Count Calories vs Count Macros

Count your calories? Or count your macros? What is the difference and what would be better?

Well lets break down the difference so you can decide for yourself.

First a few reasons you would want to count your calories or count your macros, would be to:

Lose weight

Gain Muscle

And to keep yourself accountable

Counting calories means you count every single calorie for what you consume. As I mentioned in my previous article – Caloric Deficit How To Lose Weight (click to take you to that article which also has a link for a calorie calculator). The amount of calories necessary in a day depend on a variety of factors.

Counting macros entails counting the grams of protein, fat and carbs of whatever you eat. Macros can be broken down into calories since:

1 Gram of protein: 4 calories

1 Gram of carbs: 4 calories

1 Gram of fat: 9 calories

What is better and why? Well with macros you can make sure you have the appropriate balance for your goals. Counting calories or macros will make you more aware of your eating habits, which in turn will lower the amount.

Paying attention to what we consume, helps keep us accountable.

So how are we going to count the calories or macros in order to find to be in a caloric deficit? There are two ways.

The best and most accurate way would be to have a food scale. You would weigh everything you eat.

The second way is not as helpful because by using nutrition labels, you could be up to 20% off of your correct total (which is obviously huge if you are trying to lose weight!)

Depending on how you cook your food, how accurately you are dispersing your serving size, and how our bodies individually digest the food – you could be way off!

Do I need to count forever?

Now, counting your calories or macros is not something that you have to do the rest of your life. This is something you can do to give yourself an idea of what you need in order to fuel your day. It will also let you know what it takes to reach your goal.
When you become familiar with counting your calories or macros, you will also get a sense of what you are eating in a day without needing to actually plug in the numbers.

Whether you have any questions or need some help getting started, please feel free to reach out! I would love to help you get to your goals!

Lastly, if you are looking to count your macros – click this to take you to a handy macro calculator

Your Coach Chantal Alexis – Simplifying fitness to get to your best you!