Macronutrients or Macros are the fat, protein, and carbohydrates that make up a food’s composition.

Gram for gram, macronutrients are what translates to the calorie counts of our food. Carbohydrates and Protein provide 4 calories per gram, and one gram of fat provides 9 calories. When you look at the macros in a meal the numbers of fat, protein, and carbs will make up the calorie count.

If you follow a macronutrient diet you make adjustments in your consumption of specific macros to reach specific goals such as losing weight, building muscle, or maintaining while essentially controlling calorie consumption as well. But when you counting calories alone, you’re not necessarily finding a balance of all the macronutrients your body needs to reach your goals. That’s why counting macros produce much more successful results than calorie counting alone.

And as someone who’s tried every diet out there – yep even the raw food diet. I can speak from experience when I say counting macros works because it cultivates awareness of how to best fuel your body correctly without being restrictive. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase before “if it fits your macros” and it’s true (to some extent) that you can eat the foods you want if it fits into your macro needs. Now I am not advocating a slice of chocolate cake each day if it fits your macros but instead, if you really want that occasional slice of cake and it fits, go for it! It takes a little bit of trial and error to understand how a day is supposed to look but once you get the hang of it you can sort of just innately learn how to balance your macros without a whole lot of effort.

Honestly, the only downside I see to counting macros is that people eat ingredients more so than meals. I’ll see people consuming 6 oz salmon, 1/2 cup brown rice and 1 cup of broccoli and calling that dinner – helloooo boring! Or they’ll consume processed foods because it’s easy to scan a label and track it. Not good. Which is why I created  A Healthy Passion as a solution to real food macro recipes. You just cook, enter a code in my fitness pal to track and enjoy just like you would any meal but the cool part is you’re staying on track and reaching your goals. Because no matter what lifestyle you choose you should feel like a human being and you should be able to stay on track simply and enjoy life!

SO if you want to get started tracking macros you can download our free Macro Meal Planning Guide!

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It’ll teach you exactly how to calculate your macros and start planning to crush your goals.

 

Happy Macro Meal Planning

xo

Kate