How to “Count Macros”
Nine months ago, I welcomed my daughter Charlie to the world! She’s thriving and the sweetest little baby. I am not going to lie though, my postpartum fitness journey has been lesson of patience, determination and giving myself grace.
One of the things I learned in my twenties, that I can actually afford in my thirties, is the value of hiring a coach to help you with anything it is that you want to achieve. There’s coaches for everything these days — career coaches, personal style coaches, book-writing coaches, screenplay writing coaches, screenplay selling coaches, you want to do it, I guarantee you there is someone just a few steps further than you who can coach you. So… I recently hired a nutrition and exercise coach, to help hold me accountable to becoming the version of me that I want to be.
My program is essentially three core elements of accountability and support 1) nutrition, 2) exercise, and 3) mindset. So far I’ve been loving the process and I’m starting to see some results, which is hugely motivating.
As it pertains to nutrition, my coach is having me “Count Macros” which I’d heard about through Influencers and from being in the Consumer Goods industry, working directly with major wellness brands, but frankly, I had pretty much NO idea what people meant when they said they were “Counting Macros.”
I thought I would break that down for you today, because as I learn about this in my own life, I am thinking about the opportunities in front of me to teach my daughter about nutrition, and it gets me really excited. Nutrition is fundamental to our survival and health. Yet, no one really teaches us about it in school, or at least they didn’t when I was in school.
Today’s article is a Macro Nutrition 101. I’m going to share everything I’ve learned so far and set you up with what I wish someone had set me up with:
What are Macros?
How does one count Macros?
If I wanted to use Macros to accomplish a health goal, where would I start?
Can you give me an example of a day of counting Macros?
^ Can you share those recipes?
Read this article all the way through and I guarantee at a bare minimum you’ll learn something new!
First, What are Macros?
“Macros” is just shorthand for Macro-nutrients, essentially the nutrients that exist (or don’t exist) in all foods that help keep your body going. There are three of them: Carbohydrates, Fats, and Proteins. Each plays a starring role in your body and how it gets its energy.
While many diets demonize Carbs, and glorify Proteins (Atkins) or Fats (Keto), or restrict your calories, or eating windows (intermittent-fasting), what I think is really interesting about “Counting Macros,” is essentially you’re saying “What is the optimal number of Carbs, Fats, and Proteins my body needs to operate, and how do I achieve getting those nutrients into my body each day?” Which kind of turns restrictive diet culture on its head. Instead of focusing on restricting food, your focus is on solving a nutrition puzzle that helps you feel and look great.
As an example, when “Counting Macros” your protocol might require you to eat 180grams of Carbs, 60 grams of Fat, and 80 grams of protein per day. Well if 4oz of Chicken Breast is going to only give you: 0 grams of Carbs, 3 grams of Fat, and 25 grams of Protein, then you’re going to have to eat a bunch of other foods to piece together a successful day of Macros. Make sense so far?
So let’s talk about each of the Main Characters in “Counting Macros” real quick. I am going to refer to them as Good Guys and Bad Guys for sake of simplicity and analogy, but I trust that you understand that doing so is an oversimplification of a complex topic for the sake of this “101.”
Carbs — Put simply, there are two types of Carbs: Simple Carbs, and Complex Carbs.
Simple Carbs — The Bad Guys — have one or two sugars (monosaccharides or disaccharides) and have a really simple chemical structure, which means your body can break them down easy-peasy. Since it’s so easy for your body to break them down, it creates a rapid rise (and subsequent fall) in blood sugar. Think about the last time you saw a kid eat cake, run sprints around the playground for about 20 mins, and then break into a total crying fit and tantrum. That’s the purest expression of what Simple Carbs do to our bodies. Examples of foods: Candy, soda, table sugar.
Complex Carbs — The Good Guys — on the other hand have three or more sugars (oligosaccharides or polysaccharides) bonded together in a more complex chemical structure. Because of their complexity, it takes our bodies longer to process them, which means our blood sugar is gradually influenced as we process the nutrients, and we don’t get that energy rush, nor temper tantrum situation. Examples of foods: Brown rice, apples, spinach.
Fats — Put simply, there are two types of Fats: Unsaturated Fats and Saturated Fats.
Unsaturated Fats — The Good Guys — These fats help with things like improving your blood cholesterol, easing inflammation, and brain function. Examples of foods: Nuts, seeds, vegetable oils.
Saturated Fats — The Bad Guys — These fats increase bad cholesterol, and increase your risk for heart disease and stroke. Examples of foods: Pizza, cookies, and fast foods.
Proteins — Put simply, there are two types of Proteins: Complete Proteins and Incomplete Proteins. Proteins provide Amino Acids to our bodies which are essential to our health. Our bodies only produce 11 of these 20 Amino Acids, which means we need to get the other 9 from food.
Complete Proteins — The Good Guys — These are typically found in animal products like meat, fish, and dairy. Generally speaking, these are going to be the most efficient way to get the 9 Amino Acids you need to thrive.
Incomplete Proteins — The Bad Guys — These are typically found in plant-based products like legumes, nuts, and seeds.
“The Good Guys” are going to be the most efficient at giving you the Macros that you need to accomplish your goals each day, as they are nutrient dense (meaning per serving size they tend to have an ideal ratio of carbs, fats, and proteins). “The Bad Guys” on the other hand, will be less efficient of delivering these nutrients and may have wildly varying nutritional content that makes it challenging to accomplish your goals, while staying satiated.
In Summary, you can think about “Macros” as the starring cast in the movie of your nutritional life: Cool Carbie, Functional Fattie, and Poppin’ Protie, all ready to work together to give us the ride of our lifetime. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad, so as long as we focus on the good more often than not, we’ll set ourselves up for success.
Next, How Does One “Count Macros?”
Okay, so now that we know that Macros are pretty simple, because they’re just Carbs, Fats, and Proteins found in literally every food, here’s what you do… You count the grams of each of them, in all of the foods you consume in a day. This overwhelmed me at the start, but then I realized it’s not all that hard with the resources at our disposal.
Here’s what you need to know:
All foods have a standard number of Carbs, Fats, and Proteins per gram and from there 1) what food you’ll be consuming 2) how much of it you’ll have and 3) the macros for that food, in that amount.
You’ll need a food scale (<$10 on Amazon) to measure how much food you are going to eat and basic kitchen measuring devices (cups, spoons, liquid measuring cups, etc).
You’ll need Google (or MyFitnessPal) to tell you how many Macros (how many grams of Carbs, Fats, and Proteins) are in the food you consume.
For Example:
If you have 4oz of Chicken Breast, you are going to weigh your chicken breast on the food scale so that it reads 4oz, after you cook and eat it, you will write down that you consumed: 0 grams of Carbs, 3 grams of Fat, and 25 grams of Protein (see you can just Google it).
If you have 3 cups of Lesser Evil Himalayan Gold Popcorn, you are going to measure out 3 cups of popcorn, and then after you eat it, you will write down that you had: 14 grams of Carbs, 6 grams of Fat, and 2 grams of Protein (also via Google).
Pretty simple right?
If I wanted to use Macros to accomplish a health goal, where would I start?
If you want to give “Counting Macros” a try, you need to start by understanding how many Macros you should you have in a day, and that depends on factors like your gender, height, weight and activity level. This really easy macro calculator can help you determine that.
For example, when I plug in my information, it recommends that each week, I need: 551 grams of protein, 367 grams of fat, and 1378 grams of carbs each week to achieve a weight loss target of up to 2lbs per week with a lightly active lifestyle. Put differently, in order to lose weight, each day I need to eat: 196 grams of carbs, 52 grams of fat, and 78 grams of protein.
You might be thinking “WHAT?” that is so much food! There’s no way you’ll lose weight!!!
I know that I did when I started down the path of Macros for weight loss, but what’s really interesting is how challenging it is to puzzle piece together THE RIGHT foods to achieve this level of consumption without going too far over or under in any area. And to me, this is the really cool part about “Counting Macros.” It doesn’t feel restrictive. It feels like a nutrition puzzle!
Pro tip from my coach: My coach tells me that my goal is to get each day as close to my carb, fat and protein goals as possible, with out going over or under by more than 5 grams across each of the Macro nutrients.
So, with your goals in place, now you’ll need to start logging your foods. MyFitnessPal makes this really easy, but it costs around $20/month to use the service. If you’re just getting started, I would recommend that you sign up for 1 month to help you establish a baseline, and in the future, if you don’t want to pay any longer, you can move over to using Google Sheets (free!) to track your Macros.
Can you give me an example of a day of counting Macros?
Absolutely! Here’s an example of a day in the life of my Macros in My Fitness Pal:
Here’s an example of a day in the life using Google Sheets instead (feel free to make a copy of the template):
There are two things that I’ve found to be most helpful in achieving success with Counting Macros:
Thing 1 — Is creating a resource for myself that helps me quickly look up the most common foods I like to eat and cook with so that I’ve got them at my fingertips as a reference for portion sizes and the corresponding Macros. You’ll notice that I also include my favorite guilty pleasure foods like Talenti Gelato, Chocolove Toffee & Almond in Milk Chocolate Bar, and Creme Fraiche. Again, the point of Macro Counting isn’t to restrict you from eating what you love, but to help you deliver the optimum nutrition to your body via the foods you love.
Thing 2 — Is planning your day or week out in advance. Literally going through the process of mapping out what foods you will consume help you to actually get to your Macro goals! When I started Counting Macros, I went through this progression:
Weeks 1-2: Just track what I am eating from a Macro perspective, don’t try to accomplish anything, take note of where I land each day with respect to Carbs, Fats, Proteins. (For me, I was consistently way over on fat, and way low on protein)
Weeks 3-4: Plan 4 days per week and stick to the plan. In general, I have a good deal of control over my food environment from Mon-Thur. So my focus is on getting to my Macro targets as much as possible on these four days each week. Again, the goal here is more often than not.
Weeks 5+: Plan 6 days per week and stick to the plan. Again, the goal isn’t perfection, but getting yourself closer and closer to hitting your Macros every day within 5 grams of each. I’m not there yet, but ideally, my coach would like to see me hit my Macros 6 days a week, AND track ALL of my meals EXCEPT FOR ONE.
Now, I may never get to this level of tracking perfectly, but I will tell you what: the weeks I commit to tracking and hitting my Macros, the scale shows it. The weeks where I don’t? The scale shows it!
At the end of the day, nutrition is actually science, and science has laws, and science laws cannot be broken.
Can you share those recipes?
Of course, my loves!
Breakfast — This one is simple, it’s just toasted Trader Joe’s Seed Bread with Justin’s Peanut Butter
Lunch — Stef’s Chicken Macro Bowl
Dinner — Stef’s Ahi Tuna Poke Bowl
In Summary…
Macro nutrients are the most basic nutritional components of our foods. Depending on your nutrition and health goals, “Counting Macros” can be useful in helping you optimize the foods you eat and their nutritional benefit to your body.
When just getting started with Counting Macros, don’t be too hard on yourself, with anything new, it’s a practice and the more you practice the better you will get.
At the end of the day, the goal is not to be perfect, but to deliver good nutrition to your body, more often than not, so you can feel great.
I hope you enjoyed reading about this and if you give it a try you will let me know what you think!
Stef Caldwell is an author, businesswoman, angel investor and homemaker. Her content focuses on helping women pursue and achieve their biggest dreams in their lives and careers, while having fun along the way, follow along with her content and journey at www.bystefcaldwell.com/subscribe.
