If you’re looking to lose weight, build muscle, increase your strength, or simply get yourself fitter and healthier, one of the most important things you should do is familiarize yourself with tracking and counting your macros.
For many people looking to get in shape, as tough as exercise can be, the hardest part of the entire process is actually the diet and nutritional side of things.
In order for you to clean up your diet, it’s important to familiarize yourself with macros, which is where we come in. Below, you’ll find a brief, yet detailed guide to counting and tracking your macros.
What are macros?
First up, we need to understand what macros are.
When people talk about macros, they’re actually referring to macronutrients, which come in the form of: protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
Basically, when people refer to counting macros, they are basically talking about the act of counting the amount of calories consumed each day, from each specific macro.
Proteins and carbs for example, provide 4 calories per gram, whereas fats provide 9 calories per gram.
In order to meet different fitness goals and objectives, rather than counting calories, you instead count the total number of calories from each macro, until you have an optimal ratio.
How to count macros
Now that we’ve looked at what macros are, it’s now time to take a look at what you can do to count and track them effectively. Here are some tips:
Work out your daily caloric needs
First and foremost, when it comes to tracking your macros, you need to understand how many calories you need to be consuming in total each day.
Now, there are a few ways of doing this, although the easiest is to simply use an online calculator.
If you decide to do things the old-fashioned way, though, you can actually use the following equation, known as the Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation.
- Men: calories/day = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (y) + 5
- Women: calories/day = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (y) – 161
Then, multiply your result by an activity factor — a number that represents different levels of activity:
- Sedentary: x 1.2 (limited exercise)
- Lightly active: x 1.375 (light exercise less than three days per week)
- Moderately active: x 1.55 (moderate exercise most days of the week)
- Very active: x 1.725 (hard exercise every day)
- Extra active: x 1.9 (strenuous exercise two or more times per day)
After this, you will then have your TDEE, or your Total Daily Energy Expenditure.
Choose the right macro ratios
Next up, you need to figure out your ideal macronutrient ratios, which basically means that you will need to figure out how many calories you need to consume from each macro.
This is based upon your specific goals and requirements, though as a very basic guideline, your macro ratios could look something like:
- Fats – 10 – 20% of total caloric intakes
- Carbs – 30 – 50% of total caloric intakes
- Protein – 20 – 30% of total caloric intakes
Get into the habit of tracking calories
Finally, it may sound time-consuming and tedious, but you need to ensure that you get into the habit of tracking and counting the amounts of calories you consume each day, and where they’re coming from.
Read food packaging labels, log everything yourself, and consider using an app or online calculator that will do it for you.
