How to Count Macros Without Going Crazy

Why macro counting works (when you do not overthink it)

Counting macros is just calorie counting with more detail. Instead of tracking total calories only, you track where those calories come from: protein, carbs, and fat. This matters because two diets with identical calorie counts can produce very different results depending on the macro breakdown.

A diet with 180g protein at 2,500 calories is going to build more muscle than a diet with 80g protein at 2,500 calories, even though the total energy is the same. That extra protein drives more muscle protein synthesis, keeps you fuller, and has a higher thermic effect. Aragon and Schoenfeld laid this out pretty clearly in a 2014 review in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

But here is where people screw it up: they treat macro counting like a mathematical equation that must be solved perfectly every single day. They stress about being 3 grams over on fat. They skip social events because they cannot log the food. They spend 45 minutes building a meal in MyFitnessPal.

That level of precision is neither necessary nor sustainable. You do not need perfect macros. You need consistent, reasonable macros. There is a big difference.

How to set your macros

I am going to keep this simple because it does not need to be complicated.

Step 1: Figure out your calories

Multiply your body weight in pounds by one of these numbers:

A 180-pound guy looking to lean bulk: 180 x 17 = about 3,060 calories. That is your starting point. You will adjust based on what the scale does over the next 2-3 weeks.

Step 2: Set protein

This one is easy. Set protein at 0.8-1g per pound of body weight. For our 180-pound guy, that is 144-180g. I usually round up and just say 1g per pound because it is easy to remember.

180g protein = 720 calories (protein has 4 calories per gram)

Step 3: Set fat

Set fat at 0.3-0.4g per pound of body weight. This ensures adequate hormone production (especially testosterone) and absorbs fat-soluble vitamins.

180 x 0.35 = about 63g of fat = 567 calories (fat has 9 calories per gram)

Step 4: Fill the rest with carbs

Take your total calories, subtract protein calories and fat calories, divide by 4.

3,060 - 720 - 567 = 1,773 calories left for carbs

1,773 / 4 = about 443g of carbs

The final macros for our 180-pound lean bulker:

That is a lot of carbs. Good. Carbs fuel your training, replenish glycogen, and taste good. Stop being afraid of carbs.

The food scale: your best friend for two weeks

Buy a food scale. Fifteen bucks on Amazon. Use it religiously for exactly two weeks. Weigh everything: your chicken breast, your rice, your peanut butter, your cooking oil, everything.

Why only two weeks? Because that is how long it takes to calibrate your eyes. After two weeks of weighing food, you will develop an intuitive sense of what 6 ounces of chicken looks like, what a tablespoon of olive oil looks like, what 200 grams of rice looks like. Your estimates will be close enough for the 80/20 approach.

I am not asking you to weigh food for the rest of your life. That is miserable and unsustainable. I am asking you to do it for 14 days so you actually learn what portion sizes look like. Most people are absolutely terrible at estimating portions before they do this exercise.

A 2006 study by Lichtman et al. found that most people underestimate their calorie intake by about 40%. That is not a rounding error. That is the difference between thinking you eat 2,000 calories and actually eating 2,800. Two weeks with a food scale fixes this.

Tracking apps: which one to use

MyFitnessPal is the most popular. The free version is fine. Huge food database. Barcode scanner works well for packaged foods. The database has some user-submitted entries that are wildly inaccurate, so double-check entries that look suspicious (like chicken breast listed at 50 calories).

Cronometer is more accurate but slightly less user-friendly. The food database uses verified USDA entries, so you are less likely to encounter garbage data. I prefer it for this reason.

MacroFactor is the best if you are willing to pay. It has a built-in adaptive algorithm that adjusts your calorie targets based on your actual weight trend. It basically does the thinking for you after the initial setup.

Pick one. It does not matter which. Use it consistently. The app you actually use beats the "best" app you abandon after a week.

The 80/20 approach to counting

Here is how I actually track my macros on a daily basis, and how I teach the people I coach to do it:

Track protein precisely. This is the only macro that I pay close attention to. Hit your protein target within 10 grams every day. This is the one that matters most for muscle building and the one that most people fall short on.

Track calories roughly. Stay within 100-200 calories of your target. You do not need to be exact. The difference between 2,500 and 2,650 calories on a single day is meaningless.

Let fat and carbs fall where they may. As long as you are hitting your protein target and your overall calories are in the right range, the exact split between fat and carbs does not matter much for most lifters. Some days you will eat more carbs, some days more fat. It all evens out.

This approach takes about 5 minutes per day once you get the hang of it. You log your meals, glance at your protein total, check that calories are in the ballpark, and move on with your life.

Compare that to the person who logs every gram of every ingredient, stresses about meal timing, weighs their vegetables, and spends 30 minutes planning each meal. Both approaches produce nearly identical results. One is sustainable. One is not.

How to estimate when you cannot weigh food

After your two-week food scale bootcamp, you will need to estimate portions often. Here are the reference points I use:

These are not perfect. They are not meant to be. They are meant to get you within 15-20% of the actual amount, which is close enough for sustained progress.

If you are eating at a restaurant and have no idea how the food was prepared, do your best to estimate the protein source (what type of meat, roughly how many ounces), add 200-300 extra calories for cooking oils and sauces you cannot see, and log it. It will be wrong. That is fine. One imprecise day does not ruin anything.

Eating out while tracking macros

Eating out is the number one reason people abandon macro tracking. The food is cooked with unknown amounts of oil, butter, and sauce. Portions are inconsistent. The nutritional information, if available, is often unreliable.

Here is my approach: I do not try to track restaurant meals accurately. Instead, I use these rules:

Prioritize protein. Order something with a clear protein source. Grilled chicken, steak, fish, shrimp. Avoid dishes where the protein is mixed into something else (casseroles, stews) because estimating the amount becomes impossible.

Assume everything has more calories than you think. Restaurant cooking uses way more butter and oil than home cooking. A "grilled chicken breast" at a restaurant was probably cooked in 1-2 tablespoons of butter. Add 100-200 calories to whatever you estimate.

Skip the appetizers and bread basket. Not because those foods are "bad," but because they add calories you cannot easily track and they fill you up before the protein-rich entree arrives.

Do not stress about it. If you eat out 2-3 times a week, the margin of error on those meals is small relative to the 18-19 other meals you ate at home where tracking was accurate. Stop trying to perfectly log your restaurant meals. Log a reasonable estimate and move on.

Common pitfalls that make people quit

Trying to be perfect from day one. You do not need to hit your macros perfectly to see results. If your protein target is 180g and you hit between 160-195g consistently, you will make excellent progress. Progress comes from consistency over weeks, not perfection on any single day.

Logging food after the fact. When you try to remember what you ate at the end of the day, you forget things. You forget the handful of almonds, the cream in your coffee, the bites you took of your kid's dinner. Log meals as you eat them, or plan them in advance.

Obsessing over weigh-ins. Your body weight fluctuates by 2-5 pounds daily based on water retention, sodium intake, carb intake, bowel movements, and a dozen other factors. If you weigh yourself daily and freak out about every fluctuation, you will go insane. Weigh daily but only look at the weekly average. That is the number that matters.

Making it a social issue. Nobody wants to be the person at dinner pulling out a food scale or interrogating the waiter about how the chicken was prepared. Track quietly. Estimate when you need to. Do not make your diet everyone else's problem.

Never taking breaks. Tracking macros is a tool, not a lifestyle. Most people benefit from tracking for 8-12 weeks, then taking a break for a few weeks where they eat intuitively based on the habits they built. Then track again if needed. Permanent tracking leads to burnout for most people.

When to stop counting

Macro counting is a means to an end. The end goal is developing an intuitive sense of how to eat to support your goals. Once you have that, you do not need the app anymore.

You are ready to stop counting when:

• •You can look at a plate of food and roughly estimate the protein, carbs, and fat without looking anything up
• •You naturally gravitate toward high-protein meals without thinking about it
• •Your body weight and physique have been stable or progressing for several months
• •Tracking has become mentally burdensome and you are starting to resent it

When you stop, keep doing one thing: loosely track your protein. It is the most important macro and the easiest to under-eat. A quick mental tally at the end of the day ("did I get my 4-5 servings of protein today?") takes 10 seconds and keeps you on track.

For everything else, trust the habits you built during your tracking period. They tend to stick better than people expect.