Real trouble hitting macros

grantgfleming

I wonder if anyone can help. I'm new to myfitnesspal but I'm having real trouble hitting the macros within the calories it suggests. I reach the calorie goal for the day but still have (quite substantial) carbs, fat and protein goals to hit.

It's not as if I'm overeating one which is putting my calories up and so I don't have any calories left for the other two. I can't reach the goal for ANY of them. How can this possibly work? :S

MikePTY

Check the entries that you are using. The macro totals are not required, so not all entries have them. It is likely that you are using one or more entries that are missing macros.

The other option is that your diet contains alcohol. Alcohol has calories but does count as one of the three macros. So if you have multiple drinks daily, that could be a reason why (if it is not an error with the entries)

If you make your diary public I can have a look.

grantgfleming

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't know alcohol wasn't counted I assumed it was a carb. That explains maybe 1 day a week or 2 max so it's definitely some, if not all of the problem.

I have made my diary public for now (please don't judge me) if you had a free couple of minutes it would be great if you could have a glance and let me know if you spot anything obvious

MikePTY

I see you made it public and it's a combination of things. It seems like you are usually having a couple of beers, which falls under the alcohol category. So that will have calories that don't match any macros. That's why today you had about 400 calories from beer but only a total of 39 carbs and 2 protein (which equals 124 calories, so the other 260ish are from alcohol).

You have something called "morning smoothie" which seems to have a discrepancy. It is listed with 400 calories but the macro split is 32 carb - 4 fat - 30 protein, which only adds up to 284 calories. So that is a big discrepancy there (unless this also has alcohol in it)

On a smaller discrepancy is the "filter coffee" which has 11 calories per serving but no macros. That is not large enough to significantly throw anything off, but it contributes.

So those combination of things would be why you are having trouble hitting your macros.

grantgfleming

Ah great thanks for the help! The morning smooth is banana, oat, protein powder and soy milk. Clearly
there are macross missing in the recipe I made. I'll check the ingredients have the proper macros.

Apart from that looks like I need to cut back on the booze a bit.

Thanks again!

grantgfleming

The oats. There were macros in the oats entry I use for a few things (smoothie, muffins etc etc) missing loads of carbs as a result

grantgfleming

*no macros