To meet your fitness goals it is essential to know how to count your macros, as macronutrients make up our calories every day. Keep reading to learn how to count your macros easily.
To lose or gain weight requires you to know how many calories you are consuming and how many you are burning in a day. This allows you to determine if you are eating too much or too little in order to meet your goals of weight gain or loss. In this post we show you how to count your macros for your health and fitness goals.
To have a balanced diet and meet your goals, you should eat a variety of nutrients that give your body energy and keep your digestive system functioning properly. The best way to keep track of what you are eating is to count your macros. Doing this can help you reach your health and fitness goals much faster than focusing on calories alone!
Counting and keeping track of your macros can really make a difference in gaining, losing or maintaining weight and can help you understand what types of foods are making up your diet. This is helpful if you want to eat foods to improve your athletic performance, energy levels and increase focus. Counting your macros can also help turn your current eating habits to healthier patterns, which provides many long term benefits.
What are Macronutrients?
Macronutrients, or macros for short, are what we need in large amounts for normal bodily functions. The 3 main macros we need to survive are carbohydrates (carbs), fats, and proteins. Despite fad diets, you do need all three of these nutrients; cutting out any one macronutrient puts you at risk for nutrient deficiencies and illness.
Micronutrients, in contrast, are substances required in much smaller amounts, such as vitamins, minerals and electrolytes. These are gained when we eat coloured fruits, vegetables and legumes.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates simply give you energy, (4 kcal/ gram), when you eat carbs your body converts them to glucose (sugar) and either uses that sugar immediately or stores it as glycogen for later use. This energy is used mainly during exercise and relied upon in between meals (which is why it is important to be receiving the right amount; if not you will be tired a lot and too much can cause weight gain). Complex carbohydrates are the starchy vegetables and whole grains that also promote digestive health because they’re high in dietary fibre (think potatoes both regular and sweet). It’s essential to know what sort of carbs are best for the body, and what kinds you are eating daily in order to know how to count your macros. Here is a helpful post on good and bad carb sources.
Here are some healthy courses of carbohydrates:
- Quinoa – check out these 40 healthy Quinoa recipes.
- Oats – here is a blog post on how to make easy overnight oats
- Buckwheat
- Bananas
- Sweet Potatoes
- Beetroots
- Oranges
- Blueberries
Protein
Protein helps you grow, repair injuries, build muscle and fight off infections. Proteins are made of amino acids, which are the building blocks of many structures in your body. You need 20 different amino acids, nine of which are essential amino acids, meaning your body can’t produce them on its own and you must get them from food. As a fuel, proteins provide as much energy density as carbohydrates: 4 kcal per gram. Here are 43 high protein sources to better understand how to count your macros.
Some healthy protein sources:
- Poultry
- Eggs
- Beef
- Fish
- Soy
- Yogurt
- Cheese and other dairy products
Plant-based proteins:
- Lentils – one of the best ways to increase your protein intake as they feed good bacteria in your colon and promote gut health, aide in weight-loss and can help decrease the risk for some types of cancers and cardiovascular disease. 1 cup contains 18g of protein.
- Chickpeas and beans – kidney, black and pinto beans all have high protein and can help decrease cholesterol and lower blood sugar making it an excellent source of carbs and nutrients.
- Hempseed
- Oats
- Wild rice
- Chia seeds
- Nuts and Nut butters
- Seitan – is very high in protein about 25g per 3.5 oz (100g)! This is made of wheat and those gluten intolerant or celiac should avoid.
- Tofu or Tempeh
- Edamame
- Vegetables: broccoli, spinach, asparagus, artichokes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts all have higher amounts of protein than other veggies.
Fats
Dietary fat is healthy in moderation and is required for your body to do its many jobs. You need fat in order to receive fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K), to insulate your body during cold weather and to give energy when you go long periods of time without eating. Dietary fat protects your organs, supports cell growth and induces hormone production. Fat is also essential as it provides more energy (9 calories per gram) than carbohydrates or protein (4 calories per gram). Studies have shown Unsaturated fats to be superior to Saturated fats as they can decrease the risk of certain diseases including heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. This post can help you choose healthy fats in order to learn how to count your macros. This macronutrient must be consumed in moderation to maintain a healthy weight, as it contributes to obesity if consumed in excess.
Sources of Saturated Fats
- Butter
- Fatty Meats
- Cheese
- Full fat dairy products
- Cookies, Cakes and other highly processed foods contain fats that should be consumed in very low amounts
Sources of Unsaturated Fats
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Olive Oil
- Fatty Seafood (salmon, tuna)
- Avocado (checkout this smashed avocado toast here! link)
How to calculate your macros?
Now that we have covered what macronutrients are, the next step is to determine your personal macros in order to meet your goals and give you the right amount of daily energy. It’s important to calculate the optimal range for you based off your personal details as you can now reach your health and fitness goals through the foods you eat. For example if you are eating food and cant understand why you are not meeting your goals its likely you are eating too much or too little of a macronutrient. If you want to gain muscle mass you will need to eat more protein, carbs and overall eating in a caloric surplus to really see those gains. If you want to lose weight (see our post here) you will need to eat in a caloric deficit, and the only way to do that is know determine how much you are eating per day – thus counting your macros comes in handy.
In order to calculate your macros:
Use a free online TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) tool which measures how many calories you burn per day. This calorie calculator will also display your Macros & many other useful statistics to use to meet your goals.
Once you have your specific values, you’re going to want to make note of them in order to transfer them over to a food tracking app or tool to properly meet these values.
How to count your macros
You have gone over what macronutrients are and why they are important, determined your personal macro values specific to your goals, which leaves us with the final question of how to count your macros. This part may be the most challenging as you have to eat according to your goals and actually record it all in order to see if you are meeting your requirements. Overtime this is very simple especially if you eat similar things often, and many food tracking apps remember the foods you have previously punched in making it less time consuming.
Heres how to count your macros:
- My Fitness Pal – this free app allows you to clearly see what you are eating and what the breakdown of your macros are and can help you meet your daily goals (we love this!). Simply input your values that you got from the TDEE calculator and begin eating towards your goals (play around on the app to get used to it). This app has a massive database of foods and drinks, which may take you some time getting used to but once you get the hang of it, it is very useful. Either take 5 minutes after you have eaten to input your food or input your food twice per day but don’t forget anything!
- MyMacros+
- Cronometer
- Manually count your calories using an excel spreadsheet. See this helpful video.