How to Calculate Your Macros for Muscle Gain

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If you are training hard and not tracking your macros, you are leaving serious gains on the table. Understanding how much protein, carbohydrates and fat your body needs is the single most impactful nutritional change you can make as an athlete. This guide gives you the exact formulas to work it out for yourself.

What are macros and why do they matter?

Macros, short for macronutrients, are the three categories of nutrients that provide your body with energy: protein, carbohydrates and fat. Every food you eat is made up of some combination of these three. When you track macros you are making sure your body gets the right amount of each one to support your specific goal, whether that is building muscle, losing fat or maintaining your current weight.

Calories matter, but the source of those calories matters just as much. 2,500 calories from protein and complex carbohydrates will produce a very different result to 2,500 calories from processed food, even though the total is identical.

Step one: calculate your total daily energy expenditure

Your TDEE is how many calories your body burns in a day accounting for your activity level. This is your starting point.

Use this formula for men: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) minus 5 x age + 5

Use this formula for women: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) minus 5 x age minus 161

This gives you your basal metabolic rate, which is the calories you burn at rest. Now multiply by your activity level:

Activity Level	Description	Multiplier
Sedentary	Little to no exercise	x 1.2
Lightly active	1 to 3 days training per week	x 1.375
Moderately active	3 to 5 days training per week	x 1.55
Very active	6 to 7 days hard training	x 1.725
Extremely active	Twice daily training or physical job	x 1.9

Step two: set your calorie target for muscle gain

To build muscle you need to eat slightly more than your TDEE. A surplus of 200 to 300 calories per day is the sweet spot, enough to support muscle growth without excessive fat gain. Add 200 to 300 to your TDEE to get your muscle gain calorie target.

Step three: set your macro targets

With your calorie target set, distribute those calories across the three macros:

• Protein: 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. For an 80kg athlete that is 128 to 176g of protein per day. Each gram of protein contains 4 calories.
• Fat: 25 to 35 percent of your total calories. Fat is essential for hormone production including testosterone. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories.
• Carbohydrates: Fill the remaining calories with carbs. Carbs are your primary fuel source for training. Each gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories.

Macro	Target (80kg athlete, 3050 kcal)	Calories
Protein	160g (2g per kg)	640 kcal
Fat	102g (30% of total)	915 kcal
Carbohydrates	374g (remainder)	1,495 kcal
Total		3,050 kcal

How Munch Now helps you hit your macros

Every Munch Now meal is macro tracked and displayed clearly. When you select your goal at checkout we tailor your meal selection to match your target. Bulk meals are higher in protein and complex carbohydrates, cut meals are lower in overall calories while keeping protein high, and maintain meals balance all three macros evenly. You do not need to count anything. We have already done it for you.