If You're Not Tracking Macros, Here's Why You Should.

(Podcast Transcript)

Hello, hello! Today we’re talking about macros and calories! 

Now I want to first acknowledge that I understand the idea of tracking macros can be daunting, even the thought of tracking calories and understanding how to portion out food can get a bit overwhelming for someone just starting out. I know it definitely was overwhelming for me when I was just getting into the bodybuilding world.

Today I’m going to make it as simple as possible for you to go from not understanding shit about calories to being more confident in your ability to track macros and know what you’re doing.

So first of all, it sounds as if I’m using the word calories and macros interchangeably here. So there are two ways we can track your nutrition: we can track just our calories. To simplify calories, this is just the total energy we’re consuming in a day.

Now if we want to track our macros, we are still technically tracking our calories, but many people don’t even realize this when tracking macros.

So our macros are just the caloric breakdown of our foods. They give us more detail to the type of calories we’re eating, rather than just eating whatever we want to fit within our calorie goals.

The reason most people don’t know that you’re technically tracking calories when you track macros is because when a coach programs in calorie goals, they’ll maybe tell you they want you to eat 1,700 calories each day.

When a coach gives you a macro goal, they’ll - instead of giving you a calorie range to work with- give you grams to work with. The calorie goal is already assumed. For example, if they have a caloric goal of 1700 calories, they may not tell you to eat 1700 calories, but instead they’ll tell you to eat 127.5 grams of protein, 160 grams of carbs, and 56.6 grams of fat.

Now if you’re brand new to the fitness world, you may be like, what in the fuck. How do you know that’s 1700 calories?

Well now let’s get into it.

What are macros?

Macros are the breakdown of our calories. These are our protein, carbs, fats, and alcohol. All of these combined create our total calories.

Now when we’re working with macros, we don’t work with calories as a metric; we instead work with grams.

Protein and carbs both = 4 calories per gram.

Fat = 9 calories per gram.

Alcohol = 7 calories per gram.

Once you get the hang of understanding the equation, it’s extremely easy to work with macros and calories interchangeably.

Why are they important?

Now your next question is probably why would you even care about macros, or the breakdown of your food if both help with fat loss or muscle gain?

Think of tracking calories as the basic, outer layer to getting to your goal. The more specific you can get, the deeper into that layer we can get, the quicker and more efficient you will get to your goal and also feel pretty fucking amazing (usually) while doing it.

Most people understand vitamins and minerals so we’ll explain it like this. By the way, our vitamins and minerals are referred to as micronutrients, and they’re another important part of our food.

Anywho, if we’re lacking a vitamin, we do what we can to get more in our diet; same goes with macros! If we’re lacking vitamin C, we’ll make sure to eat something that has higher vitamin C contents in it, so maybe we’ll eat more oranges, spinach, whatever in our diet.

Where our calories comes from plays a role in how we function as far as energy goes. In fact, I said that micronutrients are our vitamins and minerals and macronutrients are our proteins, carbs, and fats. The word micronutrient refers to nutrients we need in smaller amounts while macronutrients are foods we need in larger amounts.

If you think of it that way, I hope you realize how important it is to pay attention to these types of calories everyday not only for our fitness goals, but for our health goals, our energy, and our overall quality of life.

How will tracking macros help you?

Tracking macros isn’t necessarily a diet perse, but instead a tool to help optimize your nutrition. You can eat any type of diet when tracking macros; keto, paleo, low carb, high carb, vegan, vegetarian, whatever you choose.

That being said, tracking helps to ensure that you’re actually staying within that range to hit your goals.

That’s one reason why tracking macros is helpful, but the biggest reason that I love doing macro coaching is because it teaches you that there is no such thing as a “bad” food. It’s a great way to observe what types of food make you feel better in your everyday life, what foods give you the most energy, what foods leave you feeling like you’re crashing and burning. It’s an opportunity to observe and learn what makes you feel best.

Now this is also not something that you have to do for the rest of your life; many athletes track most of the year when it comes to their goals, but for someone who wants to just learn about their bodies and have future goals of being more intuitive, this is something that helps to teach you proper portion sizes for your meals in addition to quality of foods; this is something you can take with you for the rest of your life to help you make decisions that make you feel great and fulfilled.

What’s the purpose of each individual macronutrient?

Now let’s get into what’s special about each macronutrient because that may not be clear yet either. It’s not just about what makes you feel good; there tends to be a reason why different macronutrient ratios make you feel good and that’s because each serves a different purpose to your body and your brain.

This is helpful for you to understand so that you don’t just recognize these patterns; you also get to learn what’s going on in your body and why different macro ratios may make you feel better than others. Again, it’s not because certain foods are bad, like carbs, as many people like to say; it’s moreso due to an imbalance of ratios which end up causing an imbalance overall in our body, such as hormonal imbalances.

We’ll start with what most people would argue is the most important macro to focus on first: protein. (To be clear, they’re all important, but we’re going to be super bro right now and just hype up the protein anyways).

Protein

When I say the word protein, you probably picture an Arnold Swarzennegar up on stage competing against a bunch of other bro ass, big ass dudes.

So first thing’s first: protein is important for bodybuilders and it’s equally important for those of you out there wanting to lose fat and appear less bulky. Protein is not something you consume to “bulk” and this is probably a more frustrating misconception I hear in the fitness industry even over those who claim that carbs are bad. Both piss me off, but the fact that people avoid protein supplements or protein as a whole in fear of “bulking” really gets my gears grinding.

Protein is extremely important for repairing tissue. This includes muscle, blood, skin, bones, hair, and nails.

Now you might think, well what the heck, I thought it was great for bodybuilding, is that all it does for our muscles?

In simple terms, yes, it literally just repairs our muscles after training. This is great because it helps to rebuild them and repair them to be stronger and more prepared for the next time we go in to train, but that’s quite simply all protein does. It does not make you bulky. If you wanted to get bulky, you would have to lift heavy as shit on purpose and eat in a caloric surplus in addition to focusing on macros; it is not protein that gives you that look. And it’s extremely hard to get bulky, it takes years of dedicated consistency for athletes to appear that way.

And if you’re thinking of bulky in the sense of fat, that happens from inconsistency in your diet; tracking macros is the solution to that fear. And eating an appropriate portion of protein is part of that.

Now the reason why protein is also important for fat loss is because of how our body metabolizes it. I probably shouldn’t get into that in this episode because that’s a whole other deep dive, but in stupid simple terms, eating more protein actually allows your body to burn more calories, assuming you’re still hitting your target macro goals.

If you want to better understand your body, some signs that you’re lacking protein are getting injured more frequently, hair and nails thinning, and you’re atrophying - or losing muscle. These signs alone do not mean you’re lacking protein, but they tend to be strong indicators.

Carbs

Now if you want to know how to get my gears grinding even more, whisper carbs are bad in my ear. I don’t know why I just said to whisper it. We’re not trying to get kinky over here, those are some fighting words.

Anyways, carbs are our body’s main source of energy. 

So now you’re probably wondering, well then why do people say they’re bad? Well, it’s because of what we mentioned earlier; sugar tends to be extremely addicting, mostly when its eaten in processed foods such as cake and cookies. Or the sugar that’s in my Bailey’s right now; extremely addicting. Bad? No, not in and of itself, but the addictive properties tend to leave us craving more sugar, or more carbs, and because of that, people tend to eat more carbs.

Now when we’re consuming too much of any macronutrient this causes an imbalance in our bodies, oftentimes here, leading to hormonal imbalances.

Carbs are pretty damn important for us, but I also wanted to help you to understand why many people claim they’re bad. It’s either because people are misinformed or they’re listening to people who don’t really want to take the time to explain it to you and then they just simply think that carbs are bad and don’t really know why they’re saying this or where this information came from.

It’s sort of like saying you shouldn’t eat after 8pm. It’s not because eating at 8pm causes weight gain; it's because most people tend to over indulge or binge late at night, causing people to experience weight gain. Eating late isn’t bad, nor does it cause weight gain; you can eat as late as you’d like, but it’s just one tip that used to be given out back in the day to help with controlling total calories based on common habits of the average American. But because people didn’t understand why this was a tip, people started thinking that “eating late is bad.” And that’s not the case. So that’s similar to how the whole “carbs are bad” movement came to be.

So yes, carbs are our body’s main and preferred source of energy. In fact, our brain alone tends to need a minimum of 400 calories (or 100 grams) of carbohydrates or more specifically glucose to function optimally. This may be why those who go on extremely low carb diets experience brain fog and function less optimally in their work and performance.

For athletes or more serious gym goers, paying attention to carbohydrates is extremely important as carbs are stored in your muscles to then use to build strength, muscle, and endurance in training.

Common signs you’re lacking carbohydrates are: brain fog, low energy, mood swings, dizziness, and poor digestion.

Fats

Rumors back in the day used to shame fats for being fatty, but now the keto diet has caused people to fall back in love with it. Proof that any diet can really work, but fad diets also prove that macro ratios are important for sustainability.

Which I would call the keto diet an example of a fad diet - now a true keto diet, not just a lower carb diet - because keto actually is mostly a fat-based diet with less protein and almost no carbs at all. Most people who say they’re doing keto aren’t even close to what it really requires to go into ketosis.

Anywho, fats are great for keeping hormones in balance, there are fat-soluble vitamins that require fats for you to properly absorb these essential nutrients.

Common signs you’re lacking fats are: never feeling satiated, cold, exhaustion, dry skin. Again, these signs alone do not mean you’re lacking fats, but those who are tend to experience these signs.

Alcohol

Thank God for alcohol in my Bailey’s. Honestly, we’re not going to go in-depth today with the importance of alcohol, but since most of us consume it, I will talk about what to do if you drink it too.

So firstly, coaches don’t program alcohol into your macro plan. Instead, they will either have you track calories instead of macros for a few days of the month where they allow you to drink, or if you’re a more avid Bailey’s drinker like me, you can program in the calories coming from your alcohol as either a carb or a fat in your diet. This really is based off of your or your coach’s preference.

Now I did say that every macro has a specific purpose and importance, clearly the importance of ethanol is to get drunk and have a good time. No, its really not necessary in your diet. There are benefits and I sure do love my Bailey’s, but they are not required macros to live an optimal life, but that also means that you can absolutely have a balance of alcohol in your life and still be optimal and healthy.

How do I find my perfect macro breakdown?

Now let’s get into what’s special about each macronutrient, because that may not be clear yet either. It’s not just about what makes you feel good; there tends to be a reason why different macronutrient ratios make you feel good and that’s because each serves a different purpose to your body and your brain.

When it comes to finding the perfect macro ratio (and by the way, its not usually an exact ratio; it tends to be a more fluid range and this also varies depending on your activity from day to day).

In general, most people tend to have pretty similar macro ratios and ranges, The best way to go about finding your best range is through an assessment. I recommend doing a week-long assessment eating intuitively to see what’s going on with you. Once you’ve analyzed and have checked different patterns in weight fluctuation and eating patterns from day to day, you can set your macro ratios based on that data and then every week you should be using as an assessment.

Macro ratios may also vary from day to day based on activity, an easy example is a rest day vs. a day of maxing out on your lifts vs. running a marathon. Your body will require different macro ratios on all three of these days because the energy that your body requires for optimal movement will also be different.

Now that’s a little more complex and unless you’re an athlete, you don’t necessarily have to worry about that right away.

At the end of the day, tracking your macros is just a more advanced way to learn about what is best for you in your training and in your everyday life to feel your best. You absolutely do not need to track your macros forever, but they are a great teaching tool that I recommend everyone incorporating once they learn about it.

Humans were not built to be around a constant supply of food; learning macros helps us to get in control to feel our best so that food does not instead turn around and control us.

I know this one was a long one; I appreciate all of you for staying this long and I hope that helped to answer any of your questions around calories and macros!