Steps To Better Nutrition. Ready to change how you eat Sure, you could drop that cheeseburger like the hot mess it is and throw yourself into paleo, carb cycling, or some other system that represents a 1. Heres a simple formula to use to calculate your macronutrients when using flexible dieting IIFYM so you can achieve your weight loss or fitness goals. How To Count Your Macros A Comprehensive Guide Posted by Mike. My son is a firm believer in the efficacy of a macro diet but I think at 62 I might be too old. Learn how to follow a macros diet to lose weight and get tips on how to calculate a meal to see if it fits your macros. We break down everything youd want to know about the macro diet counting your macros, macronutrients ratios for a fit healthy life. As if counting calories isnt stressful enough, theres a diet trend thats gaining popularity among CrossFitters, bodybuilders, models and social media. Im of the opinion that youd set yourself up to fail. Before you do anything else, you need to learn and practice the skill of aware eating. What is aware eatingLet me be clear This doesnt commit you to anything. It doesnt mean your life from here on out will be a neverending diet, or that youll have to buy separate food. The IIFYM diet brings healthy eating back to basics carbs, protein and fat. Learn how to calculate your daily macro intake and find out if it fits your macros. Nutrition is the most important part of our healthy living lifestyle and following a macros diet is one the best ways to maximize our intake of protein, carbohydrates. Use our IIFYM macro calculator to get your detailed macro calculations to help with your weight loss and flexible dieting goalsIts knowing what your food is made of, and using that information to eat better. One of the best ways to do that is to start by tracking the macronutrientsprotein, carbohydrates, and fats as well as total caloriesthat make up what you already eat. Let me be clear This doesnt commit you to anything. It doesnt mean your life from here on out will be a never ending diet, or that youll have to buy separate food scales for the home, car, and office. All it means is that whatever you choose to do next, youll do it from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. That is always a good thing. Just try it for a couple of weeks. What do you have to lose Step 1. Measure. If I just convinced you to let macronutrients into your life, you probably asked in a sad voice, OK, how much time will it take and what do I need to buy Fortunately, the answer to both questions is not much. When you are learning to track your nutrition, the three best tools you can have on the kitchen counter are a food scale, a caloriegram counting book, and a set of measuring cups. I also recommend you keep around a calculatorunless youre a master at math in your head or on your fingersand a resource of nutritional information. If your food comes with a label, thats a good place to start. However, if you prefer whole foods that come without labels which, by the way, you should, you have several options. Any calorie counting guidebook, such as the Complete Book of Food Counts or a similar reference material, is fine. There are also countless online resources two of the most prominent are Nutrition. Data. com and the USDAs National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. A growing number of mobile apps also utilize either the USDA or restaurant nutritional info for easy calculations when youre not near a computer. The project of memorizing your staple dishes is more approachable than you think, considering that most of us stick to eating 2. Before you know it, you will remember that a six ounce chicken breast has about 1. You will also learn to eyeball what six ounces of chicken breast looks like without having to put it on the food scale. It took me at least a year until I got confident at eyeballing, and that was after measuring six meals per day. Youre not there yet, so keep the scale and measuring cups close at hand. For foods generally weighed by the ounce, such as most meats, use the food scale. For foods where the calorie count is usually measured in cups or other volume based units, use measuring cups. Determine your quantity, do the calculations, and voila You know your macros. Step 2. Record. You now know what your meal is worth, at least in terms of macronutrients. For example, say you eat about a quarter cup of almond butter and an apple when you get home from work every day. Heres how the macros would look 14 cup Almond Butter Calories 3. Fats 3. 4 g Protein 1. Carbohydrates 1. Apple with skin Calories 1. Fats 0 g Protein 1 g Carbohydrates 3. Nutritional databases can offer incredibly complex breakdowns of micronutrients, up to and including quantities of individual animo acids, but dont worry too much about those unless you have to. As you find your footing, its OK if you stick to the big ones calories, fats, carbs, protein. You will quickly discover that macronutrient quantities are rarely whole numbersno problem. Unless you want to spend more time doing math than eating, dont bother with calculating down to the hundredths of a gram. I just round down if its. Beef Taco Recipe. What gets measured and reported improves exponentially. Once you calculate your macrosheres the key partwrite them down in the notebook. Every successful businessperson knows that what gets measured gets improved. Ill also add, What gets measured and reported improves exponentially. This basically means that when you measure your meals and report them, your results will improve even faster because of the accountability a notebook represents. Howeverand this may sound simple, but its importantremember to jot down which food you eat each meal, not just the macros. That way, after a few weeks you can plan your weekly meals from your notes rather than having to look up every food you eat. Step 3. Break It Down. Now you know how to measure macros After you feel confident with it, next determine what your nutritional breakdown will look like going forward, and how the macronutrients in your individual meals will support it. The first number you need to determine when planning your diet is the number of calories your body needs. This number is based on your age, gender, weight, rate of metabolism, activity level, goal, and the amount of time you have to achieve your goal. There are a number of calculators online that can help you get that number, so were not going to dig too deep into it here. For simplicitys sake, lets say you figured out you need 2,0. Break your macros down so you know how many calories you should spend on each macronutrient. Lets say you start out on a simple 4. On a 2,0. 00 calorie diet, that means you need 8. Convert those calories into grams so you know how many grams of each macro you need to get into your daily diet. Tattoo this onto your forearm if it helps A gram of protein contains 4 calories. A gram of carbohydrates contains 4 calories A gram of fat contains 9 calories. Got it On a 2,0. Youll get the same number for 4. For the 2. 0 percent fat, the equation is 4. For a 2,0. 00 calorie daily diet, in the 4. Step 4. Start Meal Planning. Now you have your number. But you cant eat a number, and you cant predict how itll make you feel. So while there are classic ratios you can start with, like 4. Try something like 4. If you find your energy lagging, you may want to try increasing your fats. Nutrition for bodybuilding is part science and part art, and were always trying to strike the right balance between the two. Get as close as you can to your macros, and when youre not at home or are in a rush, eyeball your portions as best you can. Along the way, dont make yourself crazy with the calculations. Get as close as you can to your macros, and when youre not at home or are in a rush, eyeball your portions as best you can. If your protein is a little low one day and your carbs are a little high on another, dont freak out. The last thing you want is for the stress of calculating perfect macros to kill your motivation for eating well. Also, dont get too hung up on minute differences in the ratios. Eating roughly 4. If you cant track everything, every day, just do your best. It all seems like a lot of work at first, but youll be able to do this on the fly before you know it.