How I Determine My Clients’ Macros

If you’ve worked with me in any capacity within the past year, you know that all of my clients gets their own individual macronutrients.

Whether you’re tracking macronutrient grams, or estimating portions, you’ll get your own individual guidelines on how much protein, carbs, and fat to eat each day.

Of course, the level of detail for our nutrition coaching and programming varies – (one-on-one clients’ programming looks different than my group programs, etc.) but I calculate and determine the macronutrient needs of each of my clients on an individual level.

A couple years ago, I had my boot camp clients calculate their own macros. I provided the resource of a reputable calorie calculator, as well as percentages of macronutrients to eat for each day.

But about 1.5 years ago, I changed this method and started calculating the protein, carb, and fat needs for each client individually in my group programs, too.

Because calorie and macronutrient calculators are great in a pinch, and when looking for a free resource, but I want to deliver the value of more than a free resource for my clients.

Additionally, there are many factors that come into play when determining one’s own macronutrient needs. Your age, weight, height, and activity level are all important, but there’s so much more to the equation than that.

We’re all individual and have different nutritional needs.

There are a few other factors outside of the standard that I ask my clients to provide me in order to give them the amounts of protein, carbs, and fat to eat each day, at the best of my knowledge and expertise.

1. Body Fat Percentage

Or at least an estimate. Incorporating body fat percentage generally changes the amount of carbs and fat you’ll be consuming – especially initially.

Typically, (but not always) a higher BF% requires a lower percentage of carbohydrates in the total daily intake.

2. Level of Aggressiveness

— when it comes to fat loss. Because some clients are ready and willing to give 100% to see the best results they can, and some are more around 80-90% (and hopefully no one is less than 80%)

That’s completely their prerogative, and it’s nice to have our expectations laid out in this client-trainer relationship. I never want to give my client unrealistic expectations to strive for, only for them to fall short every week or every day. That can be quite a bummer for the psyche.

I will say, oftentimes, my clients will start out with a 3 or 4 out of 5 on aggressiveness, and then kick it up to 5 when they’re ready to see more aggressive results.

At the end of the day, though, I’ll never write a quick fix program or crash diet for ANY of my clients. Your health is always my #1 priority.

3. Body Type (in some cases)

I have all of my clients (who are comfortable with it) submit progress pictures at week 0, 2, 4, and 6 in my Lean Body training and nutrition boot camp. While these are meant as one of three measures of progress throughout the program, I also use them to help calculate macronutrients.

Those who have an ectomorphic body type typically do well with a few more carbs, those who are endomorphic – a few less carbs and more fat, and those who are mesomorphic, more of a balance.

4. Training Age

Someone who has only been strength training for a year or less will likely need a different macronutrient profile than someone who’s been training for 5+ years. As in most cases, carbohydrates will be the manipulated macronutrient in this case.

5. Happiness with Current Progress (when adjusting)

Once you get your macronutrients in my programs, you’re not stuck with them. For example, in my Lean Body boot camp, we typically adjust these numbers 1-2 times throughout the program. These adjustments are based on a number of factors, one of them being happiness with current progress (while also reporting consistency with previous nutrition/macros.)

I always tell my clients that signals that we need to adjust include: stalled progress, too much hunger, too much fullness.

This also helps highlight if there might be an issue going on that needs to be investigated medically. For example, if a client finds she’s eating a lower amount of intake for her body and her activity level, and still not seeing results (assured that she’s tracking accurately and consistently) that’s usually a red flag there’s an issue going on that needs to be investigated.

Calorie and macronutrient calculators are great in a pinch, but only take into considerations so many objective factors. However, nutritional needs are subjective,and there are other factors to take into account.

I’ll be coaching one last round of my Lean Body Training & Nutrition for the year, and it starts on August 7th. Sign ups open tonight, but registration is already over half full from the wait list.
If you’d like more information or to sign up, you can do do here — or just shoot me an email and we can chat 🙂

XOXO,
Paige