Welcome to The Spotter!
My name is Nolan Vannata. I’m a fitness and nutrition coach that helps busy professionals lose weight and have more energy in their daily lives.
This newsletter provides simple, realistic strategies for you to lose weight and build muscle so you can look and feel your best.
What you will learn.
I have several sections in this article, and I want to give you a glimpse of what you are about to learn:
Defining macro tracking.
It’s similarity to making a budget.
3 reasons it’s a useful tool.
How to effectively track your macros.
What is macro tracking?
Macro tracking is the practice of measuring and recording macronutrient intake. If you aren’t familiar with macronutrients, they are the four nutrients from which you can consume, store, and use calories.
Here are the four macronutrients along with their calorie content:
Carbohydrates: 4 calories per gram
Fat: 9 calories per gram
Protein: 4 calories per gram
Alcohol: 7 calories per gram
Macro tracking is commonly used by those looking to change their bodyweight or body composition. In fact, I use macro tracking with my clients when they are looking to change their body composition.
Is macro tracking necessary to change your bodyweight? Not at all, but I have personally found it to be the most useful tool for most people.
Think of it like making a budget
Let’s say you were trying to save money. You can take two approaches:
Habit-first approach
Using habits as your goalposts, resulting in you saving money.
Example:
Cancelling underused subscriptions, changing your date-night to cooking at home instead of a restaurant, deleting sports-betting apps off your phone, etc.
Money-first approach
Calculate how much money is coming in and out of your bank account, then determine the habits necessary to make changes.
Example:
Calculate income and compare it to an average of how much you’re spending on a weekly or monthly basis. From there, you can give yourself a window of how much you can spend to save the amount of money you want, or… find out how to increase your income.
After that, you can determine the habits necessary to get within your spending limit or increase your income.
Here is an example of a habit-first approach to weight loss from one of my favorite Parks and Recreation scenes:
If you’ve ever watched the show, you would know that Andy is likely not the type to track macros, so I doubt that’s what he did here. Despite his success with the habit-first approach, I recommend that most people use the calorie-first approach.
Macro tracking is similar to the “money-first” approach of budgeting. Determine how many calories you are currently consuming vs. burning (saving vs. spending), find out how much can consume vs. burn to make changes at the rate you want, and use appropriate eating habits to start making those changes.
Macro tracking isn’t perfect. Food labels have up to a 20% error rate, calorie calculators can only give estimates of how much you are burning per day, and our bodies absorb and respond differently to specific foods and circumstances. On top of that, you are human and will make errors and forget things.
However, I don’t think there is enough error to make the approach invalid. You can get pretty damn close to the true calorie values.
I have 3 reasons why I think macro tracking is awesome.
Benefits of tracking macros: The 3 A’s
1. Accuracy
Ultimately, tracking macronutrients is the most accurate form of measuring calorie intake, and it’s not even close.
If you are sticking to a habit-first approach to cutting calories, you may find yourself unsure what to do if you hit a plateau in your weight loss. What foods are contributing to your weight gain or lack of weight loss?
With a calorie-first approach, you can see exactly which foods are preventing you from making progress, and you can change your habits in response.
2. Awareness
Every time I have someone track macros for the first time, there are several “oh shit” moments. The common ones are:
“I didn’t know how much fat was in that.”
“Even this has added sugar?”
“I thought I was having WAY more protein.”
“Alcohol has, like, a lot of calories in it.”
If you’ve never tracked, try it for a few days and you may have a similar experience.
3. Accountability
What you measure, you manage.
When you start tracking what you eat, the simple act of tracking might be enough to start making changes. I have personally had clients tell me that they start making healthier food choices for the sake of not having to write down the unhealthier choice in their journal or tracking app.
In fact, this is called the participant bias in scientific research. The participant bias occurs when study subjects change their behaviors or responses to match what they think the researchers want or what is socially acceptable.
Just the thought of being recorded and observed, even in a study that promises that your results will be anonymous, can influence your behavior.
So, whether you are sending your macros to a nutrition coach, or you’re recording it so you can examine it at the end of each week (self-accountability), you may find that tracking in itself is a practice that helps you make healthier choices.
How to start tracking your macros
1. Commit
You might be thinking, “Okay, this seems like a lot of work. I don’t think I have time for this.”
I have 2 objections to that:
Nearly all of us have spare time that we usually spend on something unproductive.
It’s not as time-consuming as you think!
Most macro tracking apps have enormous libraries of foods already in their database, and some have barcode scanners so you can quickly log packaged foods.
I promise you… give it a few days to get comfortable with whatever app you use, and this will be a 5-minute-per-day task.
2. Measure everything, but don’t stress perfection
Tracking only works if you measure literally everything, but that doesn’t mean you have to bring out your food scale when you grab a couple of French fries off of your friend’s plate. In that case, you might just record it as “1/4 servings of French fries”.
Measuring everything catches sneaky calories, like a late-night drink at the bar, sugar and cream in your coffee, and small snacks throughout the day. Those things add up, and it only takes a few seconds to get a “good enough” recording of those things.
Again, record everything you eat, but don’t worry about being 100% accurate.
3. Pick a method that works for you!
I recommend the MacrosFirst app. I think it’s the cleanest and easiest to use. However, Myfitness pal, Cronometer, Macrofactor, Loseit, and many more that I have not listed, are also great options. Look at the features, try a few, and see which one you like best.
There’s also nothing wrong with the classic pen and paper!!!
Summary
I am a very habit centric coach, but I usually advise against a habit-first approach to weight loss. Rather, I recommend finding a calorie window and then finding the necessary habits to get yourself within that window.
This isn’t about obsessing over numbers. In my opinion, tracking macronutrients is primarily an awareness and accountability tool.
What’s next? The Power of 20-Minute Workouts
Is work leaving you with no time or energy to reach your goals?
I help busy professionals lose fat and build muscle with time-friendly fitness and nutrition plans so they can have long term weight loss success and more energy in their daily lives without constantly preparing food or spending hours exercising.
If you’d like to hear more about how I can help, schedule a free call with me by clicking this link.
For more information, visit thespottercoaching.com.
Great post — I’m gonna count macros for the first time this year, and this was very helpful.