How To Track Your Macros? Use These 6 Quick Tips

What do you think?

It takes too long to track your food?

No way!

I'm going to show you how to save over 90 minutes tacking your macros and food every day.

And promise me this...

Don't roll your eyes at some of these. Some of these tips are proven to melt body fat.

Let's get into it!

6 Tips For How To Track Your Macros

Step 1: You Can't Be Perfect

If you don't know how I use My Fitness Pal ... you should learn. Click the banner below and download my Macro Cheatsheet. I'll show you!

Plan Smart Eat Real free macro and meal planning cheatsheet

Get the most accurate macro numbers to start with
Use My Fitness Plan? Don't use this feature
5 healthy... delectible... dessert recipes
Plus a custom one week meal plan

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At the end of the day when you're entering your meals you'll probably see something like:

Nearly perfect on calorie intake...
Protein is close to perfect too...
Oh yeah... carbs are near perfect...
But wait... you still have 12 grams of fat to get...

What should you do?

Go grab a stick of butter and take a bite or drink some olive oil?

Yuck! And no!

Tracking is NEVER 100%. If you get this close... it's a great day.

And if you're further off. Forget about it.

It's the end of the day... take a quick review of:
How you feel off your numbers so much
What you can do tomorrow to get better

This will take practice.

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Being perfect causes so many women to fail in both fitness and nutrition.

If you screw up... let it go immediately and get better right away.

Don't let messing up and not being perfect become excuses for why this won't work... or why you can't do this...

Nobody is perfect.

I mess up every single day. But I don't let my mess ups stop me from moving forward. You shouldn't either.

Step 2: Measure Food Uncooked

Kindal is measuring some ground beef raw before she cooks it to know the actual grams so she can calculate accurate protein and fat numbers.

I know measuring food can be a hard habit to get into when you're learning this stuff.

But that's why meal planning is so important. If you learn to meal plan the right way... join Plan Smart Eat Real . I do all of the measuring for you.

Here's what you need to know...

Cooking changes food. That's not a surprise... but here's where I'm going with this.

When you cook meat or roast veggies... you're dehydrating and decreases the weight.

If you want to eat 5 oz of chicken... measure the chicken raw.

If you don't two things will happen:

You'll Cook Too Much Chicken

It will be hard to cook the correct amount of chicken if you don't measure it first.

You'll Eat The Wrong Amount of Protein

Let's say 5 oz of chicken has 10 grams of protein.

While I'm sure there is some protein breakdown during cooking... it should be negligible.

So after cooking you'll still have 10 grams.

But if you measured 5 oz of cooked chicken... you're probably getting something like 15 grams of protein.

Doing this once is no big deal... doing it a lot will throw all your numbers off.

Here Are Some Real Numbers

5 Oz Chicken:
156 calories - 44g protein - 1.4g fat

6 Oz Chicken:
187 calories - 53g protein - 1.7g fat

Boiling has the opposite affect. Pasta, rice, and boiled vegetables gain weight after cooking.

Weigh all food before you cook.

Get the most accurate macro numbers to start with
Use My Fitness Plan? Don't use this feature
5 healthy... delectible... dessert recipes
Plus a custom one week meal plan

Download for FREE!

Step 3: Use The Tare Button

Kindal is setting setting her food scale up and pointing to the tare button. This button will make tracking your meals very easy and much less of a headache.

It's pronounced "tear" button.

Every food scale has a button called the tare button.

It let's you put something on the scale and then zero out the scale. This lets you measure something that you will put on or in the food, drink, or container that you initially put on the scale.

Here are some real examples...

Coffee With Cream

If you want to use 30 grams of creamer in your coffee... put your coffee cup with black coffee on the scale.

Hit the tare button to zero out he scale.

Slowly pour your creamer into the cup until you hit 30 grams.

Bam! You're done and it's accurate.

Getting The Right Amount Of Peanut Butter

Take the jar of peanut butter with the lid off and put it on the scale.

Hit the tear button to zero out the scale.

Let's say you want to get 33 grams of peanut butter.

Start scooping out small scoops of peanut button until the scale reads -33. Yes... that's negative 33.

The tare button is a game changer. No need to do math when you're hangry and in a rush!

Step 4: Eating Out? Take Your Best Guess

I love eating out.

You can eat out and be healthy. You just can't eat out all the time.

Here's how to track and make the best decisions.

By the way... I cover eating out a lot in Plan Smart Eat Real . You should join... you'll love it!

Here are a few quick tips:

Get to know the menu before you go.

If you know you're going to enjoy yourself a little more... try to control your macros earlier in the day.

Use My Fitness Pal to get a good guess (look for the green check... see below). Or you can do an Internet search.

If you go over your goals for that day...

Don't worry about it. You're not going to be perfect every single day.

The key is to make eating out a special treat... not a regular occurrence like it is for most people.

big idea

Eating out should be something special.

Of course we all have those times in life when eating out is about convenience... and that's okay.

Remember... nobody is perfect and you shouldn't try to be.

But try to make eating out special. That way when you do get to eat out... you can let go and enjoy it for what is should be.

However, if you have kids this can be very tough. And that's why you need to learn to eat out the smart way .

Step 5: Use The Green Checks

The green check means the food is verified in My Fitness Pal. It's not always 100% accurate but it's better than the foods with no green checkmark.

Remember when social media checkmarks meant something?

I used to want the blue checkmark on Instagram so bad. Now... why bother?

But the GREEN checkmarks on My Fitness Pal are valuable.

The green check means the food numbers have been verified. While they are still not perfect... they are as close to perfect as you'll get.

It's unfortunate that most data in My Fitness Pal is garbage.

Remember, any user can enter a food into the app. A lot of junk have been entered in the app over the years.

When you see green... you're good to go.

Step 6: Don't Go Overboard

This can be a hard one. Don't get obsessive with macro counting.

Remember... macros aren't forever.

Counting macros is a tool to help you learn how to eat in a smarter more balanced way.

For some people it helps them eat more, for others eat less.

But no matter what... you'll learn a lot by tracking for 3 to 6 months.

Here are things I never bother tracking:

Sugar-free chewing gum
Sugar-free caffeine drinks (Alani, Reign, etc)
Some low calorie vegetables like kale, zucchini, and lettuce.

Unless you have a hard time getting enough fiber... these veggies aren't going to throw off your tracking if you don't plug them in.

Also remember, once you learn to meal plan the right way ... you never have to worry about tracking again.

Go Get Tracking And Start Melting Some Body Fat

These tips are perfect to get you started. And that's all they are... a way to get started.

If you want to learn more and really dial in meal planning and tracking... go learn about Plan Smart Eat Real .

It's my meal planning program where I do 93% of all the planning for you.

No joke. I've created 8 weekly meal plans with delicious recipes... all with the goal of helping you build a personal menu of 14 to 20 recipes you LOVE by the end of 8 weeks.

Plus I coach you every week about: