This is a beginner’s guide on how to count macros for weight loss. They say that counting macros is the best way to lose weight, so here are the basics.Counting macros can be the key to losing weight and getting in shape, all while keeping your bank balance healthy.
A step by step guide covering what, why and how to count macros. Find out how low calorie diets can help you lose weight fast!
Tracking your Macro Diet
Your daily food intake is a good source of information for understanding how many kilocalories your diet contains. This way, you may be able to determine whether the foods you’re eating are actually providing the correct amount of essential nutrients. If, however, there are fewer or more foods available in a given day, you’ll need to adjust your diet accordingly.
A lot of people often opt for counting macros or meal replacements for managing their diets on a regular basis. There are two ways to measure the amounts of macronutrients consumed in your meals – via weighing them, or by multiplying it with other food amounts. The latter method has been shown to be the most effective. With that said, I recommend using an accurate weighing system.
While counting macros is convenient, this doesn’t come without its side effects. One of those side effects being losing weight, especially when following a high-fat diet. Unfortunately, a typical diet isn’t meant for everyone. According to Harvard Medical School, “A low weight gain is typical after 12 weeks of eating a low-fat diet”; therefore, someone might start off gaining weight due to one’s self-induced appetite.
To avoid this, you should choose products that contain a portion control, which ensures that you eat only what you feel like eating (not too much, not too little, and not at all). Another option when choosing a diet for weight loss is intermittent fasting. Intermittent, short periods of overeating periods where you aren’t eating for at least two hours can cause rapid weight loss, as long as the food eaten is moderate in fat and protein content, without any major changes in calorie intake and quality.
These kinds of diets require a strict intermittent, but well-balanced plan – you shouldn’t skip meals, but instead maintain a consistent eating pattern for a certain number of meals you eat a week.
That’s why they’re called weight loss diets; when people succeed with intermittent fasting, they’ve proven that it works for them. While intermittent fasting is an alternative to continuous feeding, counting macros requires monitoring the amount of fats, sugars, and so on in their diet. In addition, it also exposes you to the risk of over-eating, which will lead to weight gain, so stick to your portion control or limit yourself to no more than 2 portions of food per day.
If that’s not possible for you, consider buying meal replacements or shakes for weight loss. They’re easy and affordable, and give you the convenience of a diet without the extreme guilt. Just remember that you should always consult a nutritionist before trying anything new, particularly if you don’t know much about nutrition.
Although healthy habits may seem easy at first, such as staying away from soda and processed and junk foods, they may take time, so it is important to keep up and maintain a balance. Weighing a minimum of 6 kg a month is also recommended to ensure proper nutrient levels. Also, since muscle and water are quite different items, water and protein are often combined.
For instance, having 1 cup of filtered water that you drink every day and consuming 5 tablespoons of tofu protein shake twice a week is safe. It is especially important if you do sport or competitively exercise, because not drinking enough fluids is linked with increased body temperature.
Remember also that drinking water and salt water is still necessary, especially for babies.
Macros for Weight Loss Have you tried intermittent fasting? Well, if yes, you already knew that you need to keep on track with your food intake, as you should aim to burn up to 2,500 kcal (1,300 kcal) of body weight a day. Since you’re burning up a significant amount of calories daily, a higher daily rate of energy consumption is desirable, specifically if you’re exercising regularly.
However, for a higher degree of cardio, a lower amount of protein is required. Thus, depending on your workout intensity and fitness training goals, you could burn around 0.5–2 kg of bodyweight with the corresponding amount of carbohydrates, without hitting your recommended dietary limits.
Moreover, keeping the right food proportions and ensuring adequate water intake are crucial factors to follow when aiming to achieve better results. Having a healthy dose of fats and sugar intake is mandatory if you want to reach the recommended average weight or height gain.
As mentioned earlier, if you go up to 3 kg, a substantial amount of muscle growth is expected. Because muscle increases up to 10 kg every year, you may be tempted to overload your metabolism by increasing caloric intake and decreasing their oxidation state. Such behavior can have multiple consequences, including slowing down and even possibly causing injury, and is considered risky if you stay overweight for longer.
Therefore, if you burn through your daily calorie intake, consider reducing the amount of carbs and replacing them with proteins. For instance, replacing 1 kgs of carbohydrates each day with the same amount of protein serves the purpose rather than doubling the food intake. So how do you calculate macros? When you’re weighing, add the weight of all food items to weigh down, meaning all ingredients and/or beverages that contribute to total calorie intake.
But the reason to include that is to make sure that all your nutrient needs, including vitamin C, iron, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, zinc, and zinc, are kept intact. If all your dietary requirements are met, you’ll get the equivalent number of kilocalories and thus your daily energy expenditure is kept within your targets.
On the other hand, when you’re subtracting the weight of the food intake, multiply all calories by 1.4 to account for protein, and then divide that by 15 (to compensate for the 2K cal deficit), you get the daily energy needs of 1–3kg of bodyweight.
All these formulas take into account your age and gender. While the above method takes into account your actual weight, it’s always better to use a different method, mainly because measuring body weight has a bias towards men due to their physical appearance and genetics, while women tend to have more fat mass on their waistlines.
How Can You Check Your Healthy Carb Intake? Nowadays, we are aware that fats are harmful and bad for our overall health.
If you look at the percentage of the energy intake that comes from fat – a gram of protein is roughly 16 kilocalories, which is a tiny fraction of total daily calories. While fats provide the majority of the energy that children require for growing and maintaining muscles, they are responsible for nearly 24% of people’s total daily calorie demand.
And while fats do help build body temperature, when they are oversupplied, their beneficial effect wears off, leading to weight gain. Therefore, if your fat intake is under 3kg a day, a dietician would advise you to increase your fats and limit your total mealtime to four hours. Otherwise, your body won’t receive the maximum benefit of fats as it was.
It is well known that excess fat causes insulin resistance, which is the breakdown of fats to form glucose, causing weight gain and obesity. Therefore, while fats do bring benefits, such as increased muscle mass, more energy, more blood vessels, etc., they don’t do you any favors if you feed too much fats, causing symptoms of pre-diabetes and diabetes.
An ideal amount of fat should be around 1kg/m2 a day and, since humans are born as equal beings with similar genetic make-up, a small amount of variation is normal. The optimal amount of fats should be between 3kg/m2 and 4kg/m2.
How Much Water Does My Body Need? Water intake is one of the most talked-about elements in the human body. After all, it flows everywhere. Being dehydrated puts our bodily functions in jeopardy. Even though the body regulates the dosage of fluid, it is crucial to have enough to sustain a normal body’s function and facilitate bodily functions.
The appropriate level is about 8–10ml with athletes, although anyone who drinks more than two cups of water would have to get up in bed or, preferably, a urine color test, to be diagnosed with dehydration. People of every age should be careful not to become severely dehydrated, as it will affect their body functions, such as heart function and digestion.
An ideal hydration should be around 90ml/h. However, if you’re looking for alternatives to water, consider herbal teas, sports drinks, and fruit juices (preferably organic ones). Teas are very alkaline and can irritate the digestive tract, causing bloating. Sports drinks are full of electrolytes and minerals similar to natural water.
Fruit is a great choice, as it helps balance the diet, reduces sodium, and promotes healthy digestion. Studies show that the best mix of water and fruit is a drink and a half-cup of ice as the rest are replaced by fresh juice.
In conclusion, if you want to drop unwanted pounds and see results quicker, keep track of nutrition, eat a balanced diet of complex foods, avoid unhealthy fats, keep on track with your workouts, and be careful of the amount of water your body needs while avoiding dehydration.
