Macros vs Calories: Which Is Better for Fat Loss?

Nikkiey: Calories determine your weight loss, macros determine how firm and toned you're going to look, and the quality of food you eat will determine how you feel. Contrary to popular belief, it's not just about calories in versus calories out. It's about the type of macronutrients that make up those calories that you're eating and how they impact your hormones and body composition to get optimal results. So sit back, relax, and I'm going to dive into the six benefits of tracking macronutrients instead of calories.

Number one, macronutrients are essential for optimal health and body composition. They provide the energy and nutrients that our bodies need to function properly, and they play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy weight and building muscle. If you're not tracking your macronutrients, you're missing out on some of the most important aspects of diet and fitness.

Number two, macronutrient tracking is a more accurate way to lose fat and build muscle. When you focus on just counting calories, you will lose weight. It's the way of any fad diet out there. They'll put you into a low caloric intake, and yes, you will lose weight. But losing weight will just leave you looking like a skinnier, fatter version of yourself because you have no muscle tone underneath your skin.

When you lose just weight, unfortunately, the weight that you lose will be a little bit of everything. It's going to be fat. It's going to be muscle. It's going to be fluids. Your organ sizes will get smaller. The ultimate goal of successful fat loss is to preserve as much muscle as possible, or possibly even gain some more, while at the same time losing as much body fat as possible. You won't get that by just focusing on calories. You'll achieve that when you focus on the macronutrients that make up the overall calorie intake.

Macronutrients are the essential building blocks of our body, comprising proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Tracking allows us to target those nutrients according to our individual goals and needs. All of them are necessary to have in your everyday diet to build muscle and to lose body fat. It helps ensure that we consume appropriate amounts of each macronutrient for optimal health, fat loss, and to see body composition changes.

Number three, macronutrients provide more sustained energy throughout the day because they help to maintain blood sugar levels and prevent spikes in hunger hormones, allowing you to feel fuller for longer periods of time. Another way to say what I just said is that macronutrients provide signals to help us stay satisfied between meals, making it easier to follow a healthy meal plan without feeling overly hungry or deprived. This is all thanks to the macronutrient king, protein.

Counting calories is just an arbitrary number, so you wouldn't know how much protein is in something since you aren't paying attention to that. The only attention is on how many calories are in this one meal. It could be all carbs and fats with little protein. So appropriate protein intake helps you maintain blood sugar levels, prevent hunger spikes, and feel fuller for longer.

Another big thing when just focusing on calories is that you could consume more simple carbohydrates without even knowing, because you're just focused, again, on the arbitrary calorie number and not on what the calories are actually made up of. Those simple carbs can cause an insulin spike followed by a crash in energy. Complex carbs, on the other hand, and you would know this by learning more about macronutrients, are a better source of long-term energy, which prevents crashes from happening.

Real quick, if you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand the methodology of how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today.

Macronutrients also contain micronutrients that can help boost your metabolism and provide essential vitamins and minerals to fuel your body's processes. Tracking macronutrients instead of counting calories helps provide stable energy levels throughout the day while optimizing fat loss and muscle gain at the same time.

Number four, macronutrients help regulate hormones that impact body composition, by being the building blocks for hormones, allowing your body to create hormones like testosterone, estrogen, insulin, cortisol, and leptin, which all have an effect on your body's composition. Macronutrient tracking helps people get the right amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in order to regulate hormone levels adequately. Eating too few or too many macronutrients can lead to imbalances in hormone levels, which can have a negative impact on muscle growth and fat loss goals.

Tracking macros also helps you understand how different foods affect your hormone levels so that you can make better food choices when it comes to reaching your goals. Eating a balanced diet with the right amount of macros helps to optimize hormone production and, like I spoke to a few minutes ago, keeps your energy level stable throughout the day, rather than just counting calories. Macro tracking gives you precise information about what nutrients you need, as well as how much of each nutrient is required, in order for you to reach your goals. Paying attention to your daily macronutrients is key for optimal health and performance. So tracking macronutrients when trying to regulate hormones can be beneficial for any fitness goal.

Number five, macronutrients improve digestion and the absorption of food. Paying attention to your macronutrient intake can help to regulate the digestive enzymes that break down carbohydrates, proteins, and fats into smaller components so that they can be absorbed efficiently. Getting the right amount of macros for your needs also provides the necessary energy for digestion and absorption to happen, helping to keep your metabolism running effectively. Having your metabolism run effectively and work with you instead of against you is how optimal fat loss will occur.

Macronutrient tracking also ensures that you get enough fiber in your diet, which is essential for healthy digestion, as it helps to move food through your digestive tract more quickly. Furthermore, tracking macros can help people who have illnesses or health conditions that affect their digestion and absorption of nutrients, as they can adjust their diet accordingly to meet their individual needs. Macronutrient tracking is a great way to ensure that your body is getting all of the essential nutrients it needs for proper digestion and absorption of food so that you can maintain good health and reach your goals.

Number six, macronutrient tracking is easier than counting calories. Now, contrary to popular belief, it's true. Macros aren't that hard once you get the hang of them. With macronutrient tracking, you can adjust your macros quickly when needed by simply adding or subtracting from one or two macronutrient sources, rather than having to count every calorie in all of your meals and snacks.

For example, this is how we teach it inside of WarriorBabe. If you are over on your protein intake for the day, all you need to do is go to one of your meals and lower the quantity of protein in that meal. For instance, if you have four ounces of chicken in your salad for lunch, all you need to do is change that to two ounces, and that will help you hit your target protein for the day. This makes macro tracking much more flexible for those who have busy schedules or don't have time to count calories every day.

Macronutrients also provide a better representation of overall diet quality, as they are more inclusive of the vitamins and minerals that are essential for health, while calories don't take nutritional value into account at all. Like I said, calories are an arbitrary number. You are only focusing on the quantity of a meal: a 400-calorie meal that goes towards your 1,800-calorie goal. Yet that meal could be a slice of pizza, all carbs and fats with little protein. Not really quality there, and your energy will most likely be mush afterwards. Whereas if you focus on the quality of a 400-calorie meal like steak, sweet potatoes, and vegetables, which consists of all the macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fats, you'll notice a dramatic increase in your energy levels.

Lastly, macronutrient tracking is much more sustainable in the long term because it allows people to make small changes over time that add up to big results without having to be very restrictive with their diets.

So there you have it. Six benefits to tracking macros instead of counting calories for fat loss and building muscle. If you're looking to take your fitness game up a notch, I highly recommend that you start tracking your macros instead of just focusing on counting calories. Macronutrient tracking is a much more accurate way to gauge how many nutrients you're eating, and it helps to ensure that you're getting the right amount of each macronutrient for optimal health and performance.

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