What Happens to Macros (Carbs, Fats, and Protein) Inside Your Body? | Ep 290
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If you've been told that "a calorie is just a calorie" or that certain macros are "good" or "bad," you're missing the fascinating biological reality of how your body processes different foods.
Learn the surprising truth about what happens to each macronutrient inside your body, including why carbs don't easily convert to body fat, how fats support crucial hormones, and what makes protein so special for body composition.
Main Takeaways:
Your body processes each macro through completely different pathways with unique effects on energy, hormones, and body composition
Fears about carbs are completely misplaced once you understand what actually happens after digestion
Fat metabolism reveals why certain dietary recommendations of the past were fundamentally flawed
Understanding protein's unique properties explains why it's so powerful for physique transformation beyond just building muscle
The concept of metabolic flexibility changes everything about how you should approach your nutrition strategy
Timestamps:
0:01 - Why simplified views of macros miss the biological reality
3:28 - Carbohydrates: from mouth to bloodstream and beyond
9:31 - Fats: the misunderstood macro and its critical functions
15:24 - Protein: the structural macro that burns calories during digestion
21:29 - Practical implications for meal composition and timing
27:40 - The surprising truth about metabolic flexibility
30:32 - Key takeaways and why balanced nutrition works best
What Happens to Macros in Your Body (and Why It Matters for Fat Loss and Muscle Growth)
If you've ever been told that "a calorie is just a calorie" or that carbs are the enemy, you're missing a critical piece of the puzzle—how your body actually processes different macronutrients. The truth is, what happens after you eat carbs, fats, and protein plays a huge role in your energy levels, muscle growth, and fat loss.
In this episode of Wits & Weights, we break down the journey of each macro—carbs, fats, and protein—from the moment you take a bite of food to how your body absorbs, stores, and uses those nutrients. If you're someone who tracks macros but still wonders why certain foods affect your body differently, this episode will clear up the confusion.
Carbohydrates: Energy or Fat Storage?
Carbs tend to be the most misunderstood macro, often blamed for weight gain. But in reality, all digestible carbs eventually get broken down into simple sugars—glucose, fructose, and galactose—which are then absorbed into your bloodstream.
Immediate Energy: When you eat carbs, your body either burns them right away or stores them as glycogen in your muscles and liver.
Glycogen Storage: Your muscles can store about 500g of glycogen, and your liver about 100g. This is crucial for high-intensity training.
Fat Conversion Myth: Excess carbs don’t automatically turn into fat. The process, called de novo lipogenesis, is highly inefficient in humans. Instead, your body tends to burn excess carbs for energy while storing more dietary fat.
So, the real issue isn’t carbs—it’s overall calorie intake. If you’re in a surplus, you’ll store fat regardless of whether those extra calories come from carbs, fat, or even protein.
Fats: The Most Efficient Energy Storage
For decades, dietary fat was demonized, but fat plays an essential role in hormone production, brain health, and energy balance.
Slow Digestion: Fats take longer to digest than carbs because they must be broken down with bile and enzymes before absorption.
Energy Storage: Unlike carbs, which have a limited storage capacity (glycogen), fat can be stored in virtually unlimited amounts in adipose tissue.
Fat Storage Efficiency: Dietary fat is stored in fat cells with minimal processing, making it the easiest macro to store as body fat. However, fat itself doesn’t make you fat—excess calories do.
Types of Fat:
Saturated Fats (animal products, coconut oil) – Safe in moderation but should be kept under 10% of total calories.
Monounsaturated Fats (olive oil, avocados) – Generally beneficial for heart health.
Polyunsaturated Fats (omega-3s, seed oils) – Essential for the body, especially for reducing inflammation.
Trans Fats (processed foods, hydrogenated oils) – Avoid as much as possible due to proven negative health effects.
Protein: The Building Blocks of Muscle and Metabolism
Protein is the structural macro, critical for repairing and building muscle, regulating hormones, and supporting immune function.
High Thermic Effect: Your body burns 20-30% of protein calories just digesting it (compared to 5-10% for carbs and 0-3% for fats).
Muscle Retention: Adequate protein intake (0.7-1.0g per pound of body weight) is essential for preserving lean muscle, especially during fat loss.
Satiety & Fat Loss: Protein keeps you full longer than carbs or fat, making it a game-changer for those trying to lose body fat without feeling constantly hungry.
No Storage System: Unlike carbs and fat, protein doesn’t have a dedicated storage system. Your body either uses it or converts excess to glucose or fat.
Practical Takeaways: How to Apply This Knowledge
Now that you understand what happens to macros inside your body, here’s how to use that information to optimize fat loss and muscle growth:
1. Meal Composition Matters
Balancing protein, carbs, and fats in each meal helps stabilize energy, prevent blood sugar crashes, and support muscle maintenance. A simple meal could be:
Protein: Chicken or tofu
Carbs: Sweet potatoes or rice
Fats: Avocado or olive oil
Fiber: Leafy greens or other vegetables
2. Pre- and Post-Workout Nutrition
Pre-Workout: Prioritize fast-digesting carbs and protein (avoid fat and fiber) to fuel your training. Example: Whey protein + banana.
Post-Workout: Focus on protein and carbs to replenish glycogen and stimulate muscle recovery. Example: Chicken + rice.
3. Protein Timing
While total protein intake matters most, spreading it evenly across 3-5 meals can optimize muscle protein synthesis.
4. Adjusting Macros for Your Goals
Fat Loss: Maintain protein intake, reduce carbs and fats to create a calorie deficit.
Muscle Gain: Increase carbs and protein to fuel muscle growth while keeping fats moderate.
Maintenance: Find a balance where you feel energized, strong, and can maintain body composition.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Fear Any Macro
Carbs aren’t evil, fat isn’t inherently bad, and protein isn’t just for bodybuilders. Your body thrives when all three macronutrients work together. Whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain, or simply improving overall health, understanding how your body processes food will help you make smarter nutrition choices.
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Transcript
Philip Pape: 0:01
If you've been told that a calorie is just a calorie, or that carbs are the enemy, or even that fat makes you fat, you're missing the crucial biological reality of how your body actually processes different foods. These oversimplifications ignore the complex journey that macros take once they enter your body, a journey that directly impacts your energy levels, your muscle growth and, yes, even your fat loss. Today, we're breaking down exactly what happens to each macro. After you swallow that bite of food, you'll discover why protein requires twice the energy to digest as carbs, why some carbs raise blood sugar faster than others, and how fat metabolism actually works. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, philip Haidt, and today I'm going to answer a question that goes beyond simple calorie counting to a fascinating world of the biological mechanisms that determine how your body processes different foods. Now, this episode was inspired by Joy Kay from our Facebook group, who asked and I'm going to quote her directly I would like to know more about each macro and their function in the body. Do carbs turn into sugar? Speaking of sugar, what is its effect? And, joy, I love this question because understanding what happens to carbohydrates, fats and proteins after you eat them gives us some insights that go beyond just tracking the macros, and I don't think I've covered it in depth on the show before. So here we go. When you understand these processes, you can make better nutrition choices, and I love understanding that none of these things are to be feared. Most foods are not to be feared, and it really comes down to why certain strategies work for your goals while others fail for you and stop falling for nutrition myths that ignore the biological reality of how your body works. So today we're going to trace that journey of each macro, from the moment it enters your mouth to how it's broken down, absorbed and ultimately used by your body, with all of the important implications for your training, your body composition and your health. And I'm going to keep this a little science-y, but not too much, so I hope you enjoy the level of detail today Before we get into the science of macros.
Philip Pape: 2:30
If you enjoy evidence-based information, like on this podcast that cuts through the confusion of all the information in the fitness industry, join our Wits and Weights Facebook group. That is where Joy asks the excellent question we're answering today. It is full of like-minded people, curious people sharing their experiences, asking questions, supporting each other on their fitness journeys. Look for Wits and Weights on Facebook or click the link in the show notes to join our free community. So we're going to talk about a bunch of different things today and the way I've organized it is pretty logical. We're going to talk about carbohydrates, then fats, then protein and then tie it all together with practical implications for things like meal timing and food combinations and kind of your overall nutrition strategy. And I want to emphasize that understanding these it's not just academic, it does have real practical implications. You don't have to be a scientist per se. In fact, just listening to this podcast is a great way to absorb this information and understand. Hey, I've got some freedom and flexibility here based on what my goals are.
Philip Pape: 3:28
All right, let's start with carbohydrates, since they tend to be the most, I'll say, misunderstood and controversial macronutrient. And to answer Joy's direct question, yes, all digestible carbs do eventually get broken down into simple sugars in your body, but the process and the timeline can vary dramatically depending on the type of carbohydrate. So the journey begins in your mouth, where many journeys begin I'm sorry that was uncalled for when an enzyme called amylase starts breaking down complex carbs into simpler forms of carbs, and that's why, if you chew bread long enough, for example, it starts to taste sweet. I don't know if you ever thought about that before, but it's true. I used to love taking the crust off my bread and then squishing the bread into a little ball. Anyway, when that happens, you're literally beginning the conversion to sugar right there in your mouth. Very little digestion happens in your stomach for carbs.
Philip Pape: 4:24
The real action takes place in your small intestine, where more enzymes continue breaking down those complex carbs into their simplest forms glucose, fructose and galactose and these are the simple sugars that your body can actually absorb through the intestinal wall into your bloodstream. Then these simple sugars, bam, hit your bloodstream and what happens? Your pancreas releases insulin. Insulin is usually portrayed as a fat storage hormone, and that is an oversimplification, because it is really a crucial anabolic hormone. Remember anabolism. Anabolic means building up of tissue we love that word when it comes to growth and building muscle, and it helps transport nutrients into cells throughout your body. That is what insulin does. When it comes to carbs specifically, insulin helps shuttle the glucose from your bloodstream into different cells where it can be used for energy your brain and red blood cells, for example, preferentially use glucose for fuel. Now, when you consume more carbs than your body needs for immediate energy, that's where things get interesting and that's where a lot of the misconceptions come up.
Philip Pape: 5:34
Some glucose is stored in your liver and muscles as glycogen, so think of this as your body's short-term energy reserve system. It's super important for high intensity movement like strength training and glycolytic forms of activity, including various forms of cardio. Your muscles can store about 500 grams of glycogen. Your liver about 100 grams. Of course, the more muscle you have, the more you can store. Remember that. So that's about 2,400 calories of stored energy ready to fuel your workouts. The key point here that explains why carb loading before you train or have intense exercise can explain why this is so beneficial and why I talk about it all the time when it comes to your pre-workout meal is that your body can access glycogen stores much more rapidly than it can mobilize fat for energy, and that is why it is ideal for a heavy lifting session or an intense training session.
Philip Pape: 6:31
Now, if your glycogen stores are already full, contrary to popular belief, excess carbs don't just automatically get stored as body fat and you blow up and all of a sudden, you're just super fat because of carbs. It doesn't work that way. The process of converting carbs to fat, which is called de novo lipogenesis, is very inefficient in humans. Your body actually prefers to burn off the excess carbs by increasing energy expenditure or simply reducing fat oxidation, meaning it burns the carbs and saves the fat. Now that doesn't, of course, mean that you could eat unlimited carbs without gaining fat. That's energy balance, right. That is where you do get fat from eating carbs, just like you get fat from eating protein or fat as well, because you're eating too much. If you consistently eat more calories than you burn from any source, you will gain weight. Always remember that. It has nothing to do with the carbs. The metabolic pathway from carbs, specifically, to fat storage is way more complex than most people realize and, by the way, we're not going to dissect that all here today.
Philip Pape: 7:31
Now, not all carbs affect your body the same way. Important to understand that Factors like fiber, the structure of the food, how it's processed and then what you eat with the carbs will all influence how quickly they're broken down and how dramatically they affect your blood sugar and insulin levels. Right when you hear advice to add fats or protein to your carbs to reduce blood sugar spikes. That's why they're saying that this is the concept behind the glycemic index and glycemic load right Measures of how quickly and significantly a food raises your blood sugar. Foods with lower glycemic indexes, like most vegetables, legumes, you know, beans, some whole grains. They cause a slower, more moderate blood sugar response compared to high glycemic foods like white bread or, yes, even potatoes and processed things like sugary food, sugary drinks. And that difference in blood sugar response has implications for your energy level, for your hunger, even for your long-term health. But we don't want to conflate rapid blood sugar spikes short-term with long-term raised blood sugar. Very important distinction right Now foods that cause rapid spikes and crashes in blood sugar. They can lead to bigger fluctuations in your energy, they can affect your hunger signals and then, over time, if you have a high consumption of sugar and carbs and you are not utilizing it right and we want to utilize it with an active lifestyle, with strength training, with muscle mass, that's where potential issues with insulin sensitivity come into play, which, again, we are going to mitigate that such that it almost doesn't matter If you're, if you're covering all the bases, you can eat carbs and have a spike in blood sugar and in fact, a spike in blood sugar can be helpful when you're going into the gym and you're going to utilize that right, and that that's again where we conflate the issue. So that's the whole carb section I wanted to talk about and lead into the next one, and again we're gonna come back to implications when we tie all this together as a whole, as a whole. Okay.
Philip Pape: 9:31
Now let's talk about fats, which I wanna call, I guess, the most misunderstood macro of all. I mean, if it's not carbs, it's fat, because for decades okay and I'm 44, so I grew up in the 80s when fat-free and snack wells was the thing all the way up into the 90s We've been told that dietary fat made us fat and caused heart disease. There's a lot of reasons behind this and the history of the science and the seven country studies and saturated versus not. We're not going to get into all that. The reality, of course, is more nuanced. That's the point here, one of the points, and we're going to go through it.
Philip Pape: 10:05
So, fat digestion it starts minimally in your mouth and stomach, but mostly occurs in your small intestine, and it does so with the help of bile from your gallbladder and then enzymes from your pancreas and that's what breaks down dietary fats into fatty acids and glycerol, and then those are then absorbed into your intestinal cells. Pretty cool, right? So here's where fat metabolism gets more fascinating, I'll say. Unlike carbs, which travel directly into your bloodstream, dietary fats are packaged into lipoprotein bundles called chylomicrons, and these travel through your lymphatic system before they get to your bloodstream. Guys, if you're like, wow, philip knows his stuff, I did a lot of research for this episode and I have a lot of notes. So, just so you know, this is what science communication is all about when you're not an expert in the field. So hopefully I'm doing it justice Anybody who is an expert in this stuff. If you catch a mistake, let me know, but I definitely did a lot of research. Okay, moving on.
Philip Pape: 11:01
So the difference in transport between fats and carbs, right? This explains why fat takes longer to affect your blood levels and energy systems compared to carbs. It's a slower, more gradual process. On a little side tangent, I will advise clients to limit or eliminate any fat in their pre-workout to avoid this, this mechanism of slowing down digestion, because what it does is it slows down your body's absorption of protein and carbs, and so you can see how it's all interconnected. Okay, so that was a side tangent, but important to know as to why I recommend fewer fats and fewer fiber, lower fiber in your pre workout things that slow digestion.
Philip Pape: 11:38
So once your fats are in circulation, they can then be used for immediate energy needs. They're stored in fat tissue for later use or they're used for essential functions like hormone production, brain health, cell membrane integrity all the things we know that fat is important for. Your brain, in fact, is about 60% fat, and you need dietary fat for the production of hormones, including the big ones, big reproductive hormones, testosterone and estrogen right, so fat is essential, you have to consume it. Hormones, testosterone and estrogen right, so fat is essential, you have to consume it. And there are issues with people getting too low in their fat intake.
Philip Pape: 12:17
Now, an important point about fat storage because that's a lot of the things we care about is body fat storage. When you consume dietary fat, it can be stored in your fat cells with minimal processing, right, it just kind of goes right in there, and that's what makes fat storage more efficient from an energy standpoint compared to converting excess carbs or protein to fat. But this is super important. That doesn't mean that eating fat automatically makes you fat, because your body is constantly mobilizing and storing fat based on your overall energy needs. It's what your body needs, your metabolism. If you're in a calorie deficit, you're gonna burn fat for fuel, regardless of how much fat you eat. If you're in a calorie surplus, you're gonna store fat, regardless of whether it came from fat, carbs or protein, although, like I mentioned before, the conversion from carbs and protein is actually less efficient.
Philip Pape: 13:07
Different types of fats also affect your body differently. So, without going too deep into the chemistry, because I'm not even equipped to do that, here are the key distinctions between the four types of fats that you hear about, that exist and you hear talked about. Let's start with saturated fats. These are the ones solid at room temperature. They're found in animal products some plant oils, but mainly animal products and they've gotten a bad rap right because of their correlation with cardiovascular health. But moderate amounts in the context of an otherwise healthy dietary pattern are fine. And then, if you want a number, I would say no more than 10% of your calories or a third of your fats. It's a good rule of thumb. A little more than that's fine, but we're just saying that's a general ceiling.
Philip Pape: 13:50
Then we have monounsaturated fats. Those are the ones found in olive oil, avocados, nuts Most people don't argue about these. Okay, they're like everybody's like. Oh yeah, those are good, those are beneficial for heart health, and they are, they're good. Olive oil is great. Okay, I just had a whole bunch of pasta with olive oil and some chicken thighs that I meal prepped for lunch. You know, I have 3,600 calories. I'm trying to get in right now in a building phase.
Philip Pape: 14:12
Then we have polyunsaturated fats. All right, these are usually found in omega-3s, like fatty fish, flax, seeds, walnuts, and then some omega-6s, and these are the essential fats that your body cannot produce. So we definitely want to consume these polyunsaturated. Oh and, by the way, seed oils are among those and they also get a huge bad rap in the industry for no reason whatsoever. Totally unnecessary, just understand that.
Philip Pape: 14:43
And then trans fats. Now those are I'll call the quote unquote bad ones. They're found in artificially hydrogenated oils and they're actually problematic and we don't see any upsides to those and they have negative health effects. So they've been mostly banned. You're hardly going to find those. So the bottom line on fats is that they are essential nutrients. They are helpful for hormone production, brain function, nutrient absorption. And then, yes, they can be efficiently used for energy, especially, you know, the low energy activities. Walking is great form of uh movement for fat oxidation, so is the occasional sprinting, so is lifting weights and recovering and being active and moving Cardio and high intense running. Sometimes it backfires and actually causes you not to oxidize fat as well.
Philip Pape: 15:24
Keep that in mind, okay, and then we come to protein, my favorite. Well, I don't know, I think carbs are also my favorite, just because people love to hate on them and they need a little bit more love. But protein, this is the structural macro. All right, this is the bodybuilders and the lifters' favorite macro, but it's also becoming more popular among the general population, thankfully. And finally, I don't know if I mentioned this on podcast yet, but I saw a commercial for Oikos Greek yogurt during the Super Bowl, and they were. The selling point was that it had a lot of protein and it's good for muscle. I'm like, yeah, that's great, I'm glad that that is what is in our, that is what we're selling it on, and it's for a good reason, right? But protein is important for a lot more things in building muscle, which is one thing I do want to touch on because that's all we talk about sometimes is muscle.
Philip Pape: 16:14
So protein digestion that begins in your stomach. You've got hydrochloric acid, which denatures the proteins, and then there's an enzyme called pepsin that starts breaking down protein into smaller peptides. You've heard peptides right, you've heard of like injectable peptides. That's what they are they're proteins. And then this process continues past the stomach into the small intestine. More enzymes break the peptides down into the individual amino acids and then small peptide chains can be absorbed into your bloodstream. Now, unlike carbs and fats, proteins are not primarily used for energy they can be in rare circumstances but primarily the amino acids become the building blocks You've heard that before the building blocks for nearly every structural and functional component in your body Muscles, yes, but also enzymes, hormones, immune cells, hair, skin, and the list goes on and on.
Philip Pape: 17:10
So think of protein as the construction material for your body. It's constantly being used to build and repair tissues, and this is why protein is critical during periods of growth, like when you're a child, when you're an adolescent, but also recovery, like after an injury, and of course. Of course when you're trying to build muscle through resistance training, and when I say build, I also mean hold onto muscle if you are in fat loss, for example. Protein does also have unique properties that make it the favorite macro when it comes to body composition. The first one is its high thermic effect of food, the TEF. This means your body burns more calories digesting protein compared to carbs or fats. Specifically, about 20 to 30% of the calories from protein are used just in digesting and processing the protein 20 to 30%, compared to only 5 to 10% for carbs and 0 to 3% for fats, and so this higher energy cost contributes to why protein helps a lot of people with fat loss.
Philip Pape: 18:14
When they increase the protein in their diet from you know, when they double it, for example, which is very, very common Many people are far under eating protein. When you start working with me and we start tracking, you end up doubling or tripling in some cases, and what that does is it burns more calories just to digest and you start to lose weight without trying, and yet you feel full. That's key. Second, speaking of full, protein is highly satiating. It does help you feel fuller longer compared to equal calories from carbs or fats, and so this satiety effect is yet another reason higher protein diets are effective for fat loss right? They help you control your hunger signals and your calorie intake.
Philip Pape: 18:52
And then third, adequate protein intake is crucial for preserving lean mass during weight loss. Remember the key here everyone and if you've never heard this before, listen, right now we are not trying to lose weight, we are trying to lose fat, body fat and get leaner, more muscular, fitter. And if you just crash diet or you lose weight or you're on Ozempic, you just lose weight or you're not resistance training, you're not eating enough protein, you're going to lose muscle. We don't want to lose muscle, that's the wonderful thing. We want to keep on our body and have more of so protein you need adequate protein to preserve that lean mass. And so when you're in a calorie deficit and you have sufficient protein, it signals to your body to preserve the muscle tissue. It says, look, I've got the building blocks available, so I'm going to go ahead and use them, right? And then you preferentially burn what Fat for energy, which is fat is a great storage place for energy.
Philip Pape: 19:49
As for the fate of excess protein beyond what your body needs for tissue building and repair, it doesn't directly convert to muscle, right, and that'd be great if you could just keep eating unlimited protein. Eat 500 grams of protein a day and just become massively jacked. It doesn't work that way. Instead, what happens is excess amino acids can be converted to glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis, or, less efficiently, stored as fat. But the metabolic cost of this conversion process is really high, and that's another reason why high protein diets tend to be beneficial for body composition. Is it actually? If you get into this state of conversion, it burns a few more calories, but but this doesn't happen a lot. I just want to keep that in mind. There there are corner cases where this happens.
Philip Pape: 20:36
A final note on protein metabolism. Unlike carbs, which can be stored as glycogen, and fats, which can be stored in adipose tissue, your body does not have a dedicated storage form for amino acids. You either use them or lose them right Through excretion, like going to the bathroom, you know urine or they get converted to other compounds. So this is why you might hear the advice to spread protein intake throughout the day for your muscle protein synthesis. It's a slight advantage. It's not massive like we used to think. It's just a slight advantage because your body can only use so much at once for muscle protein synthesis. But recent studies have shown it's probably a lot more than we think, so don't get too hung up on. That is my point. It's a slight, slight advantage. If you want to eat all your protein in one or two meals, you can still have great results, as long as you're hitting all your protein.
Philip Pape: 21:29
Now that we understand the journey that each macro takes through our bodies and I, for one, am excited by understanding this stuff let's talk about what this means for your nutrition strategy in practice. Let's start with meal composition right. Understanding how different macros are processed helps explain why just balancing your meals tends to work really well for most people. Combining fats, proteins, fiber-rich carbs in a meal it's going to moderate your blood sugar response. You're going to have a nice amount of energy. You're going to support your muscle maintenance and your muscle growth. It's just a nice way to practice your meal planning and your meal execution, not trying to have all protein over here and all carbs over here.
Philip Pape: 22:11
Just keep things balanced. The one small exception I would say I mentioned earlier is your pre-workout. Take fats out of there and take fiber out of there and make it mostly protein and carbs. And you're deliberately doing that because you want to inject your bloodstream with carbs and actually cause a spike and use insulin for its advantage when you're lifting weights, but other than that, keep it balanced throughout the day. For example, chicken sweet potatoes right, Chickens are protein, sweet potatoes are carbs, avocados are fat, vegetables are fiber. That's just a simple example and you're going to digest it at a reasonable rate. You're not just going to have a huge blood sugar spike and you're going to have more stable energy levels. Maybe, maybe better nutrient partitioning. Maybe I'm not going to lean too much into that one, but I like balance. The other thing about balance is it makes it easy to hit your macros because from the beginning of the day, you're balancing out what you need the whole day. Well, you never fall behind on anything that makes sense. You never fall behind.
Philip Pape: 23:07
Now that's not to say some meals won't have a lot more protein or a lot more carbs. Definitely happens. You know that's fine. Some people need they need so much protein. They're like I don't want to have a lot of protein in every meal. I'm going to have a bowl of Greek yogurt in the afternoon or pre-bed snack to get my last, you know, 25 grams of protein or something. So that's meal composition.
Philip Pape: 23:25
The second one is meal timing and this is where the digestion rates affect your strategy. So, pre-workout nutrition I've touched on it twice already. I should have just waited till this section, but we want easily digestible carbs to get that jolt of glycogen in your muscles ready and available for training period. The only alternative to this is going to be eating a lot of your carbs at dinner the night before. If you train really early and for whatever reason, you can't get over the excuse not to eat, and I say it that way because vast majority of people, they just make an excuse. It's like just eat a banana and drink some whey shake, just do it. Just do it 10 minutes before you work out, it's fine. Some people, though, might have specific cases, like thyroid medication, where they just have to wait before they eat and then they want to work out, and it's like they don't want to wait an hour before they work out. So I get it.
Philip Pape: 24:15
In that case, have a bunch of carbs at night for dinner before, and I mean like a significant portion of your carbs, um. And then you want protein and carbs. So protein for the muscle, repair carbs, replenish glycogen, enhance protein uptake with the insulin. And then your pre-sleep meals Um, I like protein but, and maybe fat, but fewer carbs, right? You don't need to like jolt yourself with protein right before bed, like it used to be said, that you had to eat casein protein and get this bolus of protein and build muscle at night. No, you don't need that. But if you're going to have a snack late at night, you know protein is not a bad idea. Protein and fat. So I think, like Greek yogurt, for example, um, fewer carbs. If you need a little honey in there or something, fine, but you know the fats slow your digestion. You get sustained energy. It doesn't disrupt sleep. If, like, large carb loads could disrupt your sleep, that's really the only reason you might avoid a significant amount of carbs before bed and just measure this stuff. If you have an Oura ring or just you're tracking your sleep quality, you could tell you know over time.
Philip Pape: 25:45
No-transcript, always, always, always going to be around 0.7 to one gram per pound of, I'll say, body weight or target body weight. And I say target because if you have a significant weight to lose or gain, you could base it more off of the final weight. But anyway, 0.701 isa, nice broad range. It gets you in the ballpark. It's plenty, and most people are not there when they get started. So getting it up to that point is going to be really good for you.
Philip Pape: 26:15
Then we have carbs or no. Then we have fats I like fats. Second Fats have a minimum threshold, carbs or no. Then we have fats I like fats. Second fats have a minimum threshold. It's probably lower than you think, but I like to be safe, so I I usually peg it at 30% of your calories.
Philip Pape: 26:29
The challenge is going to be in fat loss If your calories are low. If your calories are low, you might need to be down at 25% or even 20%, some people even lower than that, and then physique competitors even lower than that, like they can go really low, which can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. So start at 30% and then, if you don't have a lot of calories to play with, it could always go down. If you have more calories to play with, it could go up a little bit right. Or if you just like to have more fat in your diet, like if you came from the keto world or something, and then guess what? The rest goes into carbs.
Philip Pape: 26:56
So the carbs are going to fluctuate based on your phase. If you are at maintenance or in a muscle building phase, you're going to have a ton of carbs, which is great. You need them, you want them and they're delicious. And then if you're in a fat loss phase, the carbs are going to come down. The most of any of the macros, protein stays the same Fats scale as a percentage, but then carbs are what's left, and so if you only have like 1400 calories to work with, your carbs might be a hundred grams or less, which some people are listening thinking well, that doesn't sound that low, I'm used to that. Well, that's because most of society pushes low carb today and doesn't realize that. You know, people trying to build muscle can thrive really well on two, three, four, five, 600 grams of carbs, depending on how many calories you need in a muscle building phase. All right.
Philip Pape: 27:40
So something that might surprise you about macro metabolism I always like to have a little teaser at the end here of something different that you haven't heard is that your body is adapting its metabolic pathways based on what you are regularly eating. Right, there's a name for this. It's called metabolic flexibility, and you got to be careful when you Google that term, because you'll hear some kind of crackpot theories about this, and then you'll see, the more evidence-based and the term gets thrown around kind of loosey-goosey, but it's basically the ability to switch between your energy systems and your carbs and fats for fuel. Right, people with higher flexibility, metabolic flexibility can thrive on the various macro distributions because your body's adapted to whatever fuel source is predominant. And I would say that this is really, when you train, when you're consistent with your nutrition, when you walk a lot, when you do some occasional sprinting, you play and you do things like that, your body is just fitter and better at utilizing the fuel you give it. That's the way I like to explain this, just at a high level.
Philip Pape: 28:41
Right, and you personally might thrive better on a slightly lower carb diet. Right, you're probably not going to thrive on very low. I will tell you that If you're trying to build muscle, it's almost assured you are not going to be that successful, I'm sorry, on a very low carb diet, you're just not okay. And it's not about metabolism or genetics, it's really how your metabolism has adapted over time. So if you come from the low carb world and you're listening to this podcast and you're like, well, interesting, I can eat a lot more carbs, just understand, there will be a little bit of an adaptation phase, right, and then your body will become more efficient at using whatever energy substrate that you consistently provided. Then, once you understand that, now you have the freedom to customize your whole diet, eat whatever foods you want within those guidelines of your macro, your micro, your calorie needs, and now you can have that adapt to your preferences, your lifestyle, how you like to go out to eat, your travel specific goals.
Philip Pape: 29:41
Am I going after muscle or am I going after fat loss? Rather than following a quote, unquote diet, a one size fits all thing, carnivore, keto, whatever it is, whatever extreme diet and they are extreme. People accept it. They're extreme. They're telling you to cut out a whole bunch of foods for no reason. They claim certain reasons that are not supported by science. But you don't need to do that. If you personally don't like a food or don't thrive on a food or have an allergy or an intolerance, well then that makes total sense to avoid those foods. But don't just fall for the one-size-fits-all recommendations. All right, and that is the power of understanding macrometabolism. It frees you from nutritional dogma. It gives you the knowledge to make choices that work for your unique body and goals. So let's just do a quick recap, since this was a decently long episode.
Philip Pape: 30:32
Carbs are broken down into simple sugars used for immediate energy or stored as glycogen for later use. Contrary to what you'll hear on social media, the direct conversions of carbs to fat is pretty inefficient and you don't just store carbs as fat. It all comes down to energy balance. Fats are digested more slowly, they're transported differently and they serve functions beyond energy, including hormones and brain health, and then proteins are broken down into amino acids that serve as the building blocks for virtually every structure in your body. They have a high thermic effect, they promote satiety and they're essential for preserving and building muscle.
Philip Pape: 31:08
So hopefully you understand all this a lot better than when you started, when you pushed play in the episode, and you understand why a balanced approach to nutrition works best for most people, why meal composition matters not just total calories, but the composition and the macros and then how your body adapts to different dietary patterns and even meal timing and things like that over time. And the most important takeaway again, it's not about finding the perfect macro ratio or the perfect diet. It's how your body processes the nutrients, tracking and measuring, performing and applying the knowledge of the feedback you get to create an approach that works for you, your goals, your lifestyle. That is exactly what I help people with all the time, that I'm excited to help them with, and why so many people get amazing results when they work with me in our coaching program. And that wasn't even a sales pitch for my coaching program. That was just stating a fact.
Philip Pape: 31:56
What I'm going to promote here is just something free our facebook group. If you found value in today's super deep exploration of macrometabolism, just join our Facebook group. That is where Joy asked the question. It is a supportive community. You can ask your own questions, share your experiences, connect with people, listen. One of the most successful aspects of getting a result is having accountability. All right, and of course, one of the best ways to get accountability is one-on-one coaching. The next best would be a group coaching and the next best would be a free community. So start out. Start with our wits and weights Facebook group and see what it's all about. Click the link in the show notes and I'll see you there until next time. Keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember understanding how your body works is the first step to making it work better for you. I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.
