Grain Brain Math

I’ve seen many question come in from athletes who find it difficult to thrive on the 60 grams of carbs/day that the Grain Brain diet suggests. These individuals feel they aren’t able to perform at an optimal level, and have asked if it would be possible to stretch the upper bound of allowable carbohydrate intake to accommodate for their active lifestyle. I’d like to address this question, and similar ones, in this post, so that all may benefit from the answer.

Simply put: it’s not unreasonable to increase the intake if you lead an active lifestyle. Pushing your daily allowance to 90 or 100 grams of carbs/day is certainly acceptable. However, these 90 grams should be part of a balanced diet that takes in 60-70% of its calories from fat, with the remaining 20-30% coming from protein, and 10-20% from carbs. If you’re trying to figure out how many grams of protein that comes out to, you’re looking at 0.8 – 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.