Macros for Weight Loss: Why Should You Be Counting Them?

Do you count macros for weight loss? It’s essential to count your macros to ensure you’re in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

Now, there are multiple factors that you need to keep in mind when you want to lose weight, and nutrition is one of them. Next, you should understand what it means when you’re supposed to count macros for weight loss.

To understand that, you will need to know the macronutrients, why they’re important, and how they make up your diet.

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Why should you count macros for weight loss?

If you want to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. If you want to gain weight, you need to be in a calorie surplus. This is as basic as it can get.

Weight loss (Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash)

Being in a calorie deficit means consuming fewer calories than your maintenance calories and surplus means consuming more than maintenance. Essentially, a healthy deficit or surplus is 500 calories a day.

Coming to macronutrients, there are three of them:

1. Protein
2. Carbohydrates
3. Fat

Your diet needs to be composed of foods that provide you with all three macronutrients in moderation. The nutrition you provide to your body is as important as the exercise you’re doing.

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Calculating macros for weight loss

Weightloss (Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash)

Now that you know the macros and calories, you must also know that the calories come from the macros.

The next step is to learn how to calculate your macros for weight loss.

Find the macros of an individual of 150 lbs.

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Step 1: Calculate your maintenance calories

This is the number of calories you need to consume to maintain your current body weight.

Maintenance calories = bodyweight in lbs * 14 to bodyweight in lbs * 16

So that’s 2,100 to 2,400 for an individual weighing 150 lbs.

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Step 2: Find your calorie deficit

Of course, you can’t pinpoint to an exact number of maintenance calories, which means you don’t have the exact number of calorie deficit.

Assuming it’s a deficit of 500 calories, the range would be 1,600 to 1,900.

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Step 3: Understand which would be ideal for you

Count your macros for weight loss (Photo by Lily Banse on Unsplash)

If you have an active lifestyle and focus on resistance training at least four to five times a week, go for the higher range. In this case, it’s 1,900 calories a day.

However, if your job requires you to sit for eight hours a day and not lift heavy weights, go for the lower range. In this case, it’s 1,600 calories.

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Step 4: Calculating macros

To do this, let’s set the number of calories being consumed in this scenario is 1,600 calories.

Protein = 0.8-1.2g * per lb of bodyweight

So, in this scenario it’ll be 160g to 240g of protein.

Now, let’s assume the protein consumed is set at 200g of the protein per day.

Fat = bodyweight * 0.3g to bodyweight * 0.4g

So, in this case it’ll be 60g to 80g. Let’s set it at 60g.

Before being able to calculate carbohydrates, you need to calculate how many of your calories are being taken up by protein and fat.

1. Proteins = 4 calories per gram.
2. Fat = 9 calories per gram.
3. Carbs = 4 calories per gram.

As per the above calculations, there are calories being consumed by proteins and fats.

Protein = 200 * 4 = 800 calories.

Fats = 60 * 9 = 540 calories.

Carbs = 1600 - (800+540) = 260 calories.

Hence, the number of grams for carbs = 260/4 = 65g.

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Healthy eating (Photo by Ella Olsson on Unsplash)

Now, it must be remembered that the above is just an example. Usually, when you start calculating macros for weight loss, you shouldn’t start with as low as 1,600. A good place to start is 1,800 or 1,900 and reduce it with time.

The above method can be used to calculate macros for weight loss of both female and male. It’s a generic way of calculating calories and macros.

However, there are several online calculators that will take your height and other measurements into account when calculating your macros for weight loss.

Furthermore, you should take your daily activities into account when trying to count and measure your calories and macros.