Tracking Macros + Keto | The Basics

Over the years, you may have heard me mention “tracking macros”. It’s a tool I’ve gone back to again & again since my high school days, and one I find really helpful for keeping myself accountable and being more mindful of what I’m consuming. Whenever I start to feel sluggish, or hit a plateau when I have a few pounds to lose, I like to take it back to the basics and take an honest look at what I’m consuming.

I got so many great questions from you all over on my Instagram, and figured I would go over the basics here! From counting macros, to fitting them into an eating style like “keto”, here’s what has worked for me!

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or professional in any way when it comes to this stuff. Just sharing what has been successful for me over the years! Do what works for you!

What Are “Macros”?

The term “macros” is short for macronutrients – or the three big categories of nutrients you’ll find on a nutrition facts label. Protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

Tracking macros means keeping count of how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat you’re eating in a day. You can aim for a # of grams, or aim for a percentage of each. When you have a number of grams set, it will also add up to a calorie amount.

I like to keep an eye on both macros and calories, so I know how much I’m consuming overall. Because while a % ratio (like keto) can work really well, I still find myself holding onto weight or even gaining when the overall calorie amount is too high.

How Do You Get Started?

Any time I’m ready to start tracking macros again, I start with tracking what I’m already eating. I like to get an idea of where I’m starting from.

Often times I feel like I’m eating low carb, or not overeating by much, until I actually keep track of everything I consume. It adds up quicker than I think! It helps get me motivated to start and gives me a little reality check if you know what I mean!

To get started, decide what macros you want to aim for, and how you’ll track them.

How Do You Decide Your Macro Goals?

After lots of years, I have figured out percentage goals that I know will work for me depending on my personal goals: whether I’m looking to maintain my weight, build some lean muscle, or lose fat. My goals have fluctuated – for example:

During Pregnancy: high protein, balance of healthy fats/carbs

For Weight Loss: low carb, high fat, moderate protein (keto)

If you’re new, there are some great calculators out there to give you a starting point. They take into account your age, current weight, goal weight, activity levels, and body compositions goals (lose fat / build muscle / maintain / gain, etc).

Two I’ve found helpful:

• My Fitness Pal (a website / app): has a built-in calculator you can use when you create an account. This is also what I use to track my macros.
• Keto Calculator: this one is what I’ve been using recently as I’ve switched to low carb, high fat macros to lose the last of my baby weight

Try your new macros for a week or two, and see how you feel – is your energy balancing out? Are you losing fat/feeling more lean/feeling stronger? Whatever your goals are, see if you feel like you’re on track towards them, and if not – tweak your macros and try that for another week or two. See how you feel.

It’s a numbers game and each of our own bodies is so different, it’s almost like an experiment. Have fun with it, and learn what works for you!

How Do You Track Them?

I use the My Fitness Pal app! It’s easy to use, they have a database of TONS of foods (both packaged items and individual whole foods), and I like that I can access it from the app on my phone or from the website on my laptop so I can track food quick & easy any time.

I’ve used the same app for 13+ years, and it’s always improving. You can use the free version, but I have the premium version and think it’s totally worth it. Last I checked it was $9.99/month or $49.99 for a year.

I like being able to track my carbs/protein/fat by gram (so important) and also love the “net carbs” mode which automatically subtracts the fiber from the total carbohydrates to give you the “net carbs” of a food.

Some tips/features to make it quick to track what you’re eating:

• Save “meals”: Let’s say you make a breakfast scramble with eggs, sausage, spinach, cheese, and an almond flour tortilla. You can save this combination on the app and give it a name, like “sausage & egg breakfast + tortilla”. That way next time you eat the same meal (me, always repeating what I like haha) you can add it to your food diary with just one click instead of individually logging each food again.
• Save “recipes”: You can copy/paste a link from the web (like your favorite blog justjessieb.com haha!) or add your own from-scratch recipe, then save it. That way any time you make your favorite recipes, it’s again just a one-click process.
• Guesstimate: When in doubt, I guess at how much I’m eating. Let’s say I make chicken, broccoli, and potatoes. Do I weigh my chicken? No. I don’t have time and I don’t take it that seriously. I find a saved food in the database for “chicken”, and guesstimate how much I ate – about 1 cup? Or check the package you cooked from – how many oz were in the pack, and how much of the pack did you eat? Takes a little simple math, but you’ll get the hang of it so quick. My goal is to get a good idea of how much I’m eating, not to get too hung up on the details to where it becomes a distraction (or a problem!)
• Plan your meals: I love planning out my food the day before. Makes it so easy, and helps me ensure that I’ll get the right combination of macros/calories while still enjoying what I want to eat. Let’s say I’ve been really looking forward to a poke bowl for dinner. I’ll log that first. Then I see how many grams of protein/fat/carbs I have left for the day, and eat things for breakfast & lunch that balance it out. You can always just start the day logging whatever you eat… but then dinnertime hits and you’ve got all protein and no carbs/fat left. That means plain chicken breast and who wants that haha. So I like to plan or have an idea of what we’ll eat!

What Are Your Macros/Calories?

They change depending on my goals! I can track when I’m trying to maintain my weight, gain muscle, lose weight, grow a baby… whenever! I just have different macro/calorie goals during various phases of life.

I stuck to high protein/moderate carbs & fat during pregnancy and my first 5 weeks postpartum to support a growing baby and recovering body, at the recommendation of my midwife.

Once I hit a weight loss plateau at 5 weeks postpartum, and was ready to shed some fat, I decided to shift to low carb/high fat (keto) since I know that’s what my body responds well to when I’m trying to lean out.

Right now, my macro goals are:

• 6% net carbs (carbs – fiber)
• 68% fat
• 26% protein

That will work out to a different # of grams of each, depending on your caloric goals. Those are determined by your current weight, goal weight, activity level. That’s when a calculator comes in handy! For keto macros, try this calculator that I mentioned above.

I won’t stick to keto macros forever, but for me I find them super effective at helping me burn fat for energy instead of just carbs.

When I hit my postpartum weight loss plateau, I switched to keto then lost the last few pounds (plus more) in just one week. I’ll switch to more “muscle building macros” then “maintenance macros” once I hit my personal fat loss goals!

FAQs

Q: HOW CAN I MAKE THIS LESS TEDIOUS?

• Keep up the tracking for a week or two, or as long as it takes for you to get an idea of the calories/macros in the foods you’re eating. Take some time away from tracking. Only track on some days when you’re unsure and need some help calculating. It doesn’t have to be an every day obsession forever. Just use it as a tool to help you learn, and then move on! Come back to it when you need it again or want to try changing things up.
• Personally, I like tracking most days. I like feeling like I’m meeting daily goals that are adding up to a bigger goal (which can take longer to meet!) and I’ve made the process super quick. But don’t feel like you have to!
• Don’t get too detailed – like I said, I like to guesstimate. I don’t use a food scale or measure things out super obsessively. I give it my best guess, and as long as I’m seeing results, I keep it “casual” and don’t get too obsessed over the exact numbers.

Q: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU EVERY DAY? IS IT POSSIBLE WITH KIDS & WORK & REAL LIFE?

• It literally takes me 5 minutes or less each day to track my macros/calories. So simple.
• The more practice you get, the easier it will get. It might take a few days to get used to the app, but then it becomes second nature. Especially once you start saving “meals” and “recipes” to your account so you can add those with one click. Your favorite coffee combo, your go-to breakfast, the salad from your local spot – you can save them all so it makes it super easy.
• It’s VERY possible, and if anything makes things easier for me. I find the meals that work with my macros, put them on repeat, and don’t have to think about food so much every day, while still seeing great results.

Q: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PALEO & KETO? CAN YOU DO BOTH?

• PALEO = looking at which foods you’re eating (or not eating). Meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, healthy fats, fruits.
• KETO = looking at the balance of macronutrients, where the goal is low carb, high fat, moderate protein.
• You can absolutely eat paleo foods, in a keto style. Just aim for low carbs, and focus on eating lots of healthy fats and protein.
• I find that a paleo diet lends itself really easily to keto macros, as it’s naturally lower in carbs. You can still do some fruit, and tons of veggies – just check out the macros and fit it in, prioritizing meats, seafood, eggs, and plenty of healthy fats like avocados, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts, etc.

Q: CAN YOU DO KETO WITHOUT DAIRY? ARE YOU EATING DAIRY?

• Many people use butter, cheese, and other full fat dairy products to up their fat intake without adding carbs. I personally am eating grass fed butter and cheese, and doing great with them!
• Do you have to? Nope! Just get your fats from other sources, like I mentioned above. It’s totally doable!

Q: HOW DOES INTERMITTENT FASTING FIT INTO THIS?

• Fasting is not about what you’re eating or how much, it’s about when. It’s a whole other thing!
• I naturally like to fast (and am often forced to because: children, lol) so I generally stick to a 16:8 fasting schedule. 16 hours of “fasting”, 8 hour window of eating.
• You can do this along with tracking what you’re eating, but you don’t have to! Try starting with one, then adding in the other to see how you feel

Q: DO YOU HAVE KETO RECIPES?

• YES! But, I also don’t feel like it’s super accurate to label a recipe or food as “keto” or not. Like we’ve talked about – keto is the balance of macronutrients in a day. So while an apple isn’t necessarily “keto” on its own because it is not low carb, you could fit it into a day of keto eating by balancing out your macros for the rest of the day.
• Many of my recipes are naturally low carb, or easily adapted to be so. For example, my Buffalo Chicken Chowder. Omit the potatoes, or substitute with cauliflower rice, and it’s a very keto-friendly option! Because most of my recipes do not have grains, they’re often more keto friendly than, say, a pasta or rice dish you might find on another blog.

Q: WHAT ABOUT KETOSIS?

• I don’t take it that deep, lol. If I’m following keto macros, losing fat in inches, the scale is going down… I call it a success and don’t really care if a test strip says “in ketosis” or not.
• If you feel like you want to get that detailed, then by all means! There are lots of resources for that online. I just haven’t found it necessary, personally, and I find that if I get too obsessive over numbers it becomes more of a problem for me mentally/emotionally.

Q: DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH ENERGY WHEN EATING LOW CARB?

• Not at all! If anything, I feel like my energy is more sustained. When my body is burning carbs for energy, I get that burst but then get a bit of a crash until I eat more carbs.
• When my body is burning fat for energy, it feels more balanced, and then burns my body’s fat when it runs out of “food fat”. Does that make sense? It’s like your body stays in “fat burning” mode, whether it’s from food OR from your body. So much less crash, more stable.

I hope this was helpful, you guys! Let me know if you’ve tried tracking macros, and have found success with it! And if you have any more questions about my personal experience, let me know below!