
#1 Calories, #2 Macros, #3 Micros, #4 Nutrient Timing, #5 Supplements
This is the third chapter in my five-part guide on nutrition for fat loss and muscle growth. You can read the introduction (which gives important context) and download the full PDF version of the nutrition setup guide here.
Here are the sections of this chapter:
- Why Micronutrients Are Important
- Fruit and Vegetable Intake Guidelines
- Why Dieters Are At Risk of Micronutrient Deficiencies
- Water Intake Guidelines
WHy MICRONUTRIENTS are important
Micronutrients are generally counted in milligrams (or less).
Think of macros as being the gas in your car, giving it the energy to propel the engine; micros as the oil and lubricants, keeping the car from breaking down.
Long-term micronutrient deficiencies will impact your health and sabotage your training efforts. But, by observing a few simple rules of thumb regarding your daily fruit and vegetable intake, you minimize your risk of deficiencies.
The most commonly known micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals that we get from the foods we eat, which we can’t live without.
Other compounds — like phytonutrients and zoonutrients — aren’t considered vitamins or minerals, but can optimize health and prevent disease. They are obtained from the plant and animal foods we eat. We haven’t figured out how to put these in a pill yet, so a daily multivitamin and mineral can not be considered a substitute for a poor diet, only an insurance policy on a good one.
Vitamins are organic and come from once-living things. The fat-soluble ones (A, D, E, and K) are absorbed in the gut, so deficiencies or surpluses (overdoses) build over time. The water-soluble ones are hard to overdose on because they will be passed in the urine. The flip side of this is that they need to be consumed daily.
Minerals are non-organic. Some of these (calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc.) are needed in greater quantities than others (iron, copper, zinc, etc.). Not coincidentally, things containing the former group (dairy & salty foods for example) taste especially good to us.
- Zinc deficiencies can negatively impact your metabolism.
- Iron deficiencies can negatively impact strength.
- Calcium deficiencies can negatively impact bone health.
There are performance benefits from eating vegetables. Green vegetables (spinach, rocket, and beetroot in particular) have a lot of nitrates. An increase in nitrate intake can elevate plasma nitrate concentration, which can increase the amount of oxygen supplied to muscle tissue, reducing the cost of exercise and improving exercise tolerance.
It’s not a night and day difference, but Popeye was onto something with eating all that spinach, and your mum was right in telling you to eat your vegetables.

FRUIT AND VEGetable INTAKE GUIDELINES
The majority of people reading this will be fine for the micronutrients we get in meat, dairy, and starchy carbs. It’s generally the ones from fruit and veg that clients typically need to pay attention to, as they are the foods most often skipped.
A good starting point is to eat a minimum of two pieces of fruit a day, to make sure you eat a fist-sized portion of fibrous vegetables with every meal, and to vary their intake day-to-day.
However, it’s a good idea to scale your intake based on how much you are eating overall, so I recommend the following for fruit and veg intake based on calorie intake:
Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations Based On Calorie Intake
CALORIE INTAKE | CUPS OF FRUIT & VEG. EACH DAY |
1200–2000 | 2 cups each |
2000–3000 | 3 cups each |
3000–4000 | 4 cups each |
This uses the US cup measurement system, which is ~250 ml, or the size of a typical coffee mug.
Fiber Intake Guidelines
Fiber is important for gut health and nutrient absorption.
Both too little and too much fiber can be detrimental, but if you’re following the guidelines mentioned and not doing anything unusual with the rest of your diet, you’re probably fine.
In the US the current recommendations for fiber intake are 14 g/1000 kcals, but 10 g is likely adequate. I recommend a maximum of 20% of your carbohydrate comes from fiber.
Constipation can be a sign that you’re eating too little; very loose stools a sign that you’re eating too much.
If you eat a lot of beans, oats, or high-fiber cereal to hit your carbohydrate numbers, your fiber intake is likely too high. You’d have to consume an extraordinary amount of vegetables for this to be the case. See the comparison table below.
Fiber Content of Fibrous Vegetables vs. Oats and Cereals
FOODS HIGH IN FIBER | FIBER PER 100 g |
Asparagus, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Celery, Eggplant, Kale, Lettuce, Onion, Spinach, Zucchini | 1.3–2.9 g |
Beans | ~5.1 g |
Bran Flakes | 18 g |
Oats | 11 g |

Shredded Sam schools Nat, Fred, and Thel.
Eat your vegetables. The fiber helps you poop, they keep you full, they have micronutrients we can’t put into a pill or powder, and there are potential performance benefits.
Why Dieters Are At Risk Of Micronutrient Deficiencies
As calories and macronutrients get lower, it becomes harder to prevent micronutrient deficiencies.
Try to maintain dairy and red meat intake (lean, with the fat trimmed, can fit into almost any diet), and get regular outside sun exposure (not through windows). This should help you avoid calcium, zinc, magnesium, iron, and vitamin D deficiencies. For those who don’t eat meat or dairy, I’ll cover supplements that may be worth considering in that section.
WATER INTAKE GUIDELINES
Water is important for fat loss and performance. I don’t like the idea of setting water intake for people based on body weight, simply because some people sweat more than others, not to mention different climates and activity levels. Therefore, I suggest the following guidelines:
- Aim to be peeing clear by noon.
- Have five clear urinations a day.
- Make sure that you’re not dehydrated at the time of your workouts or they will be negatively impacted.
- Taper water intake toward the end of the day as needed so you don’t have to wake to pee.
Please keep questions on topic, write clearly, concisely, and don't post diet calculations.
Privacy policy.
Andy,
For the fruit and vegetable servings, should those be counted into my target calorie count for the day? Or would they be on top of my calories for the day and just go uncounted?
Your leafy greens can be ignored but many other things you should consider counting. I have a guide to making that simpler here:
• Macro Counting 101: The Comprehensive, No Nonsense Guide
Hi Andy,
First want to congrulate you on your amazing site, i have been looking for ways(cheats to an extent), in my pursuit for fitness/nutrition and think this website is both informative and brilliant.
I currently do the 5:2 diet, and i feel it works for me. I do however, love the idea of more analytical control/trend spotting.
Question that i have, should i be aiming for higher numbers of macro’s on non fast days to offset the deficit.
Do you feel the diet makes it harder to achieve long term goals, please let me know your thoughts.
Hi Stefan, thanks for the question.
Should i be aiming for higher numbers of macro’s on non fast days to offset the deficit.
– The weekly calorie balance needs to be maintained, so if you’re going low on two days, you will need to compensate. Whether that will be harder or easier to adhere to really comes down to you individually Stefan.
Hi Andy.
2 questions for this section (i am on a cut, novice trainee):
1. I’m not taking multi-vitamins, because i am trying to get all i need from real food. But the more i read, the more it seems like a good idea (to cover my bases). If i do take a multi, does this count to calories/macros? if so, how do you go about calculating it?
2. I am trying my best to pee clear by lunch, and pee clear 5 times a day. But with my job, sometimes i have meetings, or business trips that make this almost impossible. When i am unable to do this, is the price i am paying enough for me to consider carrying a bottle with me everywhere i go?
Thanks in advance
ciao
Hi Toby, thanks for the questions.
1. See section 5. No calories in a multivitamin.
2. Don’t stress it. It’s a guideline, not a rule. Adherence is the primary concern, don’t follow anything in this series at the cost of being able to adhere consistently.
Hi Andy.
So i should do it when i can, but not to stress when i cant?
or
I should avoid doing it at all if i cant do it consistently?
Avoid an all or nothing mindset.
Okay, thats clear.
At the risk of sounding repetitive, thanks for your advice.
ciao
Most welcome Toby.
Hi Andy, I have 26% fat and my weight is 75 kg . i am very lean looking with fat accumulated in belly. I have very small muscles. Should i focus on loosing fat first or gaining muscles first as both are imp requrements for my body. Can I do like bulk for 3 months than cut for 1 month or something ?
Hi Zafer, thanks for the question. Have a read through my Goal Setting Guide series.
Andy, I’ve generally met my carb requirements with starchy carbs (potato, rice, wheat), but what would be the micronutrient impact of substituting bananas and other fruit for all of those? Would there be other positive or negative impacts? Part of the motivation is that starchy carbs make me very gassy…. 🙁 but I don’t want to end up nutrient deficient. Thanks!
Nathan, thanks for the question. This is something you’re best off consulting with a registered dietician about.
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Echoing Thiru’s comment: Andy, this might be my favorite online nutrition and training coaching I’ve found thus far. Your articles are succint, effective, easy to read, and your use of the nutritional hierarchy has cleared away 100% of the bullshit I’ve been spinning my wheels with for so long. Thank you for developing this. I’m really enjoying it.
Thanks Ben. Appreciate you taking the time to comment!
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I can’t help but think that juicing would be the perfect way to get loads of foodsourced micronutrients while still not over doing the carbs. Ever looked into this?
Hi Adam.
You still get the carbs, just miss out on the fibre, which isn’t a great use of your carb budget when dieting for reasons of satiety.
macros for body recomp? im super skinny fat and dont wanna slow bulk, just tighten up.
Hi Mike. This is covered in parts 1,2 and 4 of this series.
Hey Andy! i did carb back-loading year and half ago and completely eliminated fruits and dairy from my diet. i heard or read somewhere during cbl that fructose and dairy is bad and makes you fat. And result of avoiding fruits and dairy is that i have got calcium deficiency, cant get uninterrupted sleep, have to wake up couple of times during night, getting bald and my hair have become so thin from top. i always take multivitamin with food but it doesn’t seem to be working. I have introduced fruits and dairy again in my diet. cottage cheese and berries for dinner is a staple and have started taking magnesium tablets for sleep. Sleep has become better but not perfect. Cant find any solution for hair regrowth so far. i eat bananas, apples,grapes and oranges couple of times/ week. Hope you could help me with my micro nutrient deficiency
Hi Chiranjeev.
What you have read is complete nonsense. Sorry to hear that it had such affects. You probably just need to give it time for your hair to come back, however I’m not knowledgable on this kind of thing. If anything sounds too good to be true, it is. From the opening paragraphs of the fourth article on timing in this series:
It appeals to us that something as simple as changing the timing of things can have a potent effect. People go mad for any short cut to actually putting in some effort and marketeers take advantage of this (flash a little bit of science while conveniently not talking about the bigger picture) to sell us on something new. Any time someone presents you the nutritional importance pyramid upside-down your BS detector should go off.
The truth: Getting the timing of things right most certainly has favourable effects on body composition, however, if you gloss over the most impactful, foundation levels of your nutrition plan (calorie intake, the macro composition, and the micronutrition) you are wasting your time, money and effort.
True! i just improved my diet and giving some time to myself to see some hair regrowth before i go see a doctor. Thanks for the quick reply Andy, You’re one of those people who actually help others and don’t run after money. #MAD RESPECT
*brofist*
Andy,
Due to update you on Sunday for our first four weeks working together. I have some concerns regarding fibre – I’m eating two pieces of fruit a day along with (and this isn’t a joke) 3-400g brocolli, quarter of an iceberg lettuce, a considerable chunk of cucumber, a pepper – sometimes 2, I throw in spinach and cabbage on occasion as well (this is all PER meal!). I’m finding I’m quite badly ‘backed up’ and struggle with loo breaks. I’ve thrown in a fiber supplement from Holland & Barret which seems to be helping. But for the love of GOD…how much fiber must I need?!
Clearly not that much. Covered in detail in the FAQ John.
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