Protein, Carbs, Fats: Your Perfect Ratios

How you balance your nutrients has a huge effect on your ability to achieve and supersede your goals. Thankfully Alex Perris, personal trainer to NBA stars such as Joakim Noah, knows exactly how to work the protein, carb and fat numbers. The physical demands of being a professional athlete are a nonstop grind that involves actual games, practice, strength training and sports conditioning. And the most crucial part of ensuring an athlete can withstand this schedule is their nutritional plan. With so much information, it can be confusing to sift through and understand all the different approaches and ratios. Here are the steps you need to follow to grasp exactly how important nutritional ratios are to achieving your goals. 

Step 1: Understand your food's worth

Your food comprises macronutrients (proteins, carbs, fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). The macros give you the energy to function during physical activity and recovery. When creating your nutrition plan, it’s important to break it down by establishing your protein - carbohydrate - fat (PCF) daily ratio. This outlines the percentages of your total daily calories from protein, carbs and fats. 

Step 2: Weigh up your options 

You need to figure out your total caloric needs, then break them down from there. Protein and carbs each have four calories per gram while fats have nine calories.

Protein is vital for muscle growth and tissue repair. It’s also used as an energy source when you don’t have enough calories from carbs or fats. Carbs are the primary fuel source in short high-intensity activities like jumping and sprinting. Quality fats carry many essential vitamins. Aerobic training increases the body’s ability to use fat as an energy source. 

Step 3: Understand how numbers become food

Generally, the PCF ratio for athletes is 45:40:15. However, this is a broad ratio that needs to be adjusted for each individual. Here is an example of what it would look like based on an athlete on a 3,000-calorie a day diet and 45:40:15 PCF:

1,350 calories from protein, 1,200 from carbs and 450 from fats.

Ideally, you’d spread the meals throughout the day to keep your body constantly fueled. Here’s an example of what the day would look like: 

Meal 1: 4 eggs, handful spinach, 1 cup oatmeal, amino drink product

Meal 2: 6oz chicken breast, 1 cup white rice 

TRAINING 

Meal 3 – post-workout shake: 30-40g whey protein, mixed with water, one scoop peanut butter, 1/2 cup oats , 5-10g creatine

Meal 4: 6oz lean steak, 4oz red potatoes, handful kale

Meal 5 – nighttime shake: 40g casein protein, 1 scoop almond butter mixed with water.

Step 4: Adjust the ratios for your goals

Remember: this is just a sample that would need to be adjusted based on the athlete’s current condition, weight, body type and age. Hard gainers would need to consume more carbs and calories while an athlete looking to shed weight would cut the carbs and fats and increase the protein intake. Use the following table to adjust the PCF ratios to your objectives:

Hard gainer – 35:30:30

Lose weight – 60:20:20

Max athletic performance – 40:40:20

Maintain muscle – 50:35:15

Endurance athlete – 25:55:20

Step 5: Focus on quality

Most highly competitive athletes are super-active, so they need lots of nutrients. In the previous example, the protein sources came from eggs, chicken breast, lean steak and protein powder. The carb sources are oatmeal, rice and baby red potatoes. The quality fats are coming from the eggs, natural peanut butter, almond butter and the lean steak. This is a good balance of sources. There are many other options so you don’t have to get bored eating the same thing every day. Micronutrients are often the forgotten part of the puzzle. While eating right is a huge part of the battle, getting the micronutrient intake on point can make all the difference. To make sure all your bases are covered, a solid branched-chain amino acid supplement and multivitamin should do the trick. B12 shots are also great for those looking for more energy.