The Muscle Couple with a fascinating topic and one millions of people around the world are interested in.

There are multiple books written on the subject including The Zone Diet, The Mediterranean Diet, Body for Life and countless others.

What we find amusing is all of the authors write “authoritatively” that their diets work for all population groups as a sort of “one diet fits all” program.

After  experimenting with many macronutrient percentages and supplement components the only thing we know FOR CERTAIN:

THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL DIETARY APPROACH FOR ALL PEOPLE!

It takes years of experimenting and documenting your results  from varying your intakes of all three macronutrients-Proteins-Carbohydrates and Fats.

The purpose of this article is to offer a “recommended guideline” for “most people”.   We’ll also try and organize specifically to your own unique situation and  goals.

Making it relevant to most population groups, we’ve come up with 4 main goals.

They are:

• Maintenance of Present Condition- If you are at a present condition and bodyfat % you desire to maintain, a great macronutrient combination is:

35%PROTEIN—-30%CARBS—-35% FAT(20%from EFA’s)

• Bodyfat Loss- This type of diet can usually apply to anyone at any level because it’s easy to “hold onto extra baggage” that you can afford to lose.  Also there are various type of “Fat Loss”.  Somebody looking to lose a few pounds to fit more comfortably in clothes is far different from a  Hardcore Dieting Fitness/Bodybuilding competitor trying to attain a low single digit bodyfat %.  So we’ll use a sliding scale.

1. “Lose a Few Pounds“-
   

40%PROTEIN—-40%FATS(30% from EFA’s)—-20%CARBS

1. “Shredditivity‘ –

50% Protein—-35% Fats(Most from EFA’s)—-15%CARBS(Green Sources)

• Muscle Gain-Whenever you are trying to gain skeletal mass a caloric surplus is necessary.  Tto build muscle tissue is to ensure you have full muscle glycogen stores.  You need ample carbs for this.

45% CARBS—-35% Protein—-20%FATS(Mostly EFA’s)

• Sports Specific Performance Improvement-A good rule of thumb is the harder the energy demands of the sport the higher the carb % necessary.

Sliding Scale 40-55% CARBS—-Equal % of PROTEIN and FATS(Try to Ensure Most Fats come from EFA’s)

Hopefully you can utilize these recommendations based on your unique fitness and lifestyle goals.

Feel free to ask questions and please leave comments should you choose to follow this advice.

Have a great week!

MIHWCS