What are Macros?

If you’ve been reading about the keto diet, you may come across the word “Macros” So, what are Macros?  It’s talked about by many die-hard keto followers and giving advice to newbs (as my kids would say) telling you: “If it fits your macros”, “track those macros”, “your macros may be off”, etc… I was totally confused by it myself.  When you just get started in the Keto world, this can be completely confusing.

What in the hell are people talking about? Exactly what are macros?

Let me explain in laymen terms:

The term “macros” is short for MACRONUTRIENTS in the context of nutrition and the keto diet.

Macronutrients are the energy-giving components of food that fuels our body. They include carbohydrates, protein, and fat; this is where your dietary calories come from. Understanding the concept of macros is important for the keto diet. With most low carb diets you need to find the right balance of carbs, protein, and fats to get into ketosis. You also need to stay in those perimeters to stay in ketosis, and turn your body into a fat-melting mechanism.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that is not essential for survival. There are essential fatty acids and amino acids (the building blocks of fats and proteins), but there is no such thing as “essential carbohydrates”.

Carbs are made up of sugars and starches. In order to successfully reach ketosis, you will need to limit your carbohydrate intake. Fiber is also considered a carb, but it doesn’t count towards your total carb tally. The reason for this is that we can’t really digest fiber so it has a minimal impact on your blood sugar.

So what exactly does this all mean?

When you are looking at a nutrition label, look at the line that says “total carbs”, then to the line that says “fiber”. Subtract the fiber from the total carbs to calculate your net carb count.

Total Carbs – Fiber = Net Carbs

“Net carbs” are just the sugars and starches left over once you subtract the fiber. The net carb count is the macro you should tally up for your meals and track to meet your daily allotment, not necessarily “total carbs”.

In order to successfully limit your carbs, you will need to identify what foods are low in carbohydrates and which ones to avoid. Check and double-check your nutrition labels, look to low carb foods lists or purchase a solid meal plan. Find the specific amount of carbs in the foods you would like to eat and ensure it fits into your allotted amount for the day.

For someone just getting started, 20 grams of net carbs is a great target. It is what Atkins and Keto and many other low carb meals say to stay at.

Carbohydrates provide 4 calories per gram

4 calories x 20 g net carbs = 80 calories
Examples of carbohydrates: sugar, honey, corn syrup, bread, pasta, rice

Protein

Protein is important for growth, tissue repair, immune function, making essential hormones and enzymes, energy in the absence of carbohydrates, and preserving lean muscle mass. As you can see, protein plays a vital role in almost all biological processes. Proteins are considered the building blocks of the body.

The body breaks protein down into amino acids, 9 of which cannot be made by the body. As a result, these essential amino acids must come from the food you eat: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine. A deficiency in protein or any of the essential amino acids may result in malnutrition, kwashiorkor, and other health conditions.

Macros and Ketogenic Diet

For a ketogenic diet, you will need to eat enough protein to preserve your lean body mass. This amount will depend on the lean body mass you currently have, but as a general guideline you will require:

0.7 to 0.8 grams of dietary protein per pound of muscle to preserve muscle mass
0.8 to 1.2 grams of dietary protein per pound of muscle to gain muscle mass

Notice there is only a preserve or gain option above. You do NOT want to lose your lean body mass. I know many of you just want to “lose weight”, but “losing weight” often means losing muscle in addition to fat. Your goal should really be to lose fat and save all the muscle mass you’ve got, so be sure your protein intake is adequate. This is really important for a healthy metabolism and achieving a desirable shape. Stop saying you want to lose weight. You want to lose fat; shift your mindset.

On the flip side, you don’t want to consume high amounts of protein while following a ketogenic diet. Too much protein has the potential to be damaging or stressful to your kidneys and can even affect ketosis. Aim for the ranges above depending on your health and fitness goals.

Let’s say you are 175 pounds with a 40% body fat percentage.

That means you are carrying around 70 pounds of body fat.

175 pounds x 0.40 = 70 pounds of body fat

If you subtract your body fat weight from the total weight, that will show you what your lean body mass is. In this example, you have 105 pounds of lean body mass.

175 pounds – 70 pounds of body fat = 105 pounds of lean body mass

To find your required protein intake, you will take the lean body mass amount and multiply it by your protein requirement ratio (the X grams of protein per pound of lean body mass number). That means, in order to preserve your lean muscle mass, you’ll need to eat 84 grams of protein daily to maintain your muscle.

105 pounds lean muscle x 0.8 grams protein = 84 grams of protein

Protein provides 4 calories per gram

4 calories x 84 g of protein = 336 calories from protein

Examples of protein: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, dairy, tofu

Fats

We need adequate amounts of fat in the diet for energy, growth, and development, absorbing certain vitamins (fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamins A, D, E, K, and carotenoids), providing protective cushioning for the organs, and maintaining cell membranes. Not to mention dietary fats help us stay full and add flavor to our food! And you know we all love flavorful food… 🙂

Fats provide 9 calories per gram
Dietary fat is broken down into fatty acids and glycerol. There are two types of fatty acids that our body can’t synthesize, so you have to make sure you include them in your diet. These essential fatty acids are linoleic acid and linolenic acid.

Because dietary fat is so sating, it’s a miracle for dieters fighting hunger pangs. Think about all those low-fat diets you’ve tried in the past and how hungry you were all the time. Now think about fueling your body with satisfying fats, being full all day, and still losing weight… that’s the keto diet! Not bad right?!

Examples of fats: oils, butter, avocado, heavy cream, animal fat, nuts and seeds

So, how much fat do you actually need to eat?

If you keep your carbs to a minimum and eating the right amount of protein to preserve your muscle, then the rest of your dietary requirements will be met with fat.

To maintain your current weight, then you’ll eat enough calories from fat to support your total daily energy expenditure, which is your resting basal metabolic rate and energy used during activities combined. If you want to shed some fat, then you’ll need to eat at a bit of a deficit so the number of fat calories you eat will be lower.

How to Calculate Macros

To calculate your personal macros, you can do it all manually using the info above. But the information we just reviewed is the basis behind any of the keto calculators you find online. Some use slightly different formulas to calculate their information, but the results seem to all roughly end up the same. This is a really popular one that I use personally: Macro Calculator

Let’s stick with our example of the 175-pound person we used above. Here’s a little more info about the person: She’s a 5’2” woman in her late 40s who has a desk job and doesn’t go to the gym.  She’d like to start working out, but she’s just getting started on the keto diet and doesn’t want to make too many life changes all at once. Remember she’s got around 40% body fat at the moment. Her goal, for now, is to lose fat.

Let’s plug her data into the calculator:

Her base metabolic rate is: 1339 kcal

Her daily energy expenditure is: 1539 kcal

She should be eating about 105 grams of protein (420 calories), 25 grams of net carbs (100 calories), and 70 grams of fat (630 calories). That’s 1150 calories total for the day, a calorie deficit that will support her fat loss.

That’s 9% carbs, 37% protein, and 55% fat.

Low carb, moderate protein, high fat with a small calorie deficit.

Now the woman has an idea of how many grams of carbs, proteins, and fat she should aim for, she knows her macros! She’ll need to choose foods that fit those macros. That means her meals will be planned around low carb foods, eating a moderate amount of protein and eating fat to support her body goals and hunger levels. As her body changes, she will need to recalculate her macros to ensure that she stays on target to meet her goals (stalling on keto is entirely possible and this is one of the main reasons why).

If her goal was not fat loss, her macros would look a little different. Let’s say she was interested in following a ketogenic lifestyle purely for the health benefits. Rather than eating at a calorie deficit, she would eat enough calories from fat to break even for her total daily energy expenditure. She would still eat enough protein to maintain her muscle and keep the carbs low enough to facilitate ketosis, so the extra calories would come from fat. The keto calculator referenced above is a great tool to help you determine the correct macros for your body and personal goals, just be sure to input them correctly!

Track Your Macros

So when someone tells you to “track your macros”, they are actually telling you to do the following:

Identify your health goals. Are you interested in losing fat, building muscle, or simply getting into ketosis for the health benefits?

Determine the number of carbs, protein, and fat you’ll need to eat to get into ketosis and attain your health goals. Using a keto calculator is the easiest and fastest way to do this.
Calculate the macronutrient profile of the foods you want to eat. Check the labels on the package, add up the macros for different ingredients you use, and make sure the carbs, protein and fat fit within your daily allotted macros.

Create a meal plan based around the foods you previously identified and stick with it. (My preference, hands down.) OR If you’re not the plan ahead type, TRACK everything you are eating as the day goes by. Keep an eye on each macro tallying up, making sure not to go over. People track in all sorts of ways: food journaling, apps, spreadsheets. Do whatever works for you.  I use MYKETO on the app store on my apple phone because I am not good at planning meals ahead of time.

But I also like having meal plans that are close to my macro intake.  I use a simple program that is easy to use and I may just switch over to it since it takes all the planning out for me.  I use Tasteaholics weekly meal plan for now.  It is easy with delicious and simple to make foods that keep me on track.  I hate shopping and picking out foods to eat so when I get my shopping list on Wednesdays from Tasteaholics it makes my life easier and easier for me to eat what is good for me.

My Problems

My problem has been and always be my dislike of making food choices… typical girl problem I guess.  But, seriously Tasteaholics has me covered there for now.

And just a heads up: My posts may contain affiliate links. If you do purchase something through those links they won’t cost you a penny more, but I might earn a small commission on them to help keep the lights on.