per meal.
You build your meals around this.
Not all calories are created equal
Putting together a diet to lose weight seems simple but it isn’t. If you only look at the calories per gram in the nutrients, you might think you should eat as many carbohydrates and proteins as possible, and minimize fat intake, to consume fewer calories and therefore lose weight.
That seems like a good way, but unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Not all calories are created equal, and the human body doesn’t work like a simple calculator that only counts calories.
If you want to compose a healthy diet, you also need to consider the following three factors: the quality of the food, the amount of micronutrients in the food, and how sensitive you are to the food.
Quality of the food
The quality of the food is related to the other two factors. High-quality food
, such as grass-fed beef, contains more nutrients and you are less sensitive to it than to beef raised on grains.
Where your food comes from is very important for the quality of the product.
Amount of micronutrients in the food
Food with a lot of micronutrients ensures that your body can function better, reduces hunger, and helps prevent diseases.
Sensitivity to the food
Food from a good source gives you fewer problems with allergies. This ensures that you are less susceptible to diseases, you have fewer problems with your intestines, and it prevents various diseases.
Bad food is addictive, contains fewer micronutrients, and can give you all sorts of problems that can be prevented. Examples of this are most grains, and milk is also not recommended for most people. More people are lactose intolerant than you think.
Whether or not a certain ratio
Ratios are not the most important thing. However, they can help you during certain phases of your journey to a better figure.
The quality of the food you put into your body is much more important than any ratio. That’s also why the Paleo diet works for so many people: it’s about the quality of the food.
As long as you eat good food, you can follow any ratio of nutrients that feels best for you.
If a certain ratio doesn’t work well for you, simply change the ratio to one that better supports your fat loss or muscle building.
How do I use the Carbohydrates, Proteins & Fat Ratio Calculator?
The calculator helps you determine how many of the calories you eat daily should come from carbohydrates, proteins, and fat. Here’s how it works:
- Enter the number of calories you need to eat per day
- Select one of the known diet ratios
or
- Enter your own desired ratios (make sure you add up to 100%)
- Select how many meals you want to eat each day
- Click Calculate
The result shows you the precise number of calories and grams of each nutrient you need daily.
