How to Start Counting Macros Without Getting Frustrated

Nikkiey: If you are learning macronutrients or trying to get into macronutrients, I can tell you that one of the biggest things that was so frustrating to me was that I was over or under every single day at the end of the day, because I was tracking as I went during the day. So make sure that you plan ahead.

What's going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident.

I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 55. Today I'm going to share with you six things that I wish I knew when I first started counting macros. I'm going to go back to, I think it was 2017, 2018. It was in between my years of bodybuilding, when I wanted to learn how to do this in a sustainable way. I don't know if I ever shared this with you guys or mentioned it, but macros isn't what got me results.

Counting macros isn't what got me results. Understanding macros and counting macros is what gave me sustainability and longevity with my fitness goals. I shared my story with you in episode one. Back in 2015, when I was working with a bodybuilding coach, I was following a bodybuilding diet, something I would never recommend for you guys or the women I work with, because it's not realistic and it's not sustainable. It was just a meal plan.

That is why I'm so against meal plans and handing you a meal plan if I'm going to work with you, because it's so fixated on maybe six different food items, when there is a plethora of food items that you could learn about, understand, read the labels for, know the portion sizes of, and incorporate into your routine. That's why I love macros so much. But back at the beginning of my journey, I was following literally a freaking email: here are your six meals for the day.

And it got me results. It got me results in bodybuilding, but it ain't sustainable and it's not realistic. It was the same shit: eggs, egg whites, chicken, ground beef, tilapia, rice, sweet potatoes. It was very bodybuilding and bro diet-esque, right? So counting macros isn't what got me the results. Following a bodybuilding diet is what got me those quick stage results. But learning macros is what gave me results for the long term.

The reason I still have the results that I do now, eight years later, is because I learned macronutrients and tracking macronutrients. But this is the funny part. These are things I wish I knew when I was making that transition away from following a meal plan and bodybuilding stuff to learning and tracking macronutrients, with all the different food options I now had at my fingertips. And it was a rough go, guys. It was rough. For the first couple of months, I threw in the towel at least a handful of times.

And it was for the same reason a lot of you do too. It's hard at first. It's not something that I would expect you to know in a week's time and be able to, boom, bang, done, track all of your food in one day without any frustration or any mistakes. It was a decent amount of months. I don't remember how many, but I remember the time frame: back in 2017 to 2018, and a little bit after that, because I did a show in 2018.

So I had to go back to the bodybuilding diet stuff. There was a period of time that I struggled, and like I said, I wanted to throw in the towel a couple of times. I vaguely remember standing in my kitchen trying to weigh all the food and getting frustrated because the macros weren't aligning at the top. I'd be over 20 grams on carbs and under by five, or I'd be under in fats and over in protein, and then vice versa on different days.

And I was like, man, this is so freaking hard, right? But those were my biggest mistakes, and that's what I preach to this day. So we can start getting into these with that little story. The reason I share it with you is so you know you are not alone. When I bring myself back to that point, I think, I wish I knew all of these things when I first started. If you're just starting out on your journey and you want to learn macronutrients, macronutrients are literally a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life.

It is not another diet. It's not, here's your meal plan, follow this. You have so much opportunity with food. You get to enjoy your food. You're not restricting yourself. You can have anything as long as it fits into your numbers for the day. It's a numbers game. It's literally just science, right? So the first thing I wish I knew, and this is the one that tripped me up and why I was standing in the kitchen going, damn, I'm over 20 grams and I don't know what to do anymore.

It's frustrating. Why can't I get it? What do I have to do? It was so frustrating, and it happened a lot. The biggest mistake I was making is that I was planning my days as the day went on. I would track my breakfast after I was done eating my breakfast. I would track my lunch after I was done eating my lunch. I would track my snack and my pre-workout afterwards. So by the end of the day, I had to scramble to make some weird-ass concoctions to fit the rest of my macros, instead of planning ahead.

I cannot stress this number one mistake, and the importance of what I learned, enough, because I see so many women doing this. They start tracking their macros and they do it all throughout the day. So by the end of the day, you're in the same boat I was. You're 20 grams over on carbs. You're 50 grams over in fats. You're 50 grams under on protein because you consumed all of these fats and carbs that you thought also had protein in them.

And you forgot that you need lean sources of protein, and you have to figure out how to get more protein in that doesn't have fats or carbs in it. So at the end of the day, you're frustrated, and I get it. It's because you're not planning ahead. I can say that because that was me too. I did this long enough to get extremely frustrated, to the point where I wanted to throw in the towel, until one day I said, you know what? I need to freaking plan ahead. I need to plan my meals in advance. I need to plan everything the day before. That way I'm not making mistakes the day of and being over or under.

And so that I can be successful in hitting the numbers I'm supposed to be hitting. I cannot tell you guys how much of a game changer that was. I sat down the night before and planned out my breakfast. I usually had five or six meals a day. I planned out my breakfast, my snack, my lunch, my pre-workout, my post-workout and dinner. Nowadays I just have breakfast, lunch, pre-workout, post-workout and dinner. And I planned all of these the night before. What I would do is say, okay, what proteins am I going to have? Because protein was the most important macronutrient, and at first I didn't know how to hit it.

I knew some at this point, but at this point in my journey, I was still figuring out what foods contained protein, and I wanted to learn how to incorporate new things into my plan rather than just following a freaking meal plan. So I'd ask, what is the protein I'm going to hit for the day? And I would put that into all five or six of my meals. Usually it was around 20 to 25 grams of protein. This is the way I would do it: whatever your protein goal is for the day, divide that by how many meals you're going to have in a day.

Then have that as your target number. Now, you don't have to be perfect. I want to talk about this in a second. Have that as your target number for those five or six meals. Then put in the foods that you're going to have. So, egg whites. Then I would have Greek yogurt, which is something I could never have when I was bodybuilding. That was one of my favorites. The concoction was freaking Greek yogurt, frozen fruit, which is another thing I didn't have bodybuilding.

And peanut butter. Oh, it was so freaking good. My mouth is watering right now. But anyway, I put in all the protein I was going to eat. The next step was, okay, what am I going to have carb-wise? So I put all my carbs in. Another tactic is to take your target number for carbs that day and divide it by five or six, however many meals you eat. Same thing with fats. And you just log everything the day before.

That way, the next morning, or even that night, you can put all your food in the Tupperware. You can get all your food prepared, and it's in the fridge for you to just grab in the morning, put in your lunchbox and go.

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At that point, you're so set up for success. If someone says, do you want to grab lunch, or should we go out and grab some food, it's like, no, dude, I have my food. I worked hard to do this. I planned my meals. I packed my meals. So if you are learning macronutrients or trying to get into macronutrients,

I can tell you that one of the biggest things that was so frustrating to me was that I was over or under every single day at the end of the day, because I was tracking as I went during the day. So make sure that you plan ahead.

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What's that saying? Fail to plan, plan to fail. It's so true. So plan ahead, you guys. That way you're not over or under with your macronutrients, you're already set to go, and you're hitting them plus or minus five. That brings me to perfection.

You don't have to be perfect if you are trying to track macronutrients. Start slowly. Maybe that first point I just talked about is something you have to work on, so work on that. Let's say you've never done macronutrients before. Remember, I had an understanding of it because I came from the bodybuilding world, so I knew some things that had protein, fats and carbs. Let's say you don't know what food is made up of.

What are carbs? What are fats? What is protein? And where do I find them in food groups? This is where progress over perfection comes into play: not trying to be perfect, just making progress. A couple of different scenarios are popping into my head here. Number one: you're learning to track macronutrients. Let's not track all three of them right out of the gate, because if you try to do that, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be like, why can I have these carbs and these fats,

but I can't hit my protein? Because you're probably having protein bars that have a shit ton of carbs and fats in them and a very limited amount of protein. So you're probably getting frustrated. Why can't I have all these things? Just focus on protein. Don't focus on carbs and fats. Just focus on hitting your protein number. That's it. Focus on hitting your protein number for the first two weeks, and then gradually increase the number of carbs and fats that you start tracking.

It is a marathon, not a sprint. If you've never tracked macronutrients before, you don't have to know how to track them in the first seven days, like I said at the beginning of the podcast. You don't need to be perfect. It's progress over perfection in this scenario. Another one is that when I say track macronutrients, I always tell my women that you want to be plus or minus five with each macronutrient. What I mean by that is, let's say you have a target number of 130 grams of protein in a day.

You can be plus or minus five of that, and you will fall so easily into that plus or minus five category. And that's okay. Same with carbs and with fats. And some people even argue that your carbs and fats can fluctuate as long as you're hitting your overall caloric number, and I believe that too. I don't want to get too complicated, because I know a lot of people are like, how would I be able to do that? But if you're more advanced, it's way easier to learn how to do that. I would say just learn to hit plus or minus five in each of your categories, with each of the target numbers you're focusing on.

And then another one is progress over perfection: don't stress about being perfect. It's okay to have days where you go over or under your macros, as long as you aim to hit the targets most of the time. Just getting into macronutrients is going to be a little frustrating, like I've already established, until you really feel comfortable taking off your training wheels. Think about it with that analogy. You're riding a bike. Think about how hard it is to ride a bike at first. It's the same thing with macronutrients. It takes time up front. It takes time, effort, practice and determination to learn this.

But I can tell you guys that it is so rewarding, all the things you learn, when you know all the opportunities you have with food and you literally do not have to restrict one single thing. But it comes from putting time, work, dedication and practice into learning macronutrients. So some days when you're first starting out, let's say the first three to four weeks, you're really trying and putting in the work, but some days you're falling short, and that's okay. You don't have to be perfect when you're just trying to figure all of this stuff out.

So if you are going under or over your macronutrients, maybe by more than the plus or minus five in your first entry stages, that is okay. I want you to know that's okay. It doesn't mean you're failing. At the end of the day, reflect on how you can get a little bit closer to your target numbers. But as long as you are hitting your target numbers the majority of the time, you are winning. So if you go under or over, don't get hard on yourself, beat yourself up and say that you can't track macronutrients.

What I love to say to people, and listen to me loud and clear, because I have said this so many times to women who come to me and say tracking macros is so freaking hard: I ask, well, have you tried to track macros? And in some scenarios they say no. And I'm like, well, then how do you know it's really hard? In another scenario, some people say yes. I ask, how long have you tried? They say a week. And I'm like, look, I get it. It's learning something completely new. But think about the reward you're going to get from it.

And yes, at the beginning it's going to be a little hard, but it's only as hard as you make it. If you are dedicated to the goals you want to accomplish and why you want to accomplish them, and you want to have no food restrictions along your journey, then this is your answer. So you have to go towards the answer. When you're learning anything new, or changing something you never thought you were able to do before, like introducing carbs when people say carbs are terrible, yeah, your mind's going to play with you, but it's only as hard as you make it.

So put the effort in, do the work, but don't stress about being perfect. Those are the first two things: plan ahead, and don't stress over perfection. The next one is being patient. You saw with the first two that in some scenarios it can be frustrating at times. You might want to throw in the towel, and your patience is seriously tested. Counting macros, as I've already established on this podcast and will continue to as I share the benefits of macronutrients,

is a long-term commitment, and it can take time to get used to tracking your food and hitting your macros consistently. But as long as you are putting in the time and effort, and you actually are, not just saying you are while doing half-ass work, if you're doing it consistently for a month, guess what? After a month of actually putting in the work and trying, you're going to be a little bit faster and better than you were at week one.

And guess what happens? It all compounds. Come month three, you're a little bit faster and better than you were at month one, and pretty significantly better and faster than you were at week one. Then the same thing happens at six months, and the same thing happens at one year. And let me tell you guys, to this day, I don't even have to think twice about food or numbers or what is on my plate, or spend time tracking.

I can sit in MyFitnessPal midday, track all the food I've had so I know where I'm at for the rest of the day, and be solid, and it takes under a minute's time. I should do a time challenge of how fast I can track my food for one day. No joke. It doesn't take me much time anymore. At the beginning, though, your patience really gets tested, because it's a long-term commitment and, like I've already established, it's time-consuming at first.

But the more you do it, the easier and faster you get at it. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. Life on it. I know it because I'm here eight years later. And I know it because the thousands of women who are putting in the work, learning these methodologies with macronutrients and tracking their food, are in the same boat after two or three years of doing it. There are women inside of WarriorBabe who have been with us that long. So be patient. So far we've talked about plan ahead, which is the first one, don't stress over perfection, and be patient.

Another one I wish I knew at the beginning of my journey is adjusting your macros as needed. The first set of numbers you start to play with, or that your coach gives you, is not your end-all, be-all macros that you live with for the rest of your life. Your macros are going to be adjusted as needed as you continue with fat loss and as you move through different stages.

If you guys want to learn about all the different phases, fat loss, maintenance, building, being in a surplus, all the different things when it comes to changing your body composition, along with an understanding of macros, I don't remember what episode it is, but I did an hour-long episode on that. It's so good. It's golden. It gives you a newfound respect for changing your body composition and understanding the different phases you have to go through. And you will have to do that multiple times. It's not just one deficit, and it's not just one go with whatever your starting macros are.

They need to be adjusted as your body changes and your results change, to speed up progress a little bit more or take away some things. And when you're done with a cut, it's like, okay, let's start adding in more food while staying relatively the same with the results you saw from your cut, and just get your caloric number and your macros up. So your macros need to be adjusted over time. At the beginning of my journey, I was like, oh cool, these are just my numbers and I'm going to sit with them. Then three weeks in, I'm like, why am I not seeing anything?

Or four weeks in. And notice those weeks. It's not that after one week you're going to be like, boom, I'm seeing tons of results. It could be three, four or five weeks for your body to adjust to these macronutrient numbers and for you to start seeing progress. So I was like, why am I not seeing anything? And I didn't know to adjust. I didn't know to pull macros down, and maybe play with energy expenditure at that time with what I was doing in the gym, like increasing intensity there.

That will help with breaking through to the progress you want to see, along with pulling macros down a little bit. So it truly is just altering some things, and it's not a big, drastic difference. Maybe you're thinking, okay, Nikkiey says I need to drop my carbs from 200 to 130. That's not what I'm talking about. It's literally the smallest little tweaks, like 125 calories and whatever that works out to in macros. Usually it's fats and carbs that you're pulling down when you're trying to go a little deeper into a deficit so you can see fat loss.

But it's not drastic. It's literally 125, maybe 150, maybe a max of 200 calories that you're pulling down, and it's a combination of carbs and fat. So just know that your starting macros are not your forever macros. That's what I really want to pinpoint with this point that I wish I knew when I first started counting macros: your macros will need to be adjusted as you progress and as you go through different stages of changing your body composition and building more muscle.

So don't get attached to the idea that these are your starting macro numbers and you'll follow them for six months. That's sometimes not the case, and they need to be adjusted throughout. Another one that pops into my head right now is seeking professional guidance. I'm not kidding. When I was making that transition from the bodybuilding world to learning about macronutrients, I can't tell you how many times I argued with my bodybuilding coach about learning what macronutrients were. And he was like, absolutely not.

And then I went on to learn about macronutrients. I went on to use macros for competitions. And I was like, damn, man, there's a whole other world. When I switched from bodybuilding and that restrictive plan I shared with you to more opportunity with food and all the abundance of food I had, wanting to learn how to track macronutrients, I hired, I think,

I had two macro coaches. So there's no shame. I'm a coach, certified in all the stuff. There's no shame in a coach having a coach. And I shared the eight benefits of having a coach in a couple of previous episodes. But I was able to buy their mistakes, their professional advice on macros, their tactics, their techniques, their lessons learned, all of it. Having that and seeking that professional guidance saved me time in learning macronutrients.

I was able to accelerate my understanding of macronutrients way faster because I had somebody giving me insight into my day-to-day and how I was doing things. That's why I think the fifth point is so important: seek professional guidance. If you're unsure about how to count macros, or you need help learning about all the abundance and opportunity you have with food and not feeling like you have to live in restriction, consider working with a coach who has this professional background so they can guide you in the right direction.

And that is what WarriorBabe is all about with our VIP one-on-one coaching. We're going to help you understand macronutrients. If you've never tracked macronutrients before, we're going to help you with what I said earlier: not stressing over perfection, starting pretty slow, focusing on protein, and letting the other things fall where they may while hitting an overall caloric number. That's phase one if somebody has never tracked macronutrients before. But most importantly, the coach is going to guide you along the way with adjusting your macros and all of these things, so you can accelerate toward the results you want, but also in the understanding and learning you're going to get with macronutrients.

Okay, so that was number five. The last one I wanted to say, and I actually wanted to say this a little earlier: when I say you have an abundance and opportunity with so much food, a lot of people think, oh, I can fit in ice cream and pizza and burgers and all of the bad shit, the processed shit. And that's not what it's about. I'm a firm believer that with macros, if you're eating the right stuff, if you're eating whole food, you're going to feel so freaking good.

I guess what I'm trying to say with the sixth one is: learn how to read food labels, but also know that there's a balance when you're tracking macronutrients. It's not just eating all of the foods you want. You still have to have some discipline with eating whole food and healthy food, almost an 80-20 balance, right? Every single night, I have chocolate, because it fits into my numbers and it still gives me that sense of fulfillment.

I'm not restricted. I can have chocolate whenever I want to. I can have ice cream whenever I want to. But it's all about balance. So balance, reading your food labels, understanding all of that is what encompasses number six. And another thing is that you want to make sure you are using a tracking app. So that could be number seven. Now I feel like I'm going all over the place with number six. But most importantly, the majority of your meals throughout the day should be whole foods, nutrient-dense foods.

You're not having three protein shakes and two protein bars, or two protein bars and one shake. You should limit those to about two a day, so one protein shake and one protein bar, or two protein bars. Actually, I wouldn't even have two protein bars or two shakes. I would have one shake and one protein bar if needed. Because the thing with those, you guys, is that a protein shake or a protein bar doesn't have all the nutrients you would find in whole foods.

Nutrient-dense foods, like vegetables, sweet potatoes, oatmeal and rice. I'm thinking of a shit ton of foods that would be considered whole foods, as opposed to just a protein shake. There's more nutrient value in making foods from the grocery store than in grabbing a quick processed snack from a gas station or something like that.

So make sure the majority of your food is whole foods. And then maybe you want some Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That comes to mind because I literally had it the other day when I was at my parents' house, and it fit perfectly into my macros. I had a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with unsweetened almond milk, and it was so freaking good. But I'm not having that every single day. I'm having it in balance when I'm craving something. You don't want to restrict yourself, because that's not the world of macronutrients.

You want to give yourself that craving, because as soon as you have it, in moderation and not a shit ton of it, it fits into your plan. Then you're going to feel fulfilled, and you're going to feel that craving go away. You're not going to feel like you have to have it all the time. It's satisfied, and it's gone. For me, I really enjoy having chocolate every single night because it's a wind-down thing. It fits. It's Dove dark chocolate, the ones with the red wrappers, and I get a shit ton from Amazon.

But I only have two to four pieces. That's the thing, you guys. It's not like I'm having 10 or 12 or 20 pieces. I'm having two to four pieces, and that's enough for me. So make sure you understand that. You can have the foods you want. You can enjoy them in moderation and in balance. You can't go and have an entire bag of Dove chocolate, because that's totally not in alignment with your goals and what you want to accomplish. So it's like, okay, two to four is enough.

It's going to curb my craving, and I don't want any more than that, because going beyond that takes me away from what I'm trying to accomplish for myself. So those are the six things I wish I knew when I started counting macros, you guys, and I hope that helped you. Again: plan ahead. Don't stress over perfection. Be patient. Understand that your macros will be adjusted over time. Seek professional guidance if you need it. It will seriously accelerate your understanding of macros and your results.

And lastly, know how to read food labels. Know to choose whole foods over processed foods. And learn to live in balance with yourself, without feeling like, here I am on another diet, restricting this because I can't have it. You can have it when you're tracking and learning macronutrients. It's all about balance and moderation and making sure it's within your target numbers for the day. It's all just science, guys. It's literally all just science. And I thank God I learned this world of macronutrients.

I learned more about food, and I have such a healthy, profound respect for food. And I get to eat a shit ton of it now, which is amazing. Because when I first started my journey and was first doing bodybuilding, I was literally eating like a damn bird, and I'm somebody who loves food. I love food. So now getting to have what I want, when I want it, all in balance and all in alignment with my goals, just makes me so happy. And I want the same thing for you guys.

I want you to learn all of the things around macronutrients, because again, it's a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. It's not another diet. I hope you guys enjoyed this, and I truly hope it helps you, especially if you're just starting out on your journey and you're thinking, these are good nuggets to know and incorporate, and now I know I'm not failing. So I hope they helped you, and I'll see you guys in the next podcast. Peace out.

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