Tracking Macros but Not Losing Weight? 7 Common Mistakes

Nikkiey: Tracking your macros is hard. It can be uncomfortable to begin with, because there are certain things you need to start implementing into your life that are different from what you're doing right now. But let me remind you that in order to get to where you want to be, you have to do things that are different than what you're doing right now. And I'm not saying that you need to weigh every single thing for the rest of your life. But if you are in an active fat loss phase and you're not seeing the results, switching from cups to a food scale and weighing in terms of grams is often one of the fastest ways to find the discrepancy and why you're not getting the results that you want to be getting.

What's going on, everyone? Hey, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show with your host, Nikkiey Stott. On these episodes, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. Today is episode number 350, and y'all, I'm leaning on this one. I want to talk to the woman who has been tracking her macros for months or even years, who's consistent, who's logged her food, who does all the things, and she's still not seeing the results she thought she should be seeing by now.

Because here's what I've noticed working with thousands of women: there's a massive difference between tracking and tracking accurately. And most women who think they're tracking accurately are actually the ones who are just tracking. I've been hearing women say, "Yeah, I've been tracking. I track macros. I've been doing this for years. I know what I'm doing." But they're not where they want to be.

If they were tracking and doing all the things, they would be where they want to be, right? So something isn't aligning with that thought process. Today I'm going to talk about the most common tracking mistakes I have seen, including some that are so subtle you will probably never catch them on your own. This could be the reason why you're saying, "Yeah, I'm tracking, I know I'm tracking," but you're not where you want to be. These subtle little mistakes could be why. I'm specifically going to go through seven of them.

Hopefully by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly where your data might be off, where your tracking might be going a little astray, and exactly what to fix, so that you can confidently say, "Yeah, I've been tracking," and it shows in the results you want. This was actually inspired by my team. They brought this to me and said a lot of people are saying they're tracking, and we want to be able to identify the missing pieces when people say they're tracking but they're not getting where they want to be.

Okay, I think I said that like five times now. Anyway, before we get into the mistakes, I want to set the foundation first, because I think it's important to understand why tracking accurately is such a big deal. Macro tracking, using an app to track, following through: it works when your data is accurate. When your data is off, even slightly off, even consistently in small ways, your body is living in a completely different reality than what your app is telling you.

And then you end up troubleshooting the wrong things. You're adjusting targets that don't need adjusting. How many of you go two weeks following the macros you've been set and you're like, "Well, nothing's happening. Nothing's changing"? So then you don't track for an entire week or two, then you try to change your numbers in hopes that will make a difference. And when that's not working, you start blaming your metabolism, when the real issue is that maybe you didn't allow the time. There are so many variables behind the picture in what I just said, right?

But maybe you just didn't allow enough time for your body to adapt to the numbers before you changed it all up. And I know there are women nodding their heads like, "Yes, that's me." First of all, let me just tell you, that was me when I first started my journey, for a year straight, maybe even a little longer. I would try something, and if it didn't give me what I wanted in two weeks, I'd be on to the next thing. I'd be changing something up. So I know how your brains work, period. So for example, let's say you're consistently underestimating your food intake by just 200 calories a day.

That's not a lot. That could be the sauces, which is one of the mistakes, or a splash of olive oil here and there, or a handful of nuts, or a sauce that you didn't log, right? But 200 calories a day is 1,400 calories over the course of an entire week. That's the equivalent of an entire extra day of eating that your app has no record of. And then you're sitting there wondering why you're not losing weight. Accurate tracking, let me just say, is not about you being obsessive.

It's about having data you can actually trust, so that when something isn't working, you know what to adjust. Maybe you're doing this blindly, or you're consistent for two weeks, not consistent for one week, consistent another week, half consistent for a week, fully consistent, right? If the data is there, it lets you know, "Hey, I'm not being at least 80% consistent, and this is why I'm not getting the results," because the data is telling you. But if you're just blindly going about it, or you're not logging and being true and honest about certain things, then you're not going to know what to adjust.

You guys know I had to do this in a previous episode. When I get passionate about things, I can get really heated and animated. But I just want you to win at the end of the day. That's where all this is coming from. Okay, let's get into mistake number one. Mistake number one is tracking Monday through Thursday and then eyeballing the weekends. This is the most common one I see, and the one that quietly destroys more progress than almost anything else. You can track beautifully all week long. You're hitting your numbers.

You're logging everything. You feel on top of it. Then Friday night rolls around and you go out to dinner. Saturday, you have brunch with your friends, and you're going to the movies with your family. Sunday, you're relaxed, you're cooking at home, and you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to estimate what I'm eating." And then Monday, you're back at it. Let me peel back what that looks like in terms of math and data. The math nobody wants to hear is this: if you're eating in a 300 to 500 calorie deficit Monday through Friday, or Monday through Thursday,

but then you're going 500 to 1,000 calories over Friday through Sunday, you're not in a deficit for that entire week. You're actually in a surplus. Your body doesn't care that you tracked perfectly and beautifully for four days out of the week. It only knows what it actually received, which is not a deficit. It's you eating more than you were intending to eat.

The weekend is not supposed to be a break from your nutrition. Your body is running 24/7, seven days a week. What you eat Saturday absolutely, 100% counts. Let me narrow it down. I could get into the weeds here, but I'm not going to get too into the weeds. If you are in a cut and you're trying to lose body fat or weight, and simultaneously trying to get to that toned physique with strength training and building muscle, being as consistent as you possibly can in that phase is so important.

Tracking Monday through Sunday is so important for you to get the results you want to see on a weekly basis, which then compound over four, six, eight, 12 weeks, and months on end. If you're in maintenance, or you're really focusing on building muscle where you need to be in a surplus, this is where your weekends and this kind of tracking can be a little more lenient. But the majority of you are wanting to be in the fat loss phase, right?

So this is important. What you eat Saturday absolutely counts. The fix here isn't perfection on the weekend, so don't hear me saying that. It's more about you being honest with what you're eating, so you can see where you're falling short. Log it even if it's not pretty. Again, you don't have to be perfect. I've talked about this in episodes: you don't need to be perfect, you need to be consistent. And this is a form of consistency, because consistency is you being honest by logging. Maybe you're going out to brunch,

and then you're going to the movies and having popcorn. Be honest with it, even if it's the MyFitnessPal checkmark-approved version. At least it's in MyFitnessPal or your tracker, and you can see the data. Because when you can see the data, you know what you can fix. You know where you fell short. You know you're going to try to do better next weekend. Inaccurate data is worse than imperfect data. So that's mistake number one: tracking Monday through Thursday and then eyeballing the weekends.

You're not actually in a deficit, which is what your body needs to be in to lose body fat. You're either maintaining or you're in a surplus. And rightfully so, that can have its own place. You can be in that type of phase at some point in your own journey. But if you want to lose body fat, being consistent Monday through Sunday is important. Mistake number two: I know a majority of women out there use the free version of MyFitnessPal,

or free versions of apps that give you percentages versus grams. This one's probably going to surprise a lot of people. If you're using those types of apps and you're seeing your goals as 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fats, then I want to encourage you to take it a step further and commit a little further in your journey by getting the paid version. Here's why: percentages shift as your total calories shift.

If you're eating 1,600 calories on Monday and 2,100 calories on Tuesday, your 40% protein goal is a completely different gram amount on each day. So you have no stable target to actually hit. You're chasing a moving number without even realizing it. Especially if you have exercise calories turned on in MyFitnessPal. Turn that off, because those calories are ever-changing every single day. When you're focusing on, "Hey, this is my target,"

like 150 grams of protein, 250 grams of carbs, 90 grams of fat, your grams are fixed. Your grams are consistent. Having that 150 grams of protein, regardless of what else you ate that day, is set. That's a target. You can actually build your meals around it. You measure your progress against it. You troubleshoot it when you need to, right? If your app is only showing you percentages, I would recommend upgrading to the paid version where you can get set gram-based targets and focus on those, or switch to an app that gives you that functionality for free.

I think Cronometer does this well. Don't hold me to that, because I don't use it, but I know babes have talked about it. Just consider that percentages aren't entirely accurate. I would say they're a good starting point, but they're not going to get you the full picture. And I'm going to get to this in another mistake, so stay tuned for that one, because it's hopefully going to shift your perspective when I get to it. I just lost my train of thought. But percentages aren't entirely accurate.

Grams are going to give you that consistent, fixed number you need to be focusing on daily. Mistake number three that I see is measuring in cups instead of grams. I know this one is probably going to feel like a lot, but stay with me for a second. Measuring in cups is incredibly imprecise, and the variance is bigger than you think. A cup of oats can range from about 80 grams to over 100 grams, depending on how packed that cup is and how you scoop it, whether you leveled it off or whether you just

kind of scooped it and put it in. Get that understood in your mind. I just took a measuring cup at the beginning of my journey, and it greatly skewed things. I did it with rice. It greatly skewed the actual grams I was taking in on a daily basis. I used to take a measuring cup and do one cup of rice, until I found out how grams actually give you a more precise portion size.

I don't want this to sound too obsessive. It's more that you're gaining the understanding and knowledge of how to learn this skill set, so you don't have to track for the rest of your life. You can look at what 100 grams looks like and be like, "Okay, this is enough rice on my plate," or "This is what 40 grams of oats looks like," right? If you take Quaker oats, half a cup is the serving size, which I believe is 40 grams on the

Quaker oats. But you can't just take half a cup at face value and assume it's going to be 40 grams, because of the way you scooped it, packed it, or leveled it off or not. That's why you want to narrow it down to grams, because that's going to give you a more precise, accurate reading, right? So think about it that way. I know you're going to need a food scale and be able to

weigh and portion things out, but it literally takes 10 seconds to weigh something, instead of scooping it into a measuring cup and it potentially being inaccurate. Once you build the habit, it becomes completely automatic. You don't even need to think about it. Again, first of all, let me just say tracking your macros is hard. It can be uncomfortable to begin with, because there are certain things you need to start implementing into your life that are different from what you're doing right now. But let me remind you that in order to get to where you want to be, you have to do things

that are different than what you're doing right now. And I'm not saying you need to weigh every single thing for the rest of your life. I keep wanting to nail that in. But if you're in an active fat loss phase and you're not seeing the results, switching from cups to a food scale and weighing in terms of grams is often one of the fastest ways to find the discrepancy and why you're not getting the results you want to be getting. It's almost always tighter, and the results are going to follow when you actually weigh in terms of grams rather

than relying on a measuring cup. So start measuring in grams rather than measuring cups. Get that food scale. Hey, while you're listening, if you're getting value from this episode, take a moment to tap that review button or share this podcast with a friend. It's a small gesture that goes a long way in helping more women find their way to feeling stronger and more confident in their skin. I appreciate you so much for taking the time to support this show. Number four is not logging or paying attention to, and this is a silent killer of macros that

nobody really talks about enough, the BLTs, as I like to call them: the bites, licks, and tastes. And not adding in oils, sauces, and condiments, right? You log your chicken, you log your rice, you log your veggies, you log anything else that's a big macro-based food like that. And then you cook everything in a tablespoon of olive oil, you pour teriyaki sauce over it, or you finish it with a drizzle of tahini or something like that, but none of that makes it into your app.

Now, I would argue you're probably losing some of the olive oil with the heat, but the teriyaki sauce and the drizzle of tahini sometimes don't make it into your log for the day. Here's a reality check for you. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with the body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control.

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Visit warriorbabe.com/apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com/apply. All right, let's get back to the show. Two tablespoons of, well, let's go with the olive oil, or the tahini sauce. Two tablespoons of that could easily be upwards of 200 calories alone.

Those sauces add up. Even when people measure out peanut butter, like one tablespoon, they just scoop it because it looks like a tablespoon. The actual serving size is so much less than that, but people usually eat the tablespoon they just scooped, and that could be another 100 calories added on. So your favorite sauce, your teriyaki or tahini or whatever, can easily be another 150 to 200 calories depending on what it is.

That adds up so fast. You're easily looking at an extra 300 calories a day that are completely invisible to your tracking. And those calories are maybe the reason the deficit or the fat loss phase you're in isn't working. So the habit fix here is: log before you cook, not after. Add these sauces in before you top things off once the food is done. The friction of logging at first is actually what keeps you honest,

because you'll see the fat grams stack up and you'll make more intentional choices moving forward. So make sure you're tracking, especially if you're in a fat loss phase, your oils, sauces, condiments, things like that. Mistake number five. This goes hand in hand with consistency, and it's also one of my favorite sayings to women: macro hoarding at the end of the day. I always joke that it's going to be the next Netflix documentary.

I don't know that it's a funny joke anymore, but it was back in the day: people macro hoarding at the end of the day. It's a pattern I see constantly, and it's doing real damage. You get to 7 p.m. and realize you have 80 grams of protein left to hit. So you get this massive amount of protein in one sitting: a huge Greek yogurt, a protein shake, a chicken breast. And you're so uncomfortable, trying to close out your numbers in the last two hours of the day. Here's the problem with macro hoarding like that: your body can only process so much protein at one time for building muscle.

For the purposes of this example, somewhere in the range of 30 to 40 to 50 grams per meal, depending on what you read out there. Whatever protein you eat beyond that just gets stored and used later. It's either getting used as energy or it's getting excreted. That's the protein you're trying to cram in at the end of the day because you didn't plan your meals ahead of time. I always say plan your meals the night before for the next day, so that you're not tracking as you go.

Macro hoarding is a sign that your days aren't structured to support your targets. So you need to either track the night before or get up in the morning and track your meals before you start the day. When you do that, hitting your numbers at the end of the day becomes almost automatic, because you've been building toward it all day, or you were already set up for success the night before. It's doing you a disservice if you're cramming all your food in at the end of the day.

So set yourself up for success by planning ahead. The next one I want to dive into, I believe this is number six, is not updating your targets as your body changes. What I mean by that is women who set their macros six months ago and haven't touched them since. I see this a lot.

People get online, they use these macro calculators, they figure out their macros, and then they start tracking. They've been tracking, but they don't change anything. As your body changes, your body adapts, and it will adapt to those calories and that macro intake in a short period of time. So just like you change up your workouts every four, six or eight weeks, you also have to change up your macros if you're truly at a plateau. I could dive in deeper on this.

You don't need to be changing your macros every four weeks. They could work for you for eight weeks. They could work for you for 16 weeks. But at some point they're going to need to be adjusted. Your macro targets are not permanent. They were based on your body at a specific point in time, a specific weight, a specific goal. As you lose fat, as your body adapts, as you build muscle, your targets need to be recalculated. Here's why that matters: as you lose weight, your total daily energy expenditure, the number of calories your body burns in a day, will change over time.

Which means your targets need to be updated over time. Women who never update their targets are going to experience some type of plateau at some point, because their approach stopped working, right? Their body got adapted to that macro intake over X amount of time. A lot of people will see the majority of their progress early, right? And I always say, keep using the macros until you have a reason not to.

But to keep this very broad and not get into the weeds, you shouldn't be at the same macros six, seven, eight months in unless you're still actively seeing results. I guarantee your body is going to adapt at some point, and it's going to need a little bit of a change, or to be recalculated, essentially. So that's a huge mistake I see: women not updating their targets as their body adapts and changes,

as it gets used to the intake you're eating, instead of throwing it a curveball so it finds the energy and the fat stores to burn when you're trying to manipulate the way you're going about your fat loss. And this last one, mistake number seven, is that you could be hitting your numbers, you could totally be tracking and be on point with them, but not in a food quality type of way.

This one's going to hit a little differently, because it's not about the numbers themselves. It's more about what's behind them. You technically can hit your macro targets eating protein bars, processed snacks, fast food, and packaged meals. The numbers are going to add up, but your body is going to respond very differently to 150 grams of protein from chicken, eggs, Greek yogurt and fish versus 150 grams from protein bars, snacks, and processed sources. Whole food protein sources

are more satisfying, more satiating, just better overall. They come with more fiber and more micronutrients, and the compounds that support your hormone health, your digestion, and your recovery. Overall, whole foods win the day, every single day. Highly processed foods, even when they hit your macro targets, tend to drive more cravings because of the artificial ingredients they're made of.

They don't keep you satisfied, and they're going to keep you more inflamed over time. So think of it like this: macros are a framework. They are not a free pass. Whenever I say you can eat whatever you want, that doesn't mean you can just go out and eat burgers, french fries, and ice cream and hit your macro targets. Yeah, you can hit your targets that way. But the quality of the food, the quality of what's filling those numbers, matters so much in whether you're going to see the results you want.

So aim for the majority of your macros to come from whole, minimally processed sources. Use bars and protein shakes as tools for convenience. I always used to say have a max of one shake and one bar, or two protein shakes, but don't ever exceed that. Like 80 to 85% of your day should be made up of whole food options.

Okay, to get a little more practical, now that you have a full picture of where tracking can go wrong, here's a quick audit you can do for yourself. Over the next seven days, not just the weekend, not just the weekdays, all seven days, track everything. Track every sauce, every oil, every splash of cream, every bite you tasted while cooking: bites, licks, and tastes, the BLTs. Use a food scale for anything you can weigh easily. Focus on the gram-based targets in your app, not percentages.

Don't use measuring cups; change the scale to grams. Select entries carefully, and use the barcode scanner over searching for things manually inside an app. That's another one too. Or if you're out at restaurants, use the entries that are verified. Do that for one full week and look at the data honestly. Most women who do this discover a gap between what they thought they were eating, when they've been tracking and think they're doing it all right,

and what they're actually eating and how they're actually tracking. And that gap is usually where the results have been hiding. Again, I want to remind you that you don't need to do this precisely forever. But doing it for one focused week is going to recalibrate your eye. It's going to tighten your habits. It's going to help you be more aware. Yes, you can be tracking for years, but are you doing it the right way?

Have you fallen into one of these mistakes even though you're a tracker? Or maybe one of these mistakes is going to be an eye-opener for you, like, "Hey, this is where I've been falling short." This is just the data, my friends. And this is data you can actually trust, not something you're guessing, eyeballing, or wondering about. All right? So I want to leave you with this: if you've been tracking and not seeing results, this gives you an idea of what data piece you could be missing.

Your approach isn't wrong, but your data might just need some tightening. And now you know exactly where to look. If you fall into all seven of these, just pick the two mistakes that resonated the most and fix them this week. That's it. You don't need to overhaul everything all at once. Just make these small corrections, and this accurate data is going to help you get real results. All right? If this episode helped you, share it with a friend who's been frustrated with her tracking, because I promise she needs to hear it too.

And go get yourselves inside our free community. The link's in the description below. Go check it out and come join us. It's free. You have nothing to lose. You're going to learn all about tracking macros and everything that will help you up-level your game in your journey. All right? I love you all, and I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out. Real quick: if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word.

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