Both fitness stars and gym rats
embrace counting macros to achieve flawlessly cut muscles. This popular
strategy is based on eating just the right balance of macros instead of
slashing calories indiscriminately. While it is one step ahead of calorie counting,
will it lead to the weight loss you’re hoping for? Let’s find out.
“Macros” is the cute nickname given
to macronutrients. Food is made up of three macronutrients that provide you
with the calories you need. These are fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Remember
calories? They play a starring role in weight loss because the tenet of eating fewer calories for weight loss is
still legit and isn’t going to die any time soon.
But, it’s 2017 people! We know not all calories are created equally.
Whole food is in, and processed food is out. The bottom line: Food quality
matters.
This is where macro counting fanatics
will tell you that you should count the grams of fat, protein, and carbs
consumed because they give you a better picture of diet quality. It’s only
partly true. You can meet all your macronutrient goals perfectly and still be
eating a crappy diet.
That’s because your macros paint an
incomplete picture of diet quality. Say you met your goal of eating 180 grams
of carbohydrates for the day, and it was 40 percent of your total calories (not
bad, good job, you!). Our next question would be, well, what kind of carbs did
you eat? Were they mostly from healthy sources like fruits and veggies or were
they from cupcakes and candies? Your daily macros won’t tell you that, but the
quality of your daily macros matter.
In fact, strategies such as the
popular If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM)
were created for you to eat whatever you want, Oreos included, as long as it
fits with your daily macro percentages. Since we know that a diet works well
only if it’s sustainable, we’re going to go out on a limb here and say that
this plan could work for someone who feels they absolutely cannot ban a food.
But, clearly nobody should eat Oreos every day, even if you make it fit into
your daily macro allowance.
How Do You Count Macros?
There are many strategies to count
macros. To count macros the IIFYM way, you’ll need to do math, and lots of it!
This three-step game plan will demystify macro counting for you:
1. Figure out your daily calorie
needs. There are many online
calculators you can use, including this one by
the National Institutes of Health. They generally use your gender, weight,
height, and activity level to calculate your daily calorie goal. Then, they add
or subtract a certain amount of calories from your day to help you gain or lose
weight.
2. Choose how you want to “budget”
those calories into macros. This budgeting depends on
your goals such as losing or gaining weight. If you look at the acceptable
macronutrient range for carbohydrates, protein, and fat provided by experts, it
varies widely because we can eat well on many different diets.
IIFYM
suggests that about 40 percent of your total daily calories come from protein,
which is higher than expert guidelines. While it’s true that protein
is beneficial for weight control, overdoing it on meat, especially
red meat, isn’t healthy.
Instead, plant-based diets are proven time and again to be
healthier for
us.
3. Convert calories into grams and
count. After budgeting, divide your
carbohydrate and protein calories by four to get grams, and divide your fat
calories by nine to get grams (protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram, and
fat has 9 calories per gram). Then, count the macros from every food you put
into your mouth. Either paper and pencil it, or enter the data into an online
food diary.
Phew!
And, that’s it… until you hit a weight-loss plateau. You may need to start back
at step one to readjust your macros if what you’ve calculated no longer does
the trick. You can also apply these three steps with any macronutrient-focused
diet including the ketogenic diet and Atkins diet.
The question you must ask yourself
is: Do you really wanna?
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