Understanding Macros 101

Aesha Tahir [00:00:00]: Hello, everyone. How are you guys? And today, I have a guest who is going to help us understand macros. So macronutrients is something that is a foundational aspect of nutrition, and a lot of people aren’t sure what is the right way to go about them. Should we just give up on carbs?

Aesha Tahir: Should we just eat fat? Should we just give up on fat altogether? Like, what is going on over there? I get so many DMs, and I was like, “You know what? I need some help in this department myself.” So I have Coach Brian Perana with me today. Yay. And he’s gonna be able to break it down into very simple steps for us, , and help us understand, what are macros.

Aesha Tahir [00:01:00]: Because I know that a lot of us, like including me sometimes, we are tired of restrictive fad diets, which can end up, leaving you, burned out. They’re not sustainable, right? So I was like, “Okay, it is time to , learn about macronutrients and how balancing them can actually help us not only rev up our metabolism and fuel our workouts, but also not get bored of the same old, same old every day,”

Aesha Tahir: so welcome to the pod, Brian.

Brian Parana: Thank you. , You mean, macros aren’t just some buzzword that’s getting thrown around these days? They’re actually foundational to nutrition and eating real food?

Aesha Tahir: Yeah. Yeah, right? We all think that, okay, there’s a lot of… And I don’t blame our listeners and viewers because there’s so much confusion out there.

Aesha Tahir [00:02:00]: Oh, yeah, there is … especially when it comes to nutrition. We are all kind of confused because one day we are, like, talking about, okay, just ditch the carbs. The other day we are like, “Ditch the fats.” Right. And then the, the third it’s like, okay, just eat protein. And we all know, , , there is a balance.

Aesha Tahir: So let’s talk about it. Yeah. What are macros? What are we talking about? Someone who doesn’t, who has heard the term everywhere- on TikTok and other social media platforms, but they’re like, ” I have no idea what macros are.”

Brian Parana: Macros aren’t related to math, the macro, or photography.

Brian Parana: They’re related to nutrition. Macro’s a shorthand for macronutrients, ’cause that’s a really long word to write out all the time. So we shorten it to macros, and that simply is protein, carbs, fats. Those are the three things that primarily make up- food that we eat and the calories that are in the food that we eat.

Brian Parana: So that’s it. Just protein, carbs, fats

Aesha Tahir [00:03:00]: Yes. Protein, carbs, and fats. Okay. And I feel I think of macros as three main building blocks of our food. Yes. Because they’re all serving a different purpose. I agree. So let’s go a little bit deeper. I wanna know, what is… why is protein important?

Aesha Tahir: Why are carbs important? Why fat?

Brian Parana: So for really quick helping you understand what each of these does, proteins help build and recover your body or muscles, and protein has a lot of different functions in the body, especially at a cellular level. Probably millions of things that, that need to go on in the body.

Brian Parana: But, we can think about muscles themselves, right? The second one is carbs. That’s for energy. We need energy. Just like a car needs gasoline to drive, our body runs off carbohydrates, and they get stored in your muscle. And the energy can also get stored as body fat. And then lastly, we have the fat macro.

Brian Parana [00:04:00]: Fat are generally easy to understand for hormonal health, like vitamin D, A, B, all these type of things to help with our body to function properly, and that’s the easiest way to think of those three.

Aesha Tahir: Love all those, uh, you know, components of the protein, carbs, and fats. And I also wanna highlight and add to the fats a little bit, because we don’t realize it often, but fats are also the long-lasting energy reserves.

Aesha Tahir: Your brain functions on fat. Yes. Like 70% of your, uh, the fat in your body is used by your brain as fuel. And then for distance runners, like ultra, ultra-marathoners, they’re primarily relying on fat meta- metabolism and fat as a fuel.

Brian Parana: Yeah. So- In a way, yeah, definitely in the long, long distance stuff.

Aesha Tahir [00:05:00]: Yeah. A- and so I just wanted to add to that that, you know, carbs are immediate source of fuel, and then fats are the longer lasting fuel.

Aesha Tahir: Yeah. So they’re both very, very important. And let’s take the

Brian Parana: fact of, say, in modern society, we have food all the… everywhere, always, right? We can just buy… I think we referenced on our last time we were on, you could go buy 100,000 calories within five miles of your house, and it’d be relatively pretty cheap, whereas back 10,000 years ago, you needed some body fat to live and to be able to sustain energy and life, because it was really hard to come by 100,000 calories.

Aesha Tahir: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, going back to the caveman days, of course that’s what we… our hunter-gatherers- Mm-hmm … our ancestors were relying on. Okay, s- I’m so glad that you actually brought in calories What is the difference between calories and macros and when people are trying to track? Like, you know- Yeah

Aesha Tahir: the thing is, like, everybody’s, like, confused here. Like, oh, well, but I thought I was supposed to track my calories and not macros. Like, what do I do now?

Brian Parana: Right.

Aesha Tahir: What’s the difference?

Brian Parana [00:06:00]: Well, no matter what, I always tell people they have to be some level of calorie aware. Calories are how humans have defined what is the energy that is in the food that you’re eating, simply put.

Brian Parana: It could be called kilo cals or kilojoules. We don’t need to get into that type of science. It’s just calories. So this apple holds 100 calories in it. Well, then we, the next layer of the, the onion, I, I guess I should have just used an onion as an example, but the, the next layer down is macronutrients, and an apple has carbs No, it doesn’t really have fat or protein.

Brian Parana [00:07:00]: So in a sense, an apple generally is just 25 carbohydrates if it’s 100 calories, because there are, let’s break down simple math, and this is how you understand where the connection of calories and macros fit together. Four calories per one gram of protein, four calories per one gram of carb, and nine, we’ll get both hands out there, nine calories per one gram of fat.

Brian Parana: And that is calorie and macro 101. So if you understand those three conversions, you can read a nutrition label and have a full understanding of what’s actually in this food. Not the percentages based off of a 2,000 calorie diet or any of that stuff. You can just literally look and see an apple has 25 carbs in it at 100 calories, and for a typical size apple, oh, this is a carb.

Brian Parana: And then you can then determine where that fits into your day based on your calorie needs, based on how many, say, if you wanted to be into tracking how many carbs you have to allotted for the day, or maybe it’s a good snack because it’s a Mother Nature single serving snack pack. It’s self-contained. It’s great.

Aesha Tahir [00:08:00]: If you eat an apple with the skin on, it has a lot of fiber. So fiber- Keep it in there … is always a good complex carbohydrate to have, and it’s healthy. It’s a prebiotic for your, gut too. I love how you just differentiated it because I, I feel like sometimes even I have a hard time.

Aesha Tahir: But lately I’ve started explaining this to my clients, that, you know, calories focus on quantity of energy.

Brian Parana: Yeah.

Aesha Tahir: So it’s if you think about a budget, we all budget our finances, right? Right. So it’s the overall budget, right? Yes. Calories. Yeah. But then tracking macros is the quality of energy. Energy So the budget categories, right?

Aesha Tahir: If, are you putting it towards y- retirement, which would be probably protein, because building muscle mass. Right. And/or you’re putting it towards immediate expenses, which are fat and carbohydrates mostly. So, , that’s great. Okay.

Brian Parana: Uh, real quick on this, I wanna expand on it- Yeah … because you, you just gave me a layup.

Aesha Tahir: Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. We

Brian Parana [00:09:00]: have, everyone understands the currency of money, right? The dollars, cents. We understand to the basics of how to spend it, how to save it, how, you know, we all love spending it more than we s- than we do saving, right?

Aesha Tahir: Oh, no. That’s- You were not supposed to give that away.

Brian Parana: Yeah, that’s for another podcast.

Aesha Tahir: Yes, exactly. ,

Brian Parana: But so we understand that, and we don’t need to get into the economics or finances and all this other type of stuff, but we all understand basic concepts of spending and saving money and all that. Food is just , the currency of food is calories, protein, carbs, and fats. Once you understand what is in the food that you’re eating, how much of a calorie budget you’re allowed to have in a day, and where to divvy it up between the protein, the carbs, and the fats, you become food calorie macro literate, and you understand how to then control food, even just by looking at it.

Brian Parana [00:10:00]: And say, tracking calories and macros, whenever I do it with anyone, is a transferable skill for long-term understanding of how to maintain your body weight, just like making sure you have money for retirement, right? We wanna make sure that we’re saving enough and making wise investments, at the very least, the S&P, right?

Brian Parana [00:11:00]: And then we can then accumulate wealth over time, and for our body, wealth is health, and we wanna make sure that we’re not trying to save calories on our waistline, because that does not equal poor health. And we are ha- no shortage of food because it’s everywhere N’ always around us, so we have to have a heightened awareness around what food we pick, the people that we’re around, the environments that we’re in, the social peer pressure type things, your strengths and weaknesses around food, and those are just a very few things that just came off the top of my head to consider when food is, because food is fun, it’s happy, it’s s- it’s sadness, it’s anger, it’s joy, it’s all sorts of this range of emotion that humans have, and we have to control it on some level so that you don’t gain weight tomorrow, and then you have to work harder tomorrow to get what you ate today off your body.

Aesha Tahir: I love the analogy here to currency and spending, because I think you’re right. You know, most of us, just to live and, , to take care of ourselves and our families, we have to be aware of how we spend money and, or the b- budgeting and the balance system.

Aesha Tahir [00:12:00]: Right. So yeah, the same rules kind of apply to nutrition too and what we eat. I do wanna, , build up on this because I think it’s such a great analogy here. What is the balanced ratio of these three nutrients which is gonna be very beneficial for long-term health than- Yeah, excellent

Aesha Tahir: restriction? Is there, something that you share with your clients?

Brian Parana: Definitely. If you are tracking macros, a really good starting place is 40, 30, 30. 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat. That gives you a very balanced meal across the day at three or four meals in the day, and you can thoroughly enjoy your food choices in the right portions.

Brian Parana: Now, certainly we can manipulate them a little bit up and down, a little bit more carbs if you move a lot or you’re very active. , A little less carbs if you have more a sedentary lifestyle. A little bit more protein if you really enjoy protein, work out a lot, or move your body a lot. And maybe , a little bit less if you, a- again, just don’t enjoy protein.

Brian Parana [00:13:00]: Not everyone enjoys eating, a 10-ounce steak or a big giant chicken breast always. And same thing with fat. So we can play with these  within, , 5%, maybe 10% of those starting numbers. And whenever I’m working with someone, my goal is to create awareness around calories first, help them start to understand what the, in quotations, “macros” are of these, whether we’re tracking food or not.

Brian Parana: They still have to understand to a certain degree what is in the food that you eat on a normal, regular basis, so you can identify what that food is and how it’s going to need to be combined with other food to create a balanced meal of some protein, some starch, and a lot of vegetables mainly, or a piece of fruit, as an example of building an ideal plate.

Aesha Tahir [00:14:00]: Love this explanation. So true. And I l- I work off wh- of the same, , breakup as well, . Wonderful. Yeah. And then we can always, , of course, depending on, like someone who’s a bodybuilder, of course they’re- gonna need a little more protein and a little more fat. A little less carbs. As someone who’s a distance runner, we will switch it-

Aesha Tahir: around where they need a little more carbs. So- There’s

Brian Parana: always a range. And no human is alike. And even in your lifetime, you might have different needs for different seasons of life as well, and it’s okay. Not every day is gonna be, in quotations, perfect. And if you have a low protein day, that doesn’t mean that you, failed or you had a high sugar day because there was sweet treats and fun at Halloween.

Brian Parana: It just we, again, have to have, what I call MBF, moderation, balance, flexibility built in. But the mean overall average over time, not just the time that you’re awake, people. Like I, oh, I have a fasting window. Okay, that’s great that you only eat in a four or eight hour timeframe, but there are scientific studies that show that eating in a 12-hour timeframe will still produce the same results, so why are you starving all day to then have to wait to eat or something?

Brian Parana [00:15:00]: And, oh, yeah, you worked out at 6:00 AM and you’re gonna have your first meal at 1:00? Sport Nutrition 101 says that you should fuel your workout, so why are we not eating right after our workout to replenish the body? And why are you waiting till one? It doesn’t make sense. And once you get educated and un- understand calorie awareness and a better understanding of how it fits into your day-to-day life, then all of a sudden, “Oh, yeah, I was always hangry coming into lunch, and people were trying to avoid me at lunchtime meetings because they knew I needed food, and they didn’t wanna tell me.”

Aesha Tahir: . You are speaking to, the choir over here. And, yeah, I think what you said, and I wanna summarize it real quick- Yeah, please … about the nutrition around the workouts. , I really think we should have another Instagram Live on timing around- your work- Good idea.

Aesha Tahir: the nutrition timing around workouts because-

Brian Parana: Yep …

Aesha Tahir [00:16:00] : that’s my biggest pet peeve with everyone who I’ve worked with. Well, there’s a place and time for fasted workouts. For some people it works. But there’s- Right … a lot of research that shows, like, who it doesn’t work for.

Aesha Tahir: . For women it doesn’t work, , for many different reasons because we have- Right … high cortisol levels. Then on top of it, when people don’t eat within that 30-minute to a 60-minute window after a workout, now you’re breaking down more muscle. You just broke down muscle- Right, right, right, right

Aesha Tahir: in the gym and/or on the road, whatever mode of exercise you had. And now you’re breaking down more muscle, so because your muscles are looking for protein to- Yep … because they have this- And carbs . Yeah, and carbs, because we have this mechanism in, inside our bodies after a workout which is called muscle protein synthesis that is active at that time. And it’s looking for amino acids to build those muscle fibers up again. And if you’re not eating I’m like, you- Right … you do realize that you’re breaking your bone and muscle both to get those nutrients.

Brian Parana: Right. Right?

Aesha Tahir [00:17:00]: Right. Yeah. Right.

Brian Parana: We’ll throw analogy out here.

Brian Parana: Say we’re gonna wash a car. We take , the sponge, dip it in the water, pull it out, and you start washing it, washing, and all the water starts to drip out of it. That’s the same thing as a workout. Your body is the sponge, water is the energy in your body that you’re squeezing out through flexing muscles and running, and at the end, we want to put the sponge back in the water, not just let it out in the sun to dry up.

Brian Parana: And that’s a good analogy for your body is that you’re making it more stressful on your body if you don’t have good food timing, especially if you have a hard workout. If you, if your workout, you go in and it’s not as hard, say a 5 out of 10 instead of 7, 8, 9 out of 10, then, you could probably make it two hours without that being a big deal.

Brian Parana [00:18:00]: But if it’s robust and you’re lifting heavy and you’re doing the things like CrossFit, you should be eating within 30 to 60 minutes and have that as part of your nutritional strategy so that you feel better immediately after the workout. You can just get right back up and get going. It’s like getting the water back in the sponge and you’re rejuvenated ’cause sponges need water.

Brian Parana: They’re best used that way, not dry sponges. And then you also then forego later challenges with more hunger or hanger and cravings and binging and all this stuff because you just were more planned and you put something in your mouth that worked for that.

Aesha Tahir: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Absolutely.

Aesha Tahir: Okay, so to wrap it up, I wanna leave our listeners with an important tip because again, this is one of the questions that keeps coming to me, with the direct messages people send me on Instagram and LinkedIn. A lot of people are hesitant to go the macro tracking route-

Brian Parana: Right

Aesha Tahir [00:19:00]: because they feel like that it overwhelms them.

Aesha Tahir: They’re like, , “I don’t want to constantly count.” Right., “And I don’t want to become obsessive with my tracking. I mean, I, I have a life to live- and food is something I enjoy. I don’t want to stop enjoying it.”

Brian Parana: Right.

Aesha Tahir: So what can someone who feels like this do? How can they track macros in an easy way and feel like that they’re fueling their body and also keeping their metabolism healthy?

Brian Parana: Right. I love this question. In my very first call with a lot of, every client, I give them a choice. We have two paths. We have a fork in the road. Are we going to focus on the basic components and tenets of eating healthier?

Brian Parana [00:20:00]: Better food choices, practicing portion control, have balanced meals, eating three to four times at three to five-hour timeframes. That’s the basis of a good quality, healthy, , healthy body weight, maintaining energy. That… I gave you j- I gave you my secret, and Ayesha would agree. , That’s the secret. Yes.

Brian Parana: That’s how you do it. Yes. Right? Never eating too many calories and making sure you’re full enough until you eat again. That’s the tenet.

Aesha Tahir: Absolutely. So

Brian Parana: we have that path. Yeah. The other path is, hey, do you wanna track? And then I, I also quantify, have you ever tracked? Have you had experience with it? And because I need to understand what they think of tracking as well.

Brian Parana: Tracking, to me, is a tool in the nutritional toolbox that we can use to help better understand calories, then macros, protein, carbs, and fats, and then proper portions of these foods and how they combine and interact with other foods at a singular meal, like breakfast, and then across the day, like into dinner or 9:00, 10:00 at night.

Brian Parana [00:21:00]: Because if you understand calories and macros and proper portions of the food, you can eat right before you go to bed , and you can be stuffed all day long and still accomplish a calorie deficit to help lose weight and win. Now, it also depends on where this person is at. Usually, and probably in your case too, someone is coming to me because they are overweight or they have bad blood panels or they are unhappy with how…

Brian Parana: their energy or how they look, feel, clothes. The list goes on, right? They’re worried about, in their 40s and 50s, now they’re starting to worry about, “Hey, I actually wanna have a quality life in 20 years,” because that’s really close now. And we if they don’t have the skillsets around how to manage food and it shows up in their body, whether they’re overweight or they’re in a disease-like state, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, then they may need to spend more time learning this, and we just have to do it in the easiest way possible.

Brian Parana [00:22:00]: I always tell people, “Let’s approach it with curiosity. What is in the food that I’m eating?” Not, “Oh, I have to sit down and type this thing in and weigh it, yeah, it’s gonna be work, but you just spent 15 years gaining 20-plus pounds and your A1C is now your doctor’s trying to put you on meds for diabetes.

Brian Parana: So you tell me. We need to slow down to be able to then understand how to properly feed and fuel yourself, and tracking is the fastest, easiest way to do it. And we’ll do it in a fun way so that you actually learn what is in the food, and you still can have sweets and treats and but then we’re also gonna look for alternatives to those, and we’re gonna find, how can I fit this in?

Brian Parana [00:23:00]: ‘Cause, say, 4th of July is around the corner here, and I want the red, white, and blue popsicle or whatever. The rocket pop, right? And okay, cool. That is gonna be 150 calories of straight sh- carbs and sugar. How does that fit with the rest of that meal in that time? You can’t just godown the buffet and hit the potato salads and the bread rolls and have two hamburgers and hot dogs and all this stuff.

Brian Parana: It’s too much because those are all high-calorie, fatty foods and high-carb foods that will move you in the wrong direction. So that, that ends up being it. So we start at the easiest, and it could just be tracking calories the first couple days. It could be, “Hey, we’re just gonna track whatever you think is protein.

Brian Parana: Let’s plug that in.” Or it could be we’re, we just need to do a deep dive in, and you just need to have grace, patience, and start tracking everything that you eat, whether it’s on the forbidden food list that you think there is one or not, and we move from there so that we acknowledge what you’re eating, understand the calorie ramifications or how much you actually ate, and what is the composition of the food, the protein, the carbs, and fats, and even going back to the ratio.

Brian Parana [00:24:00]: And once we do that, usually it takes, for me, if I’m working with someone, one to two weeks. It’s like they took a college-level nutrition class. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m seeing the matrix now. I, I can understand calories, protein, carbs, fats significantly better.” Whereas if they do it by themselves, it could be really challenging or frustrating or any other adjective that fills in the gap there.

Aesha Tahir: Absolutely. I just love how you just broke it down, because you know what? I think it’s a tool in the toolbox which is- Yep … so important. Because a lot of us, we have been living our lives never learning this. I was just gonna say, like, the home economics course that I took, I was never taught macros, right?

Brian Parana: Right. So- Just, they had you bake a cake, right? Which is- Yeah,

Aesha Tahir: exactly. I was making pancakes and cakes.

Aesha Tahir: Right. Which I guess- Right … well, that’s a different story about the

Brian Parana [00:25:00]: macros. Agreed. Me too, ’cause I, I was in home ec too. I remember.

Aesha Tahir: Yeah. So that being said, though, even when I started my journey, health journey, I started tracking my macros, and just like you said, it takes only two to three weeks, and it’s eye-opening to understand- Yeah

Aesha Tahir: like, “Oh, what? Nutrition can be so simple?”

Brian Parana: Yeah.

Aesha Tahir: But yeah, I mean, yes, the early phase is a little bit cumbersome. It’s a little bit inconvenient. You have to get used to it if it’s something new to do. , But once you get used to it, you’re like, “Oh, my goodness,” “My life is so simplified.”

Aesha Tahir: Yeah. And once you start seeing results, then you’re hooked. You’re like, “Oh, this is it.”

Brian Parana: And results don’t come first, people. The actions to lead to results come first.

Aesha Tahir: Yes. Results come afterwards. Actions lead to results. Motivation

Brian Parana: comes

Aesha Tahir: afterwards. Exactly. Exactly. Actions lead to results.

Aesha Tahir [00:26:00]: Thanks for mentioning that. These were a few questions that just kept coming in my DMs, and I was like, “Let’s break it down,” because Coach Brian is so great at talking about nutrition.

Brian Parana: Thank you.

Aesha Tahir: So thanks for joining us today.

Brian Parana: I’m super happy to help. I explain this to, everyone pretty much every day for the last 15 years, and my job is to figure out how can I easily break it down so that this person understands it in the fastest, easiest way so they can take action and get results.

Brian Parana: ‘Cause I can’t make it complicated, and I tried to, even in our explanation today, in our conversation, how do I keep it simple? Because simple is easy gets done. If it… It even has, it goes what? From third grade language, reading language, to eighth grade reading lang- you’ve lost a lot of people in that, different type of words or structures of words or sentences.

Brian Parana: So it’s simple, easy. What can I get this person to do that moves them toward their health goals? And that’s it

Aesha Tahir [00:27:00]: Yes. Yes. And it’s a really great tool to have, which can actually move you in the right direction very fast once you get a hang of it. And please reach out to Coach Brian. He’s always, , there to help you guys and

Brian Parana: one more thing here for a tool to track. I’m a big fan of starting off with Cronometer. It’s free. It has a lot of free features in it, and it’s… They all do the same thing, but you do not need to pay for a subscription. And also, when we’re signing up, it’s gonna ask you all these questions, and it’ll do its best to pair you up.

Brian Parana: And I think with, probably with AI it’s a lot better at initially getting you started. But let’s not pay attention to whatever that tells you to do. How about we spend three to five days just tracking what you are eating? And sure, make better choices. Practice portion control. Move in a healthier direction.

Brian Parana [00:28:00]: So as soon as you understand that and you’re like, “Oh, okay,” then you start seeing how many calories you want, because I need that, a level of awareness to, to then start creating more motivation.

Aesha Tahir: Absolutely There you go Oh, I love this tool too. I also wanna add another tool. I think-

Brian Parana: Yeah …

Aesha Tahir: maybe it’s a little old school now, but MyFitnessPal is also very good. Yeah, totally. And it’s free. Same, same concept. Yeah. Everything is same. You’re, it’s just a tool to use- Yeah … to track They all do the same.

Brian Parana: Lose It- Yeah … MacroFactor, Yeah … MyNetDiary There are

Aesha Tahir: so many out there now. Oh,

Brian Parana: goodness.

Aesha Tahir: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely.

Brian Parana: MyAI Food Thing or whatever. I’m sure that’s a name of one too.

Aesha Tahir: Yeah. Yeah, that would be a good name actually. Let’s create one, Brian.

Brian Parana: Sure.

Aesha Tahir: Oh. Oh, thank you so much again for joining us. And thank you everyone.

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