Understanding Macros

Welcome to the Eating Healthy’s new Community Health and Wellness blog.  The purpose of our blog is to provide you with information and tips for how to maintain your health and wellness.  Our first blog post is about Understanding Macros.

Do you know what macros are? “Macro” is short fort macronutrients. They’re the three categories of nutrients you eat the most and provide you with most of your energy needs: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. So in order to count your macros you will need to track the grams of protein, carbohydrates or fats that you are consuming.

Just about everything you eat is a carbohydrate, fat, or protein, and sometimes a food fits in more that just one category. For example, your average avocado has 21 grams of fat, 11 grams of carbohydrates, and almost 3 gams of protein.

Not everyone requires the same amount of macronutrients. The amount of each macronutrient a reason needs varies by activity level, genetics, and fitness goals. There’s not one clear cut answer for everyone. You may want to meet with a registered dietitian to get the right macro needs for you.

According to the recommended macronutrient distribution to get you started:

10-35% of calories prom protein

20-35% of calories from fat (limit trans fats and saturated fats)

45-65% of calories from carbohydrates

These basic ranges were developed to reduce the risk of chronic diseases such obesity and cardiovascular disease. Remember, these can also vary by your wants and needs.

According to Amanda Capritto (M.S., R.D.) in her article “Understanding macros: The ultimate guide to counting and tracking macronutrients”, tracking macros over calories is helpful for so many reasons This method of food logging can help you understand which food types of food make you feel good or bad which foods improve your athletic performance and which foods help you focus or make your drag. Counting macros can also help you shift your current eating habits to healthier patterns for a long-term.

Counting macros is beneficial if you are trying to watch your weight, gain muscle mass, or just trying to eat healthy. 

Counting macros can be challenging in the beginning. In order to count macros you will need to the breakdown of each food item you eat. Thankfully there are resources out there to help you do that. You can download an app to your phone or there are several websites that can help you calculate the macros. It does seem a little overwhelming in the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it gets a little easier. You will also need a food scale to weigh your food in order to calculate the macros.

Tracking macros can be time-consuming, but it may also help you meet your weight or energy goals. It might take some time to find just the right macronutrient distribution for you, Carefullyy tracking food intake can also become obsessive and is not appropriate fro everyone, Talk to your healthcare provider before deciding to count macros. 

Resources

Food and Nutrition Board of the Institutes of Medicine’s (IOM)

Understanding macros: The ultimate guide to counting and tracking macronutrients

DISCLAIMER: This is for a class assignment; it is not a real blog.