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If you're looking to achieve your fitness goals, tracking your macronutrient intake is essential. Our Macro Calculator can help you determine the ideal daily intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fats to reach your goals. Learn how to use it and start making progress towards your fitness aspirations.
Understand the Basics of Macronutrients
Before using our Macro Calculator, it's important to understand the basics of macronutrients, and why tracking them is important.
Macronutrients are the three main components of our diet: protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
Each macronutrient plays a different role in our body and has a different caloric value.
Protein is essential for building and repairing muscle tissue, carbohydrates provide energy for our body, and fats help with hormone production and nutrient absorption.
By tracking your macronutrient intake, you can ensure that you're fueling your body with the right nutrients to reach your fitness goals.
Let's take a look at how you can use our calculator to improve your health!
Determine Your Daily Caloric Needs at Rest
The first step in using our Macro Calculator is to determine your daily caloric needs. This is the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight.
Our calculator takes into account your age, gender, height, weight, and activity level to give you an accurate estimate.
Once you've inputted your base numbers, our calculator will provide you with your BMI, or Body Mass Index. This number, while certainly not indicative of overall health, provides a decent measure of a person's overall body fat percentage.
You will also have the option to change the way your BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate, is calculated. This number gives us a good idea of how many calories your body burns at rest so that we can figure out how many calories you'd need to maintain your current body weight.
Most people will simply want to use the Total Body Mass Formula. However, if you're someone who pays close attention to your body fat percentage, or have recently had it measured, you can use the Lean Body Mass Formula to try to get a more accurate estimate.
From here, we're going to determine your daily activity level to try and get a more accurate estimation.
Factor in Your Daily Activity Level
Now we need to figure out your daily activity level, including your non-exercise activity and working out. This will help us to understand just how many calories you burn throughout the day.
Daily Activity Level (Not Including Exercise)
Sedentary
Ex: Most of your time is spent working a desk job, driving, or watching TV.
(Adds an additional 20% of your BMR calories to your TDEE)
Moderately Active
Ex: Part of your time is spent working on a computer or browsing social media; the other part is spent doing laundry, cooking, or straightening up your home.
(Adds an additional 25% of your BMR calories to your TDEE)
Active
Ex: Most of your time is spent working on your feet, with little rest time throughout the day.
(Adds an additional 30% of your BMR calories to your TDEE)
Very Active
Ex: Most of your time is spent doing physically demanding work with little to no rest time throughout the day.
(Adds an additional 35% of your BMR calories to your TDEE)
Exercise Intensity Level
Casual
Ex: You're a casual gym-goer who doesn't like to push themselves very hard.
On average, 3 calories burned per minute of exercise.
Moderate
Ex: You're still newer to the gym, but have gotten more comfortable with pushing yourself.
On average, 6 calories burned per minute of exercise.
Vigorous
Ex: You're a highly motivated individual or athlete with difficult fitness goals.
On average, 9 calories burned per minute of exercise.
Extreme
Ex: You're always the hardest worker in the room, and nothing will get in the way of you achieving your fitness goals.
On average, 12 calories burned per minute of exercise.
Next, we need to know how long your typical workouts last, and how many times you work out per week. This will allow our calculator to determine both BMR (calories burned at rest) and calories burned during exercise activity.
Finally, we just need an indication of your fitness goals and how much of a priority they are for you. You'll receive your numbers after this step!
Understanding These Results
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Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): This number identifies roughly how many calories you burn per day, not including exercise.
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Base Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE): This number takes into account both your BMR and the amount of calories you burn while exercising. This gives you a rough idea of the calories you'd need to eat daily to maintain your current weight.
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Goal Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE): This number takes your body composition goals into account and determines roughly how many calories you need to be eating per day to achieve your goals.
Calculate Your Ideal Macronutrient Intake
From here, we can finally use all of our previous results to calculate your ideal daily macronutrient needs.
For the majority of people, all you'll need to do is input how many meals you like to eat per day, how many snacks you'd like, and how large those snacks should be relative to your meals.
I would recommend leaving the Protein Grams per Pound and Fat Grams per Pound at their default values unless you know what you're doing.
Once you've calculated your ideal intake, you can use this information to plan your meals and track progress toward your goals!
Benefits of Using Our Macronutrient Calculator
Our Macro Calculator can be used by a wide variety of individuals to help them better understand what their diet should look like to reach their fitness goals. Let's take a look at some of the benefits below!
Adjust Macros Based on Goals
One of the great things about our macro calculator is that it allows you to adjust your macronutrient ratios based on your specific fitness goals.
For example, if you're looking to build muscle, you may want to increase your protein intake and decrease your carbohydrate intake.
On the other hand, if you're trying to lose weight, you may want to decrease your overall caloric intake and increase your protein and fiber intake to help you feel full and satisfied.
By using our calculator to adjust your macros based on your goals, you can optimize your nutrition and get the results you want.
Track Your Progress and Make Adjustments as Needed
Once you've calculated your ideal daily macronutrient intake using our macro calculator, it's important to track your progress and make adjustments as needed.
This will help you stay on track and make sure you're making progress towards your fitness goals.
You can use a food tracking app or a simple spreadsheet to track your daily intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
If you're not seeing the results you want, you may need to adjust your macros or make other changes to your diet or exercise routine.
Remember, achieving your fitness goals is a journey, and it may take some trial and error to find what works best for you.
Try Out Our Macronutrient Calculator For Yourself!
Access our Macro Calculator here or find it in our tools section!