blastthru23
Moderator
Counting, timing, and cycling macros are important notions when either building mass, dieting down, recomping, or just maintaining. Some feel it necessary to be rigorously attentive to their macros on a daily basis, but this not always possible for everyone; life can and does get in the way at some point or another.
First, one must be realistic with the plan they have created. It must be attainable (especially for those that really want to put some calories down the hatch!). Can you do the 6 meals per day? Or would it be more likely that 4 meals will work, or some combination thereof? Planning ahead of time to account for different days is required for a successful strategy. For a person with a catawampus schedule, looking at caloric intake on weekly basis may be a better approach. Remember, stressing out about anything leads to higher cortisol levels, which is catabolic, and tends to cause belly fat. So, lets not stress out about diet, lets plan ahead. We don't plan to fail. we often just fail to plan.
There are at least three aspects to macro counting: micro (daily), meso (weekly) and macro (monthly). There are strong arguments that support the theory that total macros ought to be counted more on within the meso-cycle of a diet, and even the macro-cycle (the endocrine system is not quite as regimented and strict as we would like to think, and hormones such as leptin play a big role in diet, and can take up to and more than three days to rebound, but that's whole other can of worms). For example, say your target for daily caloric intake is 3000 calories, or 21,000 calories per week. If your schedule for the week makes it such that it will be difficult or next too impossible to hit that number, the 3000, in a day, you can plan your meals for the week so that you do hit 21,000. Say, Monday through Thursday you can realistically get in 4 meals. Thursday you can get 5 meals in, and Friday 4 meals, Saturday and Sunday an easy 6. That's 37 meals total for the week. To make things easy, divide 21,000 by 37 and you get 568 calories per meal. Fat (at 25%) would be 15 grams per meal (basically a tablespoon), Protein (45%) around 63 grams, and Carbs (30%) at 47 grams (about a cup or so of cooked white rice). This, of course is just an example and not likely a macro plan you would follow, but if you are cutting, and weigh around 220lbs, this might work. But, as you can see, all the macros are accounted for within a dietary meso-cycle. You could write out what each meal contains, post it up in the kitchen, and over the weekend, cook it all up, label it, and throw it in the fridge for the week. You won't even have that meny dishes to wash either: one pot for veggies, one pot for rice, and a baking sheet for the chicken. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.
Of course there are countless ways to go about this using carb and/or macro cycling. Things would also change if you were to figure in nutrient timing. That would take a little extra work in planning it out.
