Macronutrients vs. Calories

MRivera422

Macronutrients vs. Calories! How important is it to stay under my recommended macronutrients? I sometimes find myself with a few hundred calories left for the day but I am unable to implement anything because my recommended macronutrients. Some days it is not that big of a deal but other times it is very annoying. Any words of advice?

ana3067

Macros are calories. They are just the specific sources of calories. If you are over on all macros then you are over on calories. Macros are set to your own goals and are not static things that

EvanKeel

MRivera422 wrote: »

How important is it to stay under my recommended macronutrients??

Under? Unless the macros would cause you to go over on calories, or you have a medical condition that prescribes limiting a certain macronutrient, it isn't important to stay under at all.

ETA: Macro tracking in general is more about tailoring your nutrition to certain goals apart from just losing weight. For example, if I'm trying to maintain or build muscle in a deficit or surplus respectively, then tracking protein becomes more important than if i didn't care much about body composition.

MRivera422

Thanks! I was trying to stay under my calories and not have any of my macronutrients go over the recommended too. Thank you for the clarification!

segacs

Some nutrients and macros are targets you want to try to get over. Others you want to try to stay under. It depends what they are.

evarga12

I follow my macro count - there are times where the macros don't equal the calories, generally the difference is from the fiber count. I have an excel spread sheet that calcs (1G of Protein & 1G of Carb @ 4 Calories each & 1 gram of Fat @ 9 calories. I know if I would follow the calorie count my numbers would be way off.

chivalryder

If anything, try to get your protein and fat over your macro goal, but not by too much. Carbs aren't as important.

The reason why you're getting a discrepancy between your macro goals and your calorie goal is because nutritional information labels are all rounded to the nearest 5 or 10 calories. They can be off by up to 10%. Over the course of a day, and week, this can add up to be a big difference.

segacs

evarga12 wrote: »

I follow my macro count - there are times where the macros don't equal the calories, generally the difference is from the fiber count. I have an excel spread sheet that calcs (1G of Protein & 1G of Carb @ 4 Calories each & 1 gram of Fat @ 9 calories. I know if I would follow the calorie count my numbers would be way off.

The problem with that is that it completely fails to account for "empty" calories. For instance, the calories in alcohol are largely from the alcohol content itself, and contain little in the way of macronutrients.

Trust CICO. Then try to get enough protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, while limiting saturated and trans fats, carbs, sugars and sodium. But don't stress about it on a daily basis -- aim for averages over time.

ana3067

segacs wrote: »

evarga12 wrote: »

I follow my macro count - there are times where the macros don't equal the calories, generally the difference is from the fiber count. I have an excel spread sheet that calcs (1G of Protein & 1G of Carb @ 4 Calories each & 1 gram of Fat @ 9 calories. I know if I would follow the calorie count my numbers would be way off.

The problem with that is that it completely fails to account for "empty" calories. For instance, the calories in alcohol are largely from the alcohol content itself, and contain little in the way of macronutrients.

Trust CICO. Then try to get enough protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, while limiting saturated and trans fats, carbs, sugars and sodium. But don't stress about it on a daily basis -- aim for averages over time.

Why would alcohol be empty calories? You can definitely gain weight from drinking too much alcohol if it results in going over your calories. I also track my calories via calculating my macros for the day, I only use the calorie number as a general guideline during the day to make sure I'mn ot going over.

MKEgal

MRivera422 wrote:

Macronutrients vs. Calories! How important is it to stay under my recommended macronutrients?

Depends on what you're tracking.
Going over on fiber would be fine; most people don't get enough.
Going over on fat would probably lead to going over on calories, since it's so calorie-dense.
If you went over on carbs because you had 2L of gatorade that's a problem - empty simple sugar calories. (I used to easily drink that much per day in the summer.) If you went over on carbs because you had a huge stir-fry with lots of colorful vegetables and some brown rice, not as much of a problem because those complex carbs come with nutrition & fiber.

As long as you're close most days, being a little over or under on any of them isn't a problem. It will average out. If you're consistently over on, say, fat, you'll want to look at ways to change your diet to be healthier.
Be flexible, and aim to improve rather than to be perfect.

lemurcat12

ana3067 wrote: »

segacs wrote: »

evarga12 wrote: »

I follow my macro count - there are times where the macros don't equal the calories, generally the difference is from the fiber count. I have an excel spread sheet that calcs (1G of Protein & 1G of Carb @ 4 Calories each & 1 gram of Fat @ 9 calories. I know if I would follow the calorie count my numbers would be way off.

The problem with that is that it completely fails to account for "empty" calories. For instance, the calories in alcohol are largely from the alcohol content itself, and contain little in the way of macronutrients.

Trust CICO. Then try to get enough protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, while limiting saturated and trans fats, carbs, sugars and sodium. But don't stress about it on a daily basis -- aim for averages over time.

Why would alcohol be empty calories? You can definitely gain weight from drinking too much alcohol if it results in going over your calories. I also track my calories via calculating my macros for the day, I only use the calorie number as a general guideline during the day to make sure I'mn ot going over.

Her point is that counting your macros would ignore the vast number of calories in something like wine (unless you add an "alcohol" macro). A glass of malbec has 120 calories, but only 2 grams of carbs, no protein or fat.

The other problem with going by macros rather than calories is that the rounding is likely to make the calorie count from the macro counts less precise. If your deficit isn't that tiny it probably doesn't matter, but that's one reason I focus on calories first. (Beyond that, I don't mind if my carbs are a bit over and my fat under or vice versa and similarly don't care if my protein is higher than usual so long as I hit my minimum.)

ana3067

lemurcat12 wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

segacs wrote: »

evarga12 wrote: »

I follow my macro count - there are times where the macros don't equal the calories, generally the difference is from the fiber count. I have an excel spread sheet that calcs (1G of Protein & 1G of Carb @ 4 Calories each & 1 gram of Fat @ 9 calories. I know if I would follow the calorie count my numbers would be way off.

The problem with that is that it completely fails to account for "empty" calories. For instance, the calories in alcohol are largely from the alcohol content itself, and contain little in the way of macronutrients.

Trust CICO. Then try to get enough protein, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, while limiting saturated and trans fats, carbs, sugars and sodium. But don't stress about it on a daily basis -- aim for averages over time.

Why would alcohol be empty calories? You can definitely gain weight from drinking too much alcohol if it results in going over your calories. I also track my calories via calculating my macros for the day, I only use the calorie number as a general guideline during the day to make sure I'mn ot going over.

Her point is that counting your macros would ignore the vast number of calories in something like wine (unless you add an "alcohol" macro). A glass of malbec has 120 calories, but only 2 grams of carbs, no protein or fat.

The other problem with going by macros rather than calories is that the rounding is likely to make the calorie count from the macro counts less precise. If your deficit isn't that tiny it probably doesn't matter, but that's one reason I focus on calories first. (Beyond that, I don't mind if my carbs are a bit over and my fat under or vice versa and similarly don't care if my protein is higher than usual so long as I hit my minimum.)

When I do drink I usually do quick add calories anyways because it's on occasions I am not bothering to log thoroughly.

When I first started and only looked at calories, I wound up calculating my macros and this calculation showed that the calorie count was about 100+ calories over, sometimes much more. If I go over by a lot on one macro it can also really skew the calorie number. Tracking macros works much better for me. If I were to log alcohol I would simply calculate my macros and then add however many calories were in the alcohol.

segacs

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Her point is that counting your macros would ignore the vast number of calories in something like wine (unless you add an "alcohol" macro). A glass of malbec has 120 calories, but only 2 grams of carbs, no protein or fat.

^ This.

If you're going to quick-add alcohol calories, then fine. I just choose to add *all* calories and to look at them first. My secondary consideration is to stay within +-5% on my macro targets, roughly speaking. But I don't stress too much about them.

There are certain nutrients that I track more carefully than others. For instance, I keep a close eye on calcium and on fibre, because I don't usually get enough of either. I also track iron carefully because I've had issues with iron deficiency in the past, but I take a doctor-prescribed supplement and my levels have been fine lately so I'm not worrying about that one as much anymore.

YMMV.