A Guide to Calories & Macros: What are Calories and Macronutrients and How to Start Tracking Them

Macros 101

The word “macros” is popular all over social media, but what are they and why do they matter so much for nutrition?

“Macros” stands for macronutrients; in our food, we have macronutrients and micronutrients. 

What are Macros?

“Macros” stands for macronutrients. “Macro” meaning: large amounts. “Nutrients” meaning: dietary requirements for survival.

Macronutrients are dietary requirements we need in larger amounts for survival.

When we eat food, our food contains more than just calories. Calories are our body’s way of receiving energy and this energy comes from our macronutrient sources in our food.

This means that anything that contains a calorie, comes from one of our macronutrient sources. 

We have four macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, fat, and alcohol. 

Each of these macronutrients not only provides energy (or calories), but where they focus or prioritize their energy in our bodies is different based on the individual macro.

This means that the food quality and sources we choose play a role in how we feel and function in training performance, work performance, and everyday life.

Why Are Macros Important to Understand?

If we found out that we were lacking in a certain micronutrient (aka vitamins and minerals), for example, Vitamin C, we wouldn’t simply just try eating more micronutrients altogether; we would find out which foods contain a high amount of Vitamin C to improve the balance of that single micronutrient. That means we’d probably eat more broccoli, kale, sweet potatoes, peppers, or orange juice.

The same goes with macronutrients. If you’re given a set amount of calories to eat per day, you don’t simply just eat whatever calories you want. You would find out which macronutrient(s) you may need to improve on for optimal functioning and performance. 

If you’re lacking in fats, you wouldn’t eat a strawberry; you’d eat more peanut butter, nuts, whole eggs, or avocados.

When we lack in certain macronutrients, our mental and physical performance will start to lack overtime. When we eat within an optimal range, we feel, function, and perform our best. This translates across all aspects of our life; training, work, hobbies, etc.

How Will Macros Help You?

The goal of tracking macros is to better understand our sources of energy and eating the types of food that make us feel best. 

You may eat something and feel energized, while other times you may feel groggy and exhausted. Learning to track your macros teaches you the proper portion sizes and macro ratios that you function best on and allows you to understand why, based on the function of each macronutrient that you consume.

The goal isn’t to track macros for life; the goal is to understand what you’re consuming and the importance of it, so that you can eventually eat intuitively with a balanced diet and not have to constantly worry about it or overthink it.

Tracking macros isn’t a diet; its a tool to help you find the best diet for you, whether you’re maintaining weight, bulking, or cutting.

PSA: Diet isn’t a bad word; it’s become a bad word because of the lack of understanding in the nutrition world. 

We all have a diet; let’s choose one that makes us feel good and function better.

What is the Role of Each Macro?

Protein

For every 1 gram of protein we get in our food, it provides us 4 calories for energy.

When we consume protein, it prioritizes its energy on building and repairing tissues in our body. Protein is important for our muscle, bones, hair, nails, blood, and skin.

This is one of the reasons why athletes want to ensure they’re eating enough protein (via macro tracking). When training, we’re breaking down our muscle tissues in the gym; the recovery and “building” of the actual muscle occurs due to protein in our diet.

Some common signs that we’re lacking protein in our diet are getting injured more easily, your hair and nails are getting thinner, and your muscles are atrophying (losing size).

Carbs

For every 1 gram of carbs we get in our food, it provides us 4 calories for energy.

When we consume carbohydrates, it prioritizes its energy for brain function and movement.

Simple carbs digest more quickly and usually enter the bloodstream immediately, whereas complex carbs are slow-digesting and enter the blood stream more slowly.

Both types of carbs are an important part of nutrition for athletes; it is the macro which plays the biggest role in our training performance and also helps to fill out our muscles by storing extra energy in the muscle, rather than in fat cells.

When it comes to training and nutrition, most will benefit from eating about 50% of your carbs for the day around your training session (pre, intra, and post workout).

If you like (or need) to eat immediately before your training session, try some simple digesting foods such as fruit or fruit juice. You can consume this about 30 minutes before training and get the benefits from this extra energy.

If you like (or need) to eat 1-2 hours before your training session, choose slow-digesting carbs such as oats, whole grains, or beans.

Some common signs that we need more carbs in our diet are exhaustion, brain fog, low energy, mood swings, dizziness, and poor digestion.

Fats

For every 1 gram of fat we get in our food, it provides us 9 calories for energy.

When we consume fats, it prioritizes its energy on keeping hormones in balance, absorbing essential nutrients, and to protect our organs.

While fats tend to be focused on the least for athletes, it’s important to make sure that we maintain a healthy range of fats for these general reasons. While fats may not assist as much in training or recovery, we cannot be a successful athlete if we’re not maintaining our general health first. 

Take care of all of our bases, and then we build from the ground up, as I like to remind my clients. Remember the long-term priority should always be to remain healthy and then to focus on performance, not the other way around.

Some common signs that we need more fats in our diet are constant hunger, feeling cold, exhaustion, mood swings, and dry skin.

Alcohol

For every 1 gram of alcohol we get in our food, it provides us 7 calories for energy.

As you can imagine, most coaches do not program in alcohol, as the effects are mostly negative.

If you do want to drink alcohol and you’re on a macro plan, it depends on what your coach will tell you. Some will not allow their athletes to go off of their macro plans at all, while others — like me — allow for it depending on the season or cycle you’re in, such as meet week or deloads.

Because alcohol isn’t programmed in by most coaches, when you do go off of your macro plan, its recommended that you still stick within your caloric range and hit your protein goals at minimum. This means that you can take your calories for alcohol from your carbs or fat sources.

You don’t want to do this all of the time, but how often you do it is up to the coach and it will vary from athlete to athlete.

How to Track Macros

The old-fashioned way of tracking macros is by pen and paper, but apps make it much easier to track macros (and calories) and I highly recommend doing it that way!

You can use any app which allows you to track calories and macros, but the most popular app is My Fitness Pal.

Most apps nowadays allow you to scan the barcode, which automatically adds in the portion size options, macros, and calories for you.

Let’s pretend that whatever app you’re using doesn’t allow for you to scan the barcode; we would then have to insert the macros automatically.

If you’re new to macros and don’t quite understand them yet, its good to learn how to do this part manually just so you can really sit and get familiar with what your food sources contain.

As a reminder:

1g protein = 4 calories 

1g carb = 4 calories

1g fats = 9 calories

Tracking with Food Labels

Let’s try to manually track a food item together, to make sure you understand this process. Go grab something that has a food label from your pantry or fridge.

Mine is a serving size of pizza from the freezer and it reads: 166 calories for one serving with 6 fat, 20 carbs, and 8 protein. 

The reason it is 166 calories is because of its macro contents. Let’s do the math:

Fat: 6 grams x 9 calories = 54 calories 

Carbs: 20 grams x 4 calories = 80 calories

Protein: 8 grams x 4 calories = 32 calories 

54 calories + 80 calories + 32 calories = 166 calories.

Side note: If it shows that the calories are a couple off from what they should be, it might not be because you did the math wrong; its because food labels are allowed to lie about how many calories are actually in your food.

Another side note: don’t worry right now about the smaller details such as sugars or trans fats that are labeled underneath the carbs and fats for right now; they aren’t additional calories; its just extra information about the quality of macros within that food.

Tracking Without Food Labels

You may have noticed that most fresh produce don’t have food labels (such as fruits and vegetables).

You can use your app to search for the produce that you’re planning on eating and track it that way. 

Let’s say you want to eat a bowl of strawberries; you’ll weigh your strawberries on the scale and search for “strawberries” on the app— the foods that have a green check mark next to them have been verified, so I recommend going with those! From there, you just add what your portion size was and go on with the rest of your day.

How to Plan Your Meals Using Macros

If you’re someone who likes to change up your meals from day to day, then you’ll be most successful if you plan them out ahead of time.

Many clients plan the night before, but what I like to do is have a variety of different meal plans that work with my current macros.

I’ll set up about five different meal plans and then choose which one I’m feeling for that day. 

Even as your macros get adjusted on your plan, you can usually eat the same meals, but just change the portion sizes for each.

When planning your meals, I recommend planning what foods and meals you enjoy eating and then adjust portion sizes based on the macros, not the other way around.

If you’re thinking of this as a game to hit perfect macros (and adding a bunch of odd and weird food choices together to hit your macros perfectly), you’ll probably forget that you can actually enjoy your meals (and still win the game; aka hit your macro goals).

I recommend to my clients to try and hit within 5 grams of their target macro goals.

If you’re not creative with your meals, my coaching offers one sample meal plan and a full grocery list if you want to mix and match foods.

When to Stop Tracking Macros

Tracking macros doesn’t have to be and, in my opinion, shouldn’t be something that you plan on doing forever. Tracking macros is a tool which teaches you about the importance of our food choices and how it plays a role in general health as well as sports performance.

Once you feel you’ve learned the importance of macros and that this tool has served you to make educated choices in your nutrition, then you may not need to track anymore. 

If you know the importance of macros, 5 or more main sources of each macronutrient, and are able to intuitively eat without going way off of your recommended macro ranges, then that is a good sign that you have utilized this tool.

When to Start Tracking Again

Sometimes athletes will go on and off of tracking, depending on their season or training cycle.

If you’ve already tracked in the past and are familiar with macros, the two most popular reasons someone will begin tracking again is to make sure that they’re still on track (for accountability) or because they’re wanting to be more optimal in their training cycle.

Most often athletes go back on macros during their in-season cycle to ensure they’re hitting weight and getting the most out of their performance via nutrition.

Conclusion

If you’re just hearing about macros for the first time, this information may be overload, but take your time and be patient with the process and it’ll get easier by the day!

If you have any questions about tracking macros, leave them in the comments below!

Good luck and good tracking!