Tracking Macros and Calories

At Strong with Sarah, we believe that your approach to nutrition and weight loss should be tailored to your body, your preferences, and your goals. That’s why we don’t have a “one size fits all” approach to nutrition (or to coaching in general!)

a conceptual illustration of an online diet program

When you begin your journey with us, you start with one of two nutrition tracks: either focusing on healthy habits or tracking calories/macros. While healthy habits are about incorporating healthy foods and improving your lifestyle gradually and sustainably, tracking macros and calories is for those who are either looking for faster results or a more concrete structure to their nutritional intake.

This page shares more information about tracking macros and calories, and how our clients who choose this method for their nutritional intake make progress on their journeys with us.

What Are Macros and Calories?

Macronutrients, or macros, are the essential nutrients that your body needs in order to provide energy and properly function. There are three types of macros, and these are:

Proteins

Proteins provide 4 calories of energy per gram consumed and are required to build tissue, support the immune system, and produce enzymes and hormones.

Plus, proteins help you stay full while trying to lose weight.

Ideally you should consume between 25% to 35% of proteins, such as beef, tofu, poultry, fish, and eggs.

Carbohydrates

Carbs, similarly to proteins, provide 4 calories per gram consumed but take a bigger part of your plate. It’s another source of energy that is taken from glucose received from food.

The recommended daily intake of carbohydrates is between 25% and 40%.

The sources of carbohydrates are fruits, starchy vegetables, grains, and beans.

Fats

Fats contain the most calories, precisely 9 calories of energy per gram. Depending on your goals, you should aim to consume about 20% to 35%.

Healthy fats support brain function, hormone production, and nutrient absorption.

The best sources of healthy fats include oils, meat, fish, nuts, and avocados.

Calories, on the other hand, are the units of energy that you also receive from food. What’s interesting about calories is that the amount of calories listed on a product does not necessarily equal its nutritional value. For example, fruits, vegetables, and diet sodas all contain low amounts of calories, yet their nutritional value is quite different.

How to Count Macros vs Calories

Although macros and nutrients are related and both provide the energy your body needs to function, counting them requires two different approaches. Calories are the total energy consumed, while macros are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats that contribute to your daily calorie intake.

Let’s break down how to count macros vs calories:

Counting Calories for Weight Loss: This is the method most often used for weight loss, where you simply monitor your daily calorie intake. Tools like MyFitnessPal can help track the calories in the food you eat.
Counting Macros for Weight Loss: This method involves focusing on your overall caloric intake, but also the amounts of protein, carbs, and fats that make up the foods and drinks that you’re consuming. Each gram of protein and carbs equals 4 calories, while each gram of fat equals 9 calories. To count macros, you can use a nutrition tracking app, like MyFitnessPal. In return, you aim for specific daily goals or ranges for each macronutrient. If this sounds confusing, don’t worry - MyFitnessPal does the work for you! If you log an apple into MyFitnessPal, the app will automatically break down the macros and calories for you.

Here is an example of how to calculate macros and calories:

Counting Calories: With calories, you simply track the total amount of calories in the foods and drinks you consume throughout the day. With tracking calories only, it’s easy to “spend” all of your calories on less-nutritious foods throughout the day, which leads to hunger and irritability on your weight loss journey. For example, let’s say you are aiming to eat 1450 calories while trying to lose weight. If you went to McDonalds and ordered a Big Mac, medium french fry and large (regular) coke, that comes to roughly 1080 calories, or roughly 74% of your daily calories from one meal. That only leaves you with approximately 370 calories for the entire rest of your day. I don’t know about you, but I would be so hungry the rest of the day trying to stay within the 1450 daily calorie goal!
Counting Macros: Macros are different, and your macro goals depend on your body, your lifestyle/preferences, and your personal goals. Let’s take the same goal of 1450 calories and choose a ratio of 40% or 580 calories from carbs, 30% or 435 calories from proteins, and 30% or 435 calories of fat. That same Big Mac, medium fry, and large coke contains only 124 calories from protein, 360 calories from fats, and a whomping 568 calories from carbs. Knowing that you are only left with 12 grams of carbs for the entire day, you could prioritize protein and fats with your remaining 370 calories so that you feel more satisfied and full.

Why Track Macros versus Calories for Weight Loss?

While counting calories can help with weight loss or maintenance, tracking macros takes it a step further by emphasizing nutrient balance. Here is how:

Personalized Nutrition: Counting calories is good, but if you aren't getting enough proteins or fats, then your diet may not be getting all of the nutrients that your body needs to thrive. Hence, your macro needs will be based on your goals, either to lose weight or gain muscle, and your lifestyle and preferences.
Sustainable Results: According to one study, balancing your diet with enough proteins, fats, and carbs ensures you don’t have nutrient deficiencies and can focus on your well-being and weight maintenance rather than solely on calories.
Improved Performance and Recovery: With a balanced diet, your body receives enough protein to build muscle, carbs for energy, and fats for hormonal balance.
Allows all foods to fit into your nutrition plan: As you saw from our McDonalds example, counting macros helps you enjoy ALL foods while still prioritizing nutrients so that you feel full and satisfied while eating in a calorie deficit.

Tracking Macros made Easy with Strong with Sarah

The Strong with Sarah Calorie/Macro approach to nutrition tends to lead to results that are a bit quicker than our healthy habit route. This approach is great for those looking to see quicker results and for those who want to learn more about what is IN the foods they eat.

With the calories/macros approach, we have you complete an intake form upon starting coaching with us. This form provides my team and I insights about:

your height,
current weight,
bone structure,
activity level,
nutrition preferences,
and more.

After you’ve completed the intake form, my team and I perform numerous calculations to create your daily calorie, protein, carb, and fat goals.

You log everything you eat and drink in MyFitnessPal, and we sync up with your account in MyFitnessPal so that we can see your food diary every day in real-time. Talk about accountability!

Based on your consistency in tracking, the results you’re seeing, and how you are feeling (in terms of hunger and fullness levels), we may adjust your calorie and macro goals during our time together.

We also understand that, for many people, tracking macros can seem overwhelming at first. We get it! Like many things in life, there is a learning curve with tracking macros. As your coaches, we are here to help answer questions and teach you how to track effectively. We can also start slower if that works best for you (for example - only tracking calories and protein intake to start.)

Our coaching app (Everfit) syncs with your MyFitnessPal account, so that you can easily view your daily macronutrient intake with fun, interactive rings.

Please know that at Strong with Sarah, we understand that tracking calories and macros can be an amazing tool for weight loss, but it is not a long-term strategy for most people. Heck, I don’t currently track my calories, and neither do any of our accountability coaches (and we have ALL maintained a healthy weight for years!).

At some point on your journey with us, we encourage ALL calorie/macro clients to transition to healthy habits with the help of your accountability coach. This helps to ensure that your weight loss is sustainable long-term!

Strong with Sarah nutrition coaching app

Benefits of Tracking Nutrition in MyFitnessPal

illustration of a nutritionist explaining macros

When working with a weight loss coach at Strong with Sarah, you not only get your own private account within our coaching app and continuous support from our coaches, but we also use MyFitnessPal - an easy-to-use calorie and macro tracking app.

MyFitnessPal is an app where you can:

Track your food intake in calories or macros
Track your water intake
Track your fitness progress
Access healthy recipes from Strong with Sarah

MyFitnessPal offers many benefits for those wanting to lose or maintain weight, including:

Track Macros Internally: The biggest advantage of the fitness and calorie tracker is undoubtedly monitoring your food intake internally. You don’t have to make any notes–it’s enough to log in and add your food to your account, and MyFitnessPal automatically breaks the foods you eat into the appropriate macro splits.

Free Access: With Strong with Sarah, you can actively benefit from the app for free and access extra materials that we share with you. MyFitnessPal does offer a premium (paid) version that has extra features, but the free version works great for coaching with us!
Largest Food Database in the World: Another benefit of MyFitnessApp is that it contains the largest food database in the world! Many of the foods you already eat are availabile in the food library, making tracking easy!
Easy to use on phone or computer: MyFitnessPal works seamlessly on both your smartphone and computer, making it convenient and easy to log your food in two separate places.
Recipes and Meal Planning: With MyFitnessPal, you can easily create and save your favorite recipes, check their nutritional value, and plan your meals in advance–a very convenient option for clients with busy lifestyles.