What I’m eating now and how I make Macros work for me

Hey lovelies! Today I thought I’d talk about what I’m currently doing to make changes not only to my lifestyle but also to the way I view food. My relationship with food has always been a difficult one.

Like most, I eat when I’m sad, upset and stressed. I hate and love it. I absolutely love food but unfortunately, I don’t have the type of metabolism that loves food…sucks right. Honestly I wish I was one of those people who could eat for days and never put on weight.

Unfortunately I only have look at a chocolate biscuit and I put on a stone…

OK, maybe that’s a bit dramatic but you get the picture.

Recently I watched a vlogger who had been discussing how she’d been tracking her “macros” for eight weeks during a fat loss cut and it had really helped. Personally I’ve tried tonnes of diets, fads and different tricks to try and lose weight, but nothing has truly ever worked for me.

But what are macros I hear you ask?!

That’s exactly what I thought! So macros are your micronutrients. By tracking your macros you are keeping a tally of your Carb, Fat and Protein intake daily. I know it sounds like a lot and a total bore, and trust me, I honestly thought it was going to be a right chore before I started but it’s really not.

Counting your macros I’ve found has been great. It’s meant I can eat normal foods and not completely restrict my diet. I mean the other day I had half of a takeaway pepperoni pizza (yum), and because I’d been sensible during the day, it meant I hadn’t gone over my daily macros. Bonus! But of course, you can’t do this every day if you’re really serious about it.

To calculate your macros you firstly need to work out what your calorie intake should be in a day. It’s quite simple and all you’ll need is a piece of paper and a calculator.

How to work out your calories…

1. 10 x your weight in kg
   (10 x 70.4kg = 704)
2. 6.25 x  your height in cm
   (6.25 x 164cm = 1025)
3. 5 x your age
   (5 x 25 = 125)
4. Add them all together
   (704 + 1025 + 125 = 1604)
5. From the total (1604) minus 161 if you’re female and add 5 if you’re male
   (1604 – 161 = 1443)
6. Then you need to multiply this by a scale of what you determine between 1.2 and 1.6. The scale starts at 1.2 if you have a sedentary job and do minimal exercise during the week and scales up from there. I have only just started taking my workouts super seriously but I have an office job, so I’ve started at 1.2.
   (1443 x 1.2 = 1731.6) This number here is your “maintenance calories”, the calories you need to sustain you.
7. If you’re wanting to lose weight you then need to take a percentage decrease of this number, or an increase if you’re wanting to gain weight
   (1731 – 20% = 1384 calories)

This may seem like a massive drop and when I first started it was a real shock, but I’ve stuck with it. Of course you can start at 10% and work your way to a higher percentage, for example if you’ve done it for a while and then plateau and don’t see any difference.

Once I’d worked out my calories I then worked out my macros…

So to put it quite simple, fats are 9kcal per 1g, protein is 4kcal per 1g and carbs are 4kcal per 1g.

For this you’ll need to know your weight in lbs, mine is 155lbs.

Protein

This means I’ll need 155g of protein for my 155lbs weight. To work out the calories for this you take your 155g and multiply by 4 = 620kcals.

Fat

For your fat you’ll need anywhere between 0.3 and 0.5g per lb of body weight. I decided that as I wanted to cut my fat that I’d go for 0.3. This meant I took my 155lbs body weight and multiplied by 0.3, meaning my fat is 46.5g.

I then take the 46.5g and x by 9 (fats are 9kcal per 1g) = 418.5kcals

Carbs

Your carbs are the remaining off your overall calories which we worked out first (mine is 1384kcals).

1386 – 620(protein) – 418.5(fat) = 345.5(carbs)
Total kcal – fat kcals – protein kcals = carb kcals

Take your 345.5(carbs) and divide this by 4 (carbs are 4kcal per 1g) = 86g for carbs

Phew I hear you say…

I know it seems like a lot of maths and I’m really not a math person by any means so I hope I explained this well! If you need help then I’m more than happy to do this for you 🙂 drop me an email at [email protected].

I’ve been doing this for a week solidly now and have just taken my “week 2” photo for the start of this week, and I’m so pleased to say I’ve already noticed a difference! By mixing counting macros into my daily life with my gym sessions I’m able to get the best out of doing this.

I cannot wait to show you the week by week results for this when I finish in six weeks (sigh it seems like so long!). But for now, here’s how I’m doing so far…

What am I eating now?

I’m pretty much eating the same things. I eat a lot of lean proteins such as chicken breasts, turkey and 5% mincemeat. This is really good for your protein intake as well as things like eggs and white fish.

My good carbs are coming from things like beans, whole grains and quinoa. I’ve found such a nice quinoa at Aldi which I love, and per half a packet the macros are great! If you didn’t already know, things like fruit and coffee are also classed as carbs, something I didn’t know when I started.

Finally my good fats are coming from eggs and avocado mainly, and also yoghurt. I absolutely love eggs and they’re such a good boost!

You can, of course, tailor this to suit you and what you enjoy eating. If I’m ever unsure of anything I’ll always run it past the myfitnesspal app which is great for tracking macros! You can change all these settings on the app under, more > goals > calorie & macronutrient goals, enter your calories and move the percentages until you get to your macros that you calculated earlier.

Let me know if you’re trying anything out at the moment that works, I’m always interested to hear!