Do you know that achieving certain health-related goals is directly linked with Macros Counting. Counting Macros actually contribute a lot in making your diet healthy and fit for losing weight to support your weight loss program. Thus, determining your daily nutrient intake by using food journals or any app can help track your macros count.
Although “counting macros” is not a common term but if you have a link with the health community or used to go to gym regularly, the term is not new for you. It is becoming a popular way to control your weight according to your desire. So, if you are looking for an effective way to shed your extra weight and gain muscles, counting macronutrients you’re taking everyday will help you achieve these goals.
So, the first thing you have to keep in your control is the type of food you eat and the rack of calories you take per day, in order to achieve certain goals related to your weight loss and muscle gain program. Counting macros is a simple truck to track your calories but in starting days you may be confused about it.
Therefore, online health point has brought a detailed comprehensive article for you that would explain the benefits of counting macros and provide you a step-by-step guide on how to get started.
What are the Macro-nutrients?
Before starting scenarios counting, you must know about what they are and why you need to count ratios of different macronutrients. You may do it successfully after reading this article carefully. So let’s start by learning about macronutrients and their prominent types.
Carbohydrates
Commission types of carbohydrates are fibers, sugars, and starches. But most ties are broken down into simpler molecules or compounds. For example, sugar or glucose is stirred in your muscles and liver in the form of glycogen that is often used as an immediate energy source by your body.
Most types of carbs provide you 4-5 calories per gram that is typically enough for making the largest calorie intake for your one day diet. Carbs intake is the most hit topic among all macronutrients.
According to many researches from major health organizations, it is good for a normal healthy person to consume around 40-60% of calories from carbs everyday.
Common sources of carbs are fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and dairy products.
Fats
It is true that fats contain the most calories of all macronutrients because one gram of fat provides you 9-10 calories. Fat is used to gain energy for your body that is required for performing certain critical functions of the body like maintenance of body temperature (thermoregulation), hormone production, and nutrient assimilation. Nutritionists and food and health organizations usually recommend that 25%-35% of tidal calories should be taken from fats because a diet higher in fats is usually proven good for health.
Common sources of fats are avocado, butter, oils, seeds, meats, fatty fats, and nuts.
Proteins
Proteins are similar to carbs because they provide the same 4-5 calories per gram. Proteins are considered vital nutrients as they perform very important functions in your body including making enzymes, hormones, building of new tissues, promoting immune function and maintaining signaling between cells.
Nutritionists recommend that 20-40% of total calories must be taken on a firm protein diet. However, protein intake recommendations usually depend on the person’s body composition, age, sex and health related goals. So it is not confirmed that this recommendation can suit everyone.
Common sources for protein include eggs, poultry, lentils, tofu, and meat.
So, these three macronutrients play a vital role in your calorie consumption. Whenever you start calorie counting, you must have to take in notice the macros counting first.
How to Count Macros?
Do you want to learn how to count macros? You have to make some effort for this purpose but once you learn,you can do it on your own.
Follow these steps for counting macros!
1.figure Out Your Calorie Needs
Whenever you calculate your required calories, you must start from determining your resting energy expenditure (REE) non-resting energy expenditure (NREE).
REE is the actual number of calories you burn at rest while NREE is the number of calories burned in your joist when your body gets engaged in a physical activity or during a biochemical process like digestion.
This, REE and NREE together give you the total number of calories you burn during the whole day. Experts name this energy calculation as total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). But if you find the method is not working for determining exact total energy expenditure, you can use a simple calculator available online. These calculators help counting nutrients and calories according to your gender and weight of body.
For Males: Counting per day calories= 10 X weight (kilograms) + 6.25 X height (centimeters) – 5 X age (years) + 5.
For Females: Counting per day calories= 10 X weight (kilograms) + 6.25 X height (centimeters) – 5 X age (years) – 161.
Then the final calculation is multiplied with an activity factor, which is a number that represents your activity levels of different ranges.
For activity level factors, look here!
- Sedentary: X 1.2 (for limited exercise).
- Light Activity: X 1.375 (light exercise less than 3 days per week).
- Moderately Active: X 1.55 (moderate exercise most days of the week).
- Very Active: X 1.725 (hard exercise everyday).
- Extra Active: X 1.9 (strenuous exercise two or more times per day).
The end result is the approximate TDEE.
Therefore, when you decide to achieve a certain goal related to your weight loss, muscle gain, calorie restriction or calorie continuing, you need to add or subtract calories to and from your total daily expenditure.
In simple words, if you want to lose weight, consume fewer calories than you expend. But if your goal is to gain muscle mass, you need to increase per daily calories intake. But never forget to get your healthcare provider’s opinion on calorie addition or subtraction.
2.Choose Your Favorite Macronutrient Breakdown
The knowledge about the number of calories helps you determine how many calories you should consume each day. At the next step, you have to decide what macronutrient ratio is best for you.
According to experts, the typical macronutrient ratios that are usually followed by people include:
- Carbs: 40% to 60% of total calories.
- Fats: 25% to 35% of total calories.
- Proteins: 5% to 25% of total calories.
The most important thing is to keep in mind that these recommendations may not fulfill your specific needs. So you need to find an exact ratio that is synchronized with your specific objectives.
Your meal plan is a key contributor in deciding what nutrient and calorie ratio will suit your body needs. If you want to lose excess body fat and obtain optimum level of blood sugar, you should add 30% protein, 30% fat and 40% carbs to your daily diet. This may help you achieve your goals. So, if you’re pursuing a ketogenic diet, you need fewer carbs and more protein in your daily diet but as an endurance athlete, there should be higher carb intake in your daily diet.
Therefore, experts suggest that your macronutrients continue to change person to person. It depends on their weight loss goals, dietary choices and other factors.
3.Track Your ,Macros and Calorie Intake
After calculating the required calories and macronutrient ratios, you need to start tracking your macros. Tracking macros is an authentic way to log the foods you eat on a food journal or an app. Nutrition apps are easily available online that help you track macros. They help you track macros in simple ways like using a digital food app.
Though it is not an essential step, it contributes a lot in counting macros. These apps also have barcode scanners that automatically input a serving of scanned food into your macro list. If you don’t want to use the app, you can use a food journal to write ,across with your hand. This includes your personal choices.
However, always be kind to yourself and never try to hit your macro targets with exact accuracy. Going a few grams over or under each day is not a big deal and never becomes a hurdle in meeting your goals.
4.Counting Examples
If you want to calculate macronutrient for a specific calorie diet, you should follow this example.
A 2000 calorie diet should consist of 30% fat, 30% protein and 40% carbs.
Carbs: 4 calories per gram, this means 800 calories per day as 40% of 2000 calories. Now you can calculate total grams of carbs allowed per day by dividing 800 with 4. This will give you 200 grams.
Protein: 4 calories per g. This means 600 calories of protein per day as 30% of 2000 calories. Now you can calculate total grams of proteins allowed per day by dividing 600 with 4. The result will be 150 grams.
Fats: 9 calories per g. This means 600 calories of protein per day as 30% of 2000 calories. Now you can calculate total grams of fat allowed per day by dividing 600 with 9. The result will be 67 grams.
According to these calculations, as an ideal daily intake, you can add 200 g of carbs, 150 g of proteins and 67 g of fat into your daily diet.
Benefits of Counting Macros
Counting the required micro-nutrients is associated with alert of health benefits. Lets learn how macros counting benefits you!
Improved Diet Quality
Macros counting usually results in improved diet quality. Because the process of counting macronutrients helps you pay full attention to your food selection and quality rather than calorie intent.
It isn’t always necessary to compromise on your favorite foods while you are counting macros. So, if you don’t like to eat a bowl of sugary cereal, you can replace it with a bowl of oats topped with pumpkin seeds and berries because they not only vary widely in macronutrient content but also have a similar number of calories as sugary cereal.
In addition, the counting process leads you to select more nutrient-dense foods to fulfill your energy news.
However, if you like to add some less nutritious food, you can, because less nutritional foods also have options that can fit into your desired calories and macros needs.
Promoting Weight Loss
Weight loss is the most advantageous factor of counting macros. It provides you with a set of specific dietary recommendations that help you track macros. Thus it becomes easy for you to follow high protein and low carb diets. Both are essential for weight loss.
Helps Achieving Specific Goals related to Fitness
Athletes and those who chase specific health goals usually tend to follow macros counting. For example, if you are interested in building muscle mass, you may have greater protein content in your diet. This will help you drop excess body fat.
Similarly, people who want to boost their performance and gain lean body mass, need specific amounts of macronutrients. Macros county g help them to consume the required amount of macronutrients.
Moreover, research also has shown that muscle maintenance especially for resistance-trained athletes is necessary. Macro counting helps them fulfill their needs.
For Whom Macros Counting is not Suitable?
If you’re a person who is interested in making their body structured,counting macros is an ideal option to achieve the goal.because this counting procedure helps you get fully aware about the quality and amount of food you’re consuming.
In addition, it is also very useful for those who are following a high protein or ketogenic diet.
but………..
There are some factors that make counting macros useless for some people.
If you are interested in tracking calories each day, counting macros is not beneficial for you. Because it doesn’t emphasize tracking calories. Therefore, anyone with a history of eating disorders should avoid it.
In addition, macros counting causes poor eating because it permits all types of foods that may harm your health.
So, if you want to add counting macros to your daily routine, you have to eat a nutrition-dense,well-rounded diet that is rich in fresh products such as lean protein sources, healthy fats and complex carbs.
Conclusion
If you focus on the steps recommended in this article, you can streamline the process and set it according to your needs to achieve your goals.
You first need to set a calorie goal with a recommended range for proteins, fats and carbs that may help you achieve your goals.
