Counting your macros when you start a ketogenic diet is important. When doing this you will know the breakdown of your carbohydrates, proteins, and fat. This step is necessary in the beginning to become familiar with what you need to eat to get into Ketosis. Getting into ketosis will allow you to become a fat burner. Once you become a fat burner you will start to lose weight. You will also start to feel better mentally and physically.
if you don’t count macros, you may not be successful on this diet.
What are Macros
Macros or Macronutrients are made up of Carbohydrates, Fat and Protein, they provide you with your nutrition and energy.
1. It is suggested that the following list of Macros be used for a properly formulated Ketogenic diet.
- Carbohydrate: 5-10% (vegetables, such as broccoli, asparagus, green beans, cucumbers, cauliflower, squash, and onions, etc).
- Protein: 15-30% (Salmon, cod, grass-fed beef, dark meat chicken, eggs and nuts).
- Fat: 60-75% (Coconut oil, butter, avocados, olive oil, heavy cream,)
2.How can counting Macros benefit an individual?
Counting Macros can help them make smart food choices to achieve their goals whether it be to lose weight, build muscle or to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It can also help with portion control. It may help people make better food choices, such as organic Whole Foods over processed foods and will also help to keep you from feeling hungry all the time or having low energy.
3. How do you figure out what Macros you need?
You would go to a macro calculator and enter in some of your information like height, weight, male or female, level of activity, etc.. Calculo Keto Calculator has a site to get your personalized calculations. Once you put all your information in it will tell you how many Carbs, Protein, and Fat is suggested for you. Then you would sign up for a My Fitness Pal app where you will give the information it is asking about yourself. When you finish You will see a home button, a diary button, a + button, a progress button and a more … button.
The diary is where you are going to keep track of everything you have eaten for the day. It will consist of Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Exercise, and Water. Once you have finished logging your food and anything else for the day you would go to the bottom and complete the diary then go to the more… button, once you click on it you will see nutrition listed, go to that, under the column nutrition you will see Calories, Nutrients, and Macros. Click on the Macros. There you will see a pie chart as well as carbohydrates (g) Fat (g) Protein (g). This will give you the breakdown of macros for the day. You can also check at any time during the day under Macros to see how many you have consumed so far.
When we first started Keto this was one of the most useful tools we had to make certain we were getting enough of our nutrients. If we weren’t getting enough fat we wouldn’t lose weight, but also had lower energy, but once we made sure to hit our macronutrients by using these apps things started to improve. We hope this can help others the same way it helped us. 🙂
