Carbs versus Fat
Food choices are often driven by what the health and fitness world tell us is the best choice. You don’t have to go far to find snake oil on the internet, but if you look hard enough, you can find some very reputable people offering research-backed advice. Do your best to vet even those people with multiple letters beside their name. Do your own research to see if what that person is saying is coming from a legitimate study or source.
A lot of diet truthers try to vilify other diets particularly the dominant macronutrient of the opposing diet. Low carb/Keto diet users will preach cutting out carbs is the best approach to your nutrition, whereas carb enthusiasts try to demonize fat.
So what macronutrient is better? Fats or Carbs? Well the answer is both are good for you. Carbohydrates are quickly absorbed and converted to readily available energy. On the other hand, fats require more energy to store and are predominantly used during aerobic activity because they have a greater amount of energy per gram. There are acceptable ranges put forth by governing bodies that recommend:
Acceptable Macronutrient distribution ranges and calories/g:
- Carbohydrate (CHO) = 40 – 60% daily intake and = 4 kcal of energy
- Protein = 15 – 30% daily intake and = 4 kcal of energy
- Fats = 15 – 20% daily intake = 9 kcal of energy
If an individual has a 2000-calorie “budget” and a goal to lower their body fat, it has been prescribed he allocate 50% of his caloric budget to CHO, 30% to protein and the last 20% allocated to fats. Based on his caloric budget, prescribed AMDR his daily macros would be 250/g of CHO, 150/g of protein and finally ~44/g fat per day.
Try not to worry so much about what macronutrient you are consuming and, instead, focus on the overall daily caloric consumption if your goals are to improve your body composition.
