Another way to count calories part six: A measured diet for you

In this post we are going to show you how to calculate how many blocks of food you should be eating per day using a very precise method involving lean body mass. The preferred method of finding your lean body mass is to get a full InBody or another body composition scan. You can go to the InBody website to find an InBody scanner near you. If you do not have access to a body composition scanner, the less-preferred method is to use a Body Fat Calculator. We suggest using Zone’s Body Fat Calculator. This calculator will estimate your body fat percentage, lean body mass, and the amount of Zone blocks recommended based on your hip/waist ratio and activity level.

To manually calculate blocks, you will rate how active you are on a scale of 0.5 to 1.0.
0.5 Sedentary: No sport activity or training.
0.6 Light Activity: Light training, such as walking.
0.7 Moderate Activity: Fitness or sport 3x per week.  
0.8 Active: Daily fitness training
0.9 Very Active: Intense daily workouts
1.0 Athlete: Intense daily workouts AND sport training. *You may also fall into this category if you have a very physically demanding job.

Once you have determined your lean body mass and activity level, we can get into calculating blocks. To do this, use the following equation:

Lean Body Mass (in lbs.) x Activity Level / 7g of protein and be sure to round the number up.

For example, if you get 11.1 blocks, you will round that to 12. While this does defy regular rounding rules, by rounding up you ensure that your body is receiving all of the energy it needs to help you feel best (plus it’s a difference of less than 100 calories).

All of our macros are based around protein, for more on this visit “Another way to count calories part three – what is protein and how much is one block.”
 
Examples:
A firefighter with a lean body mass of 145 who has a physically demanding job and does intense daily workouts would be considered 1.0 athlete.
145 * 1.0 / 7 = 21 blocks per day (rounding up)

A teacher who has a lean body mass of 120 and always makes sure to get 10,000 steps would be considered 0.6 light activity
120 * 0.6 / 7 = 11 blocks per day (rounding up). 

Sources: 
https://www.zonediet.com/resources/body-fat-calculator/
​https://www.vittle.ca/vitality/diets/What-is-the-Zone-Diet:-What-Foods-to-Eat-and-How-it-Works

​​Have questions? Send us an email: 
info@CrossFitAFK.com

Enjoying our content? Give us a like on Facebook or Instagram! 
@CrossFitAFK