Macros in simple terms
“I’ve counted calories before and I’ve used My Fitness Pal but I have no idea what “macros” are?”
Most of us are familiar with calories and counting calories – this gives us a numeric target to hit on a daily basis, lets use 1800 as an example.
So you could eat Rice Krispies all day and once you stay within 1800, your hit your calorie target. However that wouldn’t be a very balanced approach.
Well this is where using Macros comes in… and we talk about the use of proteins, fats and carbs.
An Example
For example lets say your aiming for calories of 1905. When we use Macros, we break down your calorie number into a suggested balanced split for protein, fats and carbs.
130g protein = 520 calories (4 cals per gram)
65g Fat = 585 calories (9 cals per gram)
200g Carbs = 800 calories (4 cals per gram)
Total calories: 1905
Going back to our Rice Krispie eater, if you ate Rice Krispies all day, you would end up over on your carbs target and under on your protein and fats .
So using macros encourages you to make food choices based on composition of the calories, as opposed to just the total daily number.
The Facts
From a factual scientific perspective, “macros” are macronutrients, which are types of food.
Macros in simple terms are ways of “organising food into categories“.
The categories we’re concerned with are:
1. Protein
2. Fats
3. Carbs
As humans we like things to be organised and neat – however food and dieting is often chaotic with lots of different views and so much information it can be a bit overloaded.
Using “macros” is the simplest way we have found to create an approach to food that is balanced, easy to understand and allows for greatest adherence to energy balance in order to achieve results.
You can use this approach no matter what your goal is, it will give you knowledge and understanding which will empower and allow you to moves towards a more intuitive eating approach
Starting Out
The biggest challenge starting out is figuring out “what type of food is what?”
So whats what:
I’m going to do a walk around the kitchen with you right now and we’ll see whats what:
- Meat, fish, poultry – these are all primarily protein.
- Yogurt, cheese, dairy – these are also mostly protein and fats.
- Salad (all green leaf), tomatoes, cucumbers, onions etc etc… all fall into the Veggies / Greens catagory.
- Eggs – these are protein & fats.
- Everything in the Fruit bowl – all carbs.
- Cereal cupboard – all carbs, some cereals will contain protein (sugar puffs for example) and some will contain more fats (musseli).
- Pasta, crackers, rice cakes – again all carbs.
- Biscuits, cereal bars – these are all more processed items and would need to read the labels but primarily carbs and fats.
This is not a definitive list, simply a starter guide. So you can see where we are going with this….
Macros are like the language of food, so using our food guidance is like learning a new language – your going to learn to speak food.
Once your fluent you will have full control over food choices and be empowered to reach your fitness goals using our food philosophy.
Larry
Ready to get started? Join my online Food Course or get both Training and Food Guidance from me.
