But before I get too far ahead of myself, make sure you understand how to estimate your caloric and protein needs. If you don't, you can get a copy of the Top 12 Report [link at the end of this article] which will show you the simple to use formulas for calculating your calories. I'm going to 3,000 as the overall calorie requirements for any examples.



Let's examine the ISSA intake guideline of approximately 1 part fat, 2 parts protein and 3 parts carbohydrates. This is generally accepted as a safe way to burn fat for those who are weight training and exercising.

This probably comes as no surprise but this rule-of-thumb makes it amazingly easy to prioritize your thinking when it comes to purchasing food, preparing meals or even eating out! You won't be like a rat trapped in a maze anymore.

Method 1If you were any good at math, you can see that the 1-2-3 rule adds up to 6 parts. 1 part fat, 2 parts protein and 3 parts carbohydrates add up to 6 total parts. That is about the number of times per day you should be eating. Small but frequent meals that you might have read about elsewhere.

Second, knowing that one part equals 500 calories we can figure out the number of calories for each part based on the 1-2-3 rule-of-thumb.

Fat = 9 calories per gramProtein = 4 calories per gramCarbohydrates = 4 calories per gramFinally you should begin to notice that if you take the calories allotted to each part and divide that number by the numbers above you get:

For example, 500 fat calories / 3000 overall calories = 16% fat. Carrying on you'll see this is broken down into:

Using a diet tracking program, that task should be as easy as cutting a fresh apple pie! But we aren't finished yet...

Example: Male, 200 lbs, 15% body fat, competitive athlete; using 1.14 grams of protein per lb of body weight for this example.

1.14 x 200 lbs = 228 grams of protein a day. If you recall, we know that protein has 4 calories per gram right?228 grams x 4 calories per gram = 912 calories from proteinBased on the daily calorie needs we used above, 912 protein calories / 3000 overall calories = 30%30% of the overall calories we need a day are from protein.

While the RDA might recommend 30% or less of your calories from fat, keep in mind the 1-2-3 rule which states that 1 part is fat.

All this means is you want to get 17% of your total daily calories from fat.

Are you with me still?Let's figure out how many grams that is simply by recalling that a gram of fat is 9 calories.

Let's keep going.

3000 daily calories - 510 fat calories - 912 protein calories = 1578 carb calories.

1578 carb calories / 4 calories per gram = 395 grams of carbs per day.

In this example, 1578 carb calories / 3000 daily calories = 52%. So 52% of your overall daily calories come from carbs. You can do the same formula for the rest to see the exact nutrient percentages as shown in Method 1 above.