Meal Prep 101: Part 1

Preparing Your Meals To Suit Your Macronutrient Requirements

In this E-Book, you will be able to gain a clear understanding of your Macronutrient requirements; commonly know as “Macro’s” and how to prepare so that you hit your requirements every single day.

Having a basic understanding of your calories will enable you to pick this up quite fast. If you are new to the whole calories and macro game; then don’t stress, because we will do our very best in this booklet to be as simple and precise as we can.

First thing is first, you need to download the free app called My Fitness Pal, this app allows you track your calories and macro’s on a daily basis. Or in our case, use as a calculator so that we know what we are consuming.

Do not worry about setting your goals into My Fitness Pal as this can be quite misleading.

What we need you to do, is head to tdeecalculator.net and enter your information (see screenshot below). We recommend that you select *Moderate 3-5 days* for your activity factor.

Once you have entered in your details, you will be taken to the next page which then shows you your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and maintenance based on your information you’ve selected. (see below)

We are going to use the number shown for maintenance. In this case, it’s 3,187 per day.

NOTE: The number displayed may not be a true reflection of where you currently are. Your metabolism may be lower than what is reflected if you have not been very active in the past 3 months. You can expect your metabolism to increase within 4-6 weeks of consistent training.

This amount of calories is how many I would need to consume for me to stay exactly where I am with my body composition.

For me to be able to lose weight, this number needs to be in a deficit. The safest range to start with is 500 calories. Giving you a weekly deficit of 3500 calories (500 x 7=3500); equivalent to a .5 – .7kg loss in a week. Providing that we hit that number every day, which would be;

Maintenance Calories – 500 = Daily Goal Intake for weight loss

3,187 – 500 = 2,687

So my new daily calorie intake goal is 2,687.

Now the fun part, we know that I need to eat ~2,687 calories per day to lose about .5kg per week; but how do I structure this so that I do not lose muscle in the process? How do I know what 2,687 calories looks like?

Remember, we are going for body recomposition here, the main objective is to decrease body fat % and increase/preserve as much lean muscle as possible so that we can achieve the “toned” look.

So now let’s talk Macro’s, Macronutrients consist of 3 Primary and essential nutrients. Protein, Fats & Carbohydrates. We will refer to these as P, F & C. Pretty self explanatory.

The first thing that you need to know is this:

Protein – 1 gram = 4 Calories, example: 100g = 400 calories

Fats – 1 gram = 9 calories, example: 10g = 90 calories

Carbs – 1 gram = 4 calories, example: 50g = 200 calories

Let’s break it down. Using the statistics from the example above.

Body Weight: 100kg

Calorie Goal: 2,687

To be able to preserve and build lean muscle, we need protein which is made up of amino acids that circulate in our blood stream to keep our muscles fed. Protein is the most important Macro of them all, your hair, skin and nails are forms of protein, it’s not just about 6 pack abs and biceps.

To calculate your protein intake for 1 day, we base this off your current weight and multiply it by 2.5

So using our body weight of 100kg; 100kg x 2.5 = 250

That’s 250 grams of protein per day. Now, if we know that 1 gram of protein is worth 4 calories. We would multiply 250 by 4 to work out just how many calories that is.

250 x 4 = 1000 calories.

P = 250g / 1000 calories (This is my daily goal intake for Protein only)

Fats, vital for hormone regulation and production of new cells, fats come in 4 main forms, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated & trans-unsaturated (Trans fats). Trans fats and Saturated fats are the ones that we should limit the most. It’s ideal to consume monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats predominately.

For minimal hormone balance and regulation, it’s suggested that you should never go below an intake of .3 x body weight. We suggest using .6 – .8 as your multiplier to calculate your fat intake.

So back to my body weight of 100kg; 100kg x .8 = 80

80g of Fats for my daily intake. Now, we know that 1 gram of Fats = 9 calories.

80 x 9 = 720 calories

F = 80g / 720 calories (This is my daily goal intake for Fats only)

What we know so far,

Protein = 250g / 1000 calories

Fats = 80g / 720 calories

Remember our calorie goal? It was 2687.

If we add the calories together from our Protein and Fats calculations, we end up 1,720 calories. (1000 + 720 = 1720)

So if we refer back to our daily calorie goal of 2687 and minus 1720, it will leave us with the amount of calories that we have left for that day which we can then spend on carbohydrates!

2687 – 1720 = 967 calories remaining.

If we know that 1 gram of carbohydrate equals 4 calories. All we have to do is divide the remaining calories by 4 to work out how many grams of carbohydrates we can have.

967/4 = 241.75 (we would round that to 240 to make life easier)

C = 240g / 960 calories

And BOOM! You have just calculated your Calorie intake AND your macronutrient intake.

Let’s double check it to make sure that we got it right

P = 250g / 1000 calories

F = 80g / 720 calories

C = 240g / 960 calories

P + F + C = Total Daily calories

1000 + 720 + 960 = 2,680. (Our goal was 2,687, but remember that we rounded the carbohydrate total from 241.75g to 240g)

That, Ladies & Gentlemen, is part 1 out of the way. Now you have your targets to hit. If you’re having trouble with the first few steps, go back to the start, read it again and have another go. If all else fails, just have a word to your assigned coach or post in the FB group and we’ll help you out.

In part two, we will show you how to work out the portion sizes and structure your meals.

KP

FF+