How to become a nutrition coach MACRO CALCULATIONS

Your clients say they are eating “1,200 calories,” but the photos tell a very different story. We walk through a clean, practical way to do macro calculations that you can explain to real humans, then zoom out to the bigger issue: macro targets only work when they are built on honest intake data and consistent habits.

We start with a simple baseline calorie estimate (bodyweight times 10) and show exactly how to convert calories into grams of carbohydrates, protein, and fat using the rules that never change: carbs are 4 calories per gram, protein is 4 calories per gram, and fat is 9 calories per gram. Using average examples, we reveal how quickly protein can end up shockingly low, why high-carb days can quietly dominate someone’s intake, and how a 3,500-calorie “normal day” turns into massive numbers on paper. Along the way, we call out the common coaching trap of giving generic advice like “eat a gram of protein per pound” without adjusting the rest of the diet.

From there, we lay out a three-phase nutrition coaching framework: build awareness with food logs and meal photos, drive behavior change with sleep and stress inputs, and move toward longevity with more individualized support, often alongside a registered dietitian and lab work insights. If you are a personal trainer who wants better client results and a more professional nutrition coaching service, this is the roadmap. Subscribe, share this with a coach who needs it, and leave a review with your biggest calorie-tracking blind spot.

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Transcript

Why Macros Come After Logging

0:00

Today in class on our nutrition program, someone asked if I could help write out some examples of macro calculations. So grab your calculator and let's have some fun with this. The average male in the United States weighs 190 pounds. This is not what we teach within our certification. We don't just do macro calculations. I'm a big fan of doing them, but you need to work backwards. So ideally, you have them do a food log and you have to earn the right to get into nutrition coaching. The first month is all about training and being consistent. And then when you move into month two, that earns the right to get into nutrition, which is what we call metabolic awareness. So that first phase is doing a food log, writing it out, but also sending you photos because then you can find out how many calories the person is actually consuming. The average American in the United States is getting roughly 3,500 calories per day. That's nuts. That's why we've gained so much weight, metabolic disease, heart attacks, corneal artery disease, renal failure, kidney failure, liver failure, all this stuff is due to excess autopsy, behavioral change, and modifying our output and our input. That is the cure for all of this stuff within reason. And that's exactly why you should be charging for nutrition coaching. I hate it when trainers include this within their programming because what it does is devalues the overall importance of nutrition. So when you separate it, I'm a trainer when I train you, I'm a nutrition coach when we go through nutrition coaching and you have an RD on your team.

Simple BMR Estimate And Macro Basics

1:29

That's why you can charge 500 plus bucks a month doing nutrition coaching, but understanding how you come up with these calculations can be very valuable. There are a lot of calculations that you can use for BMR basal metabolic rate. I like to keep it simple because our clients don't even know what a calorie is. It's a unit of measurement. So if you're to do a real simple one, 190 times it by 10, that's just a ballpark of how many calories this organism of 190 pounds needs to maintain their state. If you create a deficit, you're going to lose mass. If you create a surplus, you're going to gain mass. It depends on the environment, hormones, hydration, sleep, stress, genetics, all that goes into it, what we call the body mass equation. But again, we're going to try to keep this as simple as possible for this video and podcast today. So if we were going off of 1900, the average American is getting 50% of their diet intake from carbohydrates. So if you divide that by two, you're going to be getting 950. 950 calories are coming from carbohydrates. So grab your calculator, 950, divide that by four, and you're going to get 237.5 grams of carbs. Remember, one gram of carbohydrates equals four calories. So we're just working backwards here. 950 is calories. So to convert that to grams, you divide by four. So that means we have 50% left of the intake. So if half of the diet is going to carbohydrates, roughly 10% is the average American when it comes to protein. So you take 1900 times that by 0.1, 10%. That's going to be 190 calories coming from protein. So let's convert that into grams. We're going to go 190 divided by four, and that's going to give us 47.5 grams. You may be thinking that's not a lot. And notice how I said potentially increase. A lot of nutrition coaches today make blanket statements. They just do simple macro calculations and then say, get a gram of protein per body weight. That's not going to allow for you to charge $500 per month. You need to be more specific and tailor it for that individual. So then we're going to have roughly 40% coming from fat. You take 1900 times that by 0.4, and that's going to give us 760 calories coming from fat. Divide that sucker by nine. And now we have roughly 85 grams. It's 84.44. So their macro breakdown being 40% in fat, 10% in protein, 50% in carbohydrates. I'm not saying that's what we should be getting. I'm helping you do the calculations for that average individual. My mind is thinking my client is getting 50, sometimes as high as 70% in carbohydrates, not that much protein, definitely getting more fat because we're having cupcakes and muffins for breakfast, slurped down with the Dunkin' Donuts, coffee, and donut on top. So most of our calories are coming from fat and carbohydrates. It's not to say those are bad, and that's important to recognize that.

Macro Example For A 170-Pound Woman

5:08

So let's take a look at your average lady. 170 pounds. We'll do the same thing. 170 times that by 10, that's 1700. And again, what I'm doing here is I'm just showing you the average breakdown and then how you could calculate based on your recommendations. 50% at 1700, it's gonna be 850 calories, and then we're gonna divide that by four. That's gonna give us 212 roughly. That's how many grams of carbs we're consuming. So then 1700 times 0.1, which would be 170. Again, 0.1 would be 10%, 170 calories. Let's do 170, divide that by four. This is a very surprising thing for a lot of trainers to see how little of protein our clients are getting, roughly 42.5 there. And then we're left with 1700, and we're gonna times that by 0.4, which gives us 680 calories coming from fat. One gram of fat is going to be nine calories, which would then give us roughly 75 grams. So 75 grams of fat, 42 grams of protein, 212 grams of carbs. You see why diets like carnivore work, because you take that out and then they increase their fat, they increase their protein, and they're going to be more full and they're going to create a larger deficit because these are what we call like empty calories, because you can have a piece of bread and 30 minutes later you're hungry. Whereas if you have a steak fillet, or if you have something that has four or five ounces of steak, you're full for a long period of time. And again, just let me reiterate: I'm not saying this is the macro calculation you're doing for your clients. So this would be based off of if they actually weighed 190 and they were getting 1900 calories.

What 3,500 Calories Really Looks Like

7:03

So let's do some other fun calculations. And this is where it gets really crazy because you're gonna see if we were to go to the 3500, average American diet, 1750 now. That's how many calories are coming from carbohydrates. So we take 1750, divide that by four, and you're gonna see 437.5 grams of carbs. If we go to 10% of protein, 3750, which would be you don't need to do the math on that one, 350 calories coming from protein, 350 divide that sucker by four, and now we're at 87.5 grams, and then 40 percent of 3500 times that by 0.4. That's gonna give us 1,400 calories coming from fat, divide that by nine, and we have roughly 155 grams of fat. Not saying this is good, but that's probably what they're consuming. A 200-pound dude, roughly 200 pound dude, getting 87 grams of protein. That's not enough, but you can see where the problems can arise because if you don't take the time to educate them and you only do it in your personal training sessions, that conversation is gonna look like this. Yo, bro, Frank, because you're not professional, you just need to eat a gram of protein per body weight. He's all stoked, listening to your shitty advice, and now he bumps this up to 200 grams. Well, now he's getting an additional 113 grams, which is roughly 500 extra calories. If he doesn't change this other stuff, this will probably go up as well because your client's eating 80% ground beef. In your mind, you're thinking, no, I'm actually having 99% turkey. So you have to have the professionalism and respect for this field as a nutrition coach to let them know we're not gonna get into nutrition. You need to eat more protein, drink more water, have more fruits and vegetables. That's focus on that. If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, where I give you a specific macro breakdown, I have our RD, take a look at food plans designed just for you. Every month you get on a call and they're gonna break down supplementation, stuff you should be consuming. You have a blood analysis profile that you have your clients do, something that we incorporate within our nutrition coaching program. You have to go through and get your blood drawn at Quest, and then you have professionals break it down. This is what's normal. You're not normal. You need to increase this, decrease that. And we are then acting as medical professionals. We are not doctors. I didn't say that. But now you're in the capacity working with these individuals. The RD makes those supplement recommendations, and then what happens over time? LDLs go down, HDLs go up, total cholesterol goes down, blood pressure goes down, glucose levels go down, you reverse diabetes. That's what nutrition coaches are capable of doing. But you need to make it tailored for the individual. So I don't start out with a BMR equation or TDEEE, total daily energy expenditure.

A Three-Phase Nutrition Coaching Framework

10:11

I find out how many calories they're consuming. And the only way you can do that is if they log it and take photos. The loggings for accountability, metabolic awareness, what you're putting into your pie hole. Most people are gonna use an app. I'm eating 1200 calories, but I can't lose weight. Look at the other podcasts and videos that we've done. Here are two tacos, how many calories? 300. That's actually 900. So when your clients are clocking 1200, they're actually getting closer to 35. That may sound asinine to you, but you're also a psychopath. And I say that as a compliment because so am I. I have water right over here. I prepacked my meals for the day. I cooked a couple days ago. We meal prep. Your clients don't. They go to Chipotle and they get a protein bowl and they think that they're optimizing their health. 1300 calories later, they don't understand why they're gaining fat because they clocked it at 500. So the awareness aspect in that first month is super, super important. And then you move into phase two, that's the whole behavioral augmentation. You are helping your clients better understand their behaviors, sleep, stress. You have them complete a stress questionnaire. Most nutrition coaches don't do this, they send out generic food plans, which is not in your scope because only RDs can do that. And they do simple macro calculations just from an app and they adjust them here and there. You got to tailorze it. Then after they start losing that weight and the ball is moving, then you get into longevity integration. That's phase three. So there's a plan of attack as a nutrition coach, which really supplements the fat loss and the strength gain that's happening with them working with you as

Certification, Revenue, And Closing Advice

11:51

a trainer. If you would like more calculations like this, check out our certification for our nutrition program, which is online with access to mentorship. We have live calls weekly. You get access to a registered dietitian, you see how they work with their clients. We have case examples. That's what's going to level you up if you want to drive more streams of revenue. We have numerous trainers that are bringing in $250,000 to $500 per client. So he times that by 10, you can easily be making over $30,000 a year as a nutrition coach. It's a nice stream of revenue. If you're focusing on $100K training, you have $30K coming in as a nutrition coach, sell some programs, supplements, whatever. It's not unfeasible to be making $150,000 as a personal trainer. And you may be thinking, holy shoot, I'm only making 40. That's what the average trainer is making. You write a book and now you're out there trying to get clients, but you don't know the basics of what the macros are. What is protein, the basic unit being amino acids? What are carbohydrates, sugar, and fiber? What are the monosaccharides, glucose, fructose, galactose, the amino acids? There's 20 of them. You need to have that floor competency, that foundation, which a lot of time is cherry-picked when you just read a textbook. Because you don't understand something, you can't ask a question. So you go to Reddit and you say, How do you make money as a nutrition coach? And they say, get PN1, get NASM CNC. Oh, it's great. $1,000 later, and you're like, okay, cool, I'm a behavioral modification, I'm a wellness counselor or whatever you want to call yourself, but you don't know how to make money. The business side is a huge missing link. And those are things that we help you with. Check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. And remember, big biceps are better than small ones and keep showing up.