Just What Is A Macronutrient?

MACRONUTRIENTS.

STOP. Wait a minute.

Ok now read.

See how pointless that was?

That is in no way reflective of this article. Please enjoy learning about macronutrients.

🤣 Just know this article is a fairly short overview of the basics, so if you have questions, ask us!

A macronutrient is any nutrient required in large amounts in the diet.

Macro = large.

Nutrient= a substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life.

Macronutrient simply means a large substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life. Macronutrients are usually measured in grams, and will have a certain amount of energy stored in each gram of each macronutrient. This energy is referred to as kilocalories (kcal), but you’ll commonly hear it referred to as calories.

If you’re struggling with the term macronutrient, create your own name for it. It’s a thing you need a lot of, and without it you’ll die.

So, what the heck are these “macronutrients”?

Macronutrients can be broken down further into:

Protein

Carbohydrates

Fats

Alcohol

Each of these macronutrients has a different makeup, and as a result break down into different things during digestion. Your body is always regenerating its cells, and depending on the cells it’s currently replacing (maybe because of damage from training, maybe just because they’ve reached the end of their life cycle) it will need different raw materials.

That might sound complicated, and honestly, it can be, but for our purposes of creating something you can actually understand and utilize, let's simplify this.

Our body can’t directly use protein, carbohydrates and fats. You can’t just eat steak and add a steak to your arm and call it a bicep. It needs to first be broken down into its base components, and those base components are added to our existing structure.

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand that macronutrients are IN foods, they are not food. People eat food. We do not eat macronutrients, but it is helpful to understand what macronutrients are, and how they show up in our foods so that we’re able to make more informed choices about what to eat.

Macronutrients usually don’t show up in isolation, so you’ll find most foods are composed of some combination of protein, fat and carbohydrates. This is good to know to be able to understand food marketing, and know what you’re really getting when the package says “good source of protein”, when in reality it’s more fat and carbohydrates than it is protein.

If you enjoyed this article, it's an excerpt from our Nutrition 101 course, which you can take 100% for free through this link:

https://strongeducation.thinkific.com/

If you enjoyed this post, thanks so much for reading! We have a private, free Facebook group dedicated to high quality information and education like this that you might really enjoy being a part of. Click the following link and join our community:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/204003424979328/?ref=share

Have a great rest of your day and as always, if you need us we're only an email away.