In all activities from sleeping to running all out on the track, your body is fueled by a combination of carbohydrates and fat and a small amount of protein depending on the duration of activity and food intake. Knowing this, you might think there is some cushion in your daily caloric allotment.

As you can see, the calories-in, calories-out approach is a bit more complicated than merely entering your activities and meals. It should be noted the reported calories burned per mile is a rough estimate and may not be accurate in your case.

Also, the more aerobically fit, the higher the percentage of fat or lower percentage of sugar utilized at higher intensities. This may come as a surprise, but the makeup of the calories you consume is more important than the number.

Calories are made up of three main macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Athletic success, body composition, injury prevention, and overall health rely on proper nutrient timing and the right balance of carbs, protein, and fat. As a general rule, but still, depending on the training cycle, daily activity level and intensity, gender, and age, most athletes require 40 to 60 percent of calories from carbs, 20 to 25 percent from protein, and 20 to 30 percent from healthy sources of fat.

The proper nutrient timing, along with the correct ratio of macronutrients, stabilizes blood sugars and insulin response, decreases food cravings and ultimately improves body composition. Working with a sports-certified dietitian can help you customize a macronutrient plan that fits your needs, goals, and health concerns.

Additional resources, like apps and websites, show macronutrient breakdowns for thousands of food items. Always start your day off with a balanced breakfast that include all macronutrients — carbs, protein, and fat.

Aim to eat a snack or meal every hours during the day. Keep in mind that a meal may look healthy while being unbalanced, but a few simple changes can make a big difference. So the amount of carbs you choose to consume is entirely based on your energy needs. It is better to focus on the types of carbohydrates you eat.

Carbs are broken down into monosaccharides like glucose and fructose, disaccharides like sucrose and polysaccharides like complex carbs and starches. When we eat these carbs, our bodies break them down into the various saccharides and convert them into monosaccharides so they can enter the bloodstream and get to work.

For the sake of fat control on the body, it is better to consume more carbs than fats as they do not directly increase adipose tissue. They are easier to burn off during your day, and you can eat more of them as they account for fewer calories per gram than fat.

It is recommended however that your body will operate best if you make a choice and stick to it. Here is the newest contestant in the fad diet industry as we look to eliminate carbs from our diets and throw our bodies into ketosis for a completely, life-long sustainable eating plan that is fully nutritious.

Or not. Unlike carbs, fats are essential as your body cannot produce them on its own and needs them to survive. For health and fitness, it comes down to choosing the right fats or lipids when meal planning.

Fats get stored and are used for various purposes including making up the cellular membranes and controlling permeability, assisting with fat-soluble micronutrients and acting as an alternative energy source when we deplete our glycogen levels.

The most important thing to remember about fats is that there are solids at room temperature categorized as saturated fats, and these are not good for your health. Then there are fats that are liquid at room temperature called unsaturated fats, and these are better for your health.

Unsaturated fats break down into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Finally, there are man-made trans-fats which should be avoided all together.

Think margarine. For the best cardiac protection, choose your fats from the polyunsaturated list as often as possible. Do consider this has no impact on weight control as a gram of any fat is still nine calories.

Fiber is not a macronutrient, but it is an incredibly valuable part of our macros and should be considered when choosing the food on your plate. It is said that fiber is the scrub brush of the digestive system, but it plays a few more roles in keeping us healthy and fit.

Fiber keeps things moving in our intestines and stimulates elimination. It also increases bulk, keeps you fuller for longer and has been shown to aid in lowering cholesterol and maintaining normal blood sugar levels. When choosing your carbs, take into account the fiber content. How much do you need?

Those numbers are not as precise, but a good rule of thumb is grams per 1, calories that you consume. But you still need to count it in your daily total! The most overlooked food in our daily consumption are liquids. We forget that what we drink can play into our total caloric value and the ingredients in our beverages can thwart the best dietary plan.

The easiest solution is to drink more water! Water should be the fourth macronutrient as it is essential in large amounts to our overall performance and fitness levels.

Try to avoid high-sugar content beverages like sports drinks, high caffeine drinks and of course, alcohol. This means cutting back on your morning caramel latte with extra foam and choosing soda water during happy hour.

Since carbohydrate and protein intakes are more specific, once those intake targets are met, fat intake tends to naturally fall within the recommended range.

And, like the general population, athletes are encouraged to select mostly unsaturated fats from foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, fatty fish, and oils such as seed oils like canola, safflower, or sunflower and olive oil.

For example, after jogging for more than 20 minutes at a moderate pace, fat becomes increasingly more important than carbohydrates for sustaining activity.

Keeping your macros in the right balance is critical for good performance, and athletes would be wise to avoid dietary trends that upset this balance. Susan Bowerman is the senior director of Worldwide Nutrition Education and Training at Herbalife.

She also serves as the Vice Chair of the Dietetic Advisory Board DAB. As a registered dietitian, she educates distributors about our global nutrition philosophy and is responsible for developing nutrition education and training materials.

Bowerman earned a B. in Biology with distinction from the University of Colorado and an M. in Food Science and Nutrition from Colorado State University. She is a fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and holds two board certifications as a specialist in Sports Dietetics and in Obesity and Weight Management.

When she is not busy teaching and writing, Susan enjoys spending time with her family, cooking and gardening. Her favorite Herbalife products include Simply Probiotic and Herbalife Formula 1 Healthy Meal Nutritional Shake Mix Banana Caramel.

Plus: Members have exclusive, near-instant access to the entire editorial staff at Triathlete. Help is just an away! Unlike protein and fat, carbs are not used structurally in the body—they are used strictly for fuel.

Therefore the more active you are, the more carbohydrate you need, with the hardest training athletes requiring twice as much carbohydrate as the lightest trainers. Studies have shown that athletes who fail to increase their carbohydrate intake sufficiently to match increases in their training volume do not perform as well.

Protein needs also vary with training volume, although somewhat less. Traditional recommendations are 1 gram of protein per body weight daily for recreational endurance athletes increasing to 1. Also note that protein needs can vary for men and women.

Low fat intake can also impair absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A , D , E , and K. Even worse, not getting enough essential fatty acids can increase your risk of colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.

But as you might imagine, not just any fat source will do. Prioritizie healthy fat sources like monounsaturated fats like monounsaturated fats avocados, egg yolks, olives, nuts, peanut butter, canola oil, olive oil, high-oleic sunflower oil , medium-chain triglycerides coconut oil , and omega-3 fatty acids salmon, and other fish, grass-fed beef, chia seeds, ground flax seeds, soybeans, tofu, edamame, beans, wild rice, and walnuts.

Once you determined your primary fitness objective, it's important to factor in your body type. This will help determine how well you tolerate carbs and establish where in the above ranges you should start.

There are three general body types, with many people falling somewhere in between. Start with the body type you most resemble, and tweak as necessary.

An ectomorph is best described as slender. Characteristically, they have delicate bone structure, small shoulders and chest, and a fast metabolism. Ectomorphs are the classic "hardgainers. On the plus side, it's easy for them to get lean.

They tend to require a greater percentage of carbohydrates to prevent muscle catabolism, as well as a higher calorie intake overall. Diet Recommendations: Ectomorphs should stick to the high end of the range for carbohydrates, between percent of total calories, depending on whether the goal is mass gains, maintenance, or fat loss.

I recommend the high end for mass gains, the mid-upper end for maintenance percent , and the low-end for fat loss. At least 25 percent of total calories should come from protein, with the remainder from fat. A mesomorph is someone who trends toward being muscular.

They're often strong, athletic hard-body types with well-defined muscles, broad shoulders, and dense bone structure. Mesomorphs generally have little trouble gaining muscle or losing fat, though they will put on fat more readily than ectomorphs.

They can handle a moderate level of carbs due to their ample capacity to store muscle glycogen. Weight gain will happen, however, if carbs and calories are overly high. No body type is immune to a bad diet! Diet Recommendations: Mesomorphs do well in the middle range for carbohydrates, between percent of total calories.

Again, I recommend the high-end for mass gains percent , the middle for maintenance , and low-end for fat loss To prioritize fat loss, increase both protein and fat while lowering carbohydrate intakes, with no more than 40 of calories coming from fat.

The endomorph is best described as soft. They typically have a round or pear-shaped body, shorter limbs, a stocky build, and a slower metabolism. Endomorphs can put on a lot of muscle, but they also tend to carry more adipose tissue and thus have a greater propensity to store fat.

There are no restrictions when you count your nutrients. You can have whatever you want, whenever you want as long as the numbers equal out at the end of the day.

While this dietary lifestyle has the potential to be the healthiest and purest form of eating, it is entirely conditional on your knowledge of good and bad foods. You also must determine your health goals, body type, food preferences and the numbers you need to make it all happen.

Our cabinets are filled with tubs of powders, ready to drink shakes, bars, snacks and protein-based cookbooks. We have protein for every food walk vegan, vegetarian, carnivore and other, and its popularity is not slowing down.

But how much protein do we really need? What are its exact functions in the body? Do we all need to supplement or is it just for bodybuilding?

Protein may be the key building block to muscles, but it is in charge of a lot more than bulk and bulge. Proteins are chains of amino acids that work in the body to regulate and produce numerous hormones, enzymes and cellular communications.

It is responsible for the majority of tissue development, not just muscles. Nine of the twenty amino acids in protein must be consumed in our diets because we do not make them in our bodies.

This means you need to eat your protein, athlete or not. If you are an athlete, the amount of protein you consume will be determined by your physical goals. Protein is fundamental in muscle protein synthesis, and plays a key role in muscle repair, recovery speed, lean body mass composition, bulk and strength.

This anabolic effect is not present in carbs or fats. So, if you are building mass or simply unsure, protein as your primary macro is a healthy and safe choice. To simply prevent deficiency, you need. High protein fad diets come in at 4. From this, 2.

You can increase from there up to 4. Carbohydrates have gotten a bad reputation since the upswing of fat-based diets, and the predominant carb source in the standard American diet deserves the bad press.

So, what carbs should you be eating and how much? This requires us to break carbs down into their subcategories because not all carbohydrates are created equal. Carbs are sugars, and while glucose is necessary in our bodies for energy and healthy brain function, it is not essential.

Your liver can make what you need to survive which is around grams of glucose a day. As an athlete, you need carbohydrates to fuel your muscles as the conversion of ATP is not fast enough to sustain high-energy activities. So the amount of carbs you choose to consume is entirely based on your energy needs.

It is better to focus on the types of carbohydrates you eat. Carbs are broken down into monosaccharides like glucose and fructose, disaccharides like sucrose and polysaccharides like complex carbs and starches.

When we eat these carbs, our bodies break them down into the various saccharides and convert them into monosaccharides so they can enter the bloodstream and get to work. For the sake of fat control on the body, it is better to consume more carbs than fats as they do not directly increase adipose tissue.