Two weeks ago, I posted about what are macronutrients, why they are important, and how much you should be ingesting daily. This week I am discussing calories of macronutrients and how to calculate a sufficient amount, how to look at nutritional labels for macronutrients, and other helpful hints.
Each macronutrient contains a number of calories.
- One gram of protein is equal to 4 calories.
- One gram of carbohydrate is equal to 4 calories.
- One gram of fat is equal to 9 calories.
If you look at a nutrition label, you can figure out the relationship between macronutrients and calories. You will take the grams of each macronutrient and multiply it against the calories indicated above and you will arrive at the calories of each macronutrient.
When counting macros, foods with a nutrition label are easy. Just take 30 seconds to look at the label and do the multiplication, and then addition. However, you need to factor in the serving size. The information listed on a nutrition label is for one serving. It is important to keep this in mind because many consumer products contain more than one serving size.
When calculating the calories, don’t add in the minerals or vitamins. Remember calories come from macronutrients and not minerals/vitamins.
When you don’t have a nutritional label, it’s best to have a scale; otherwise, you will be guessing. For example, you may be asked to determine if an orange is small, medium or large. Or whether cheese is approximately 6 oz. or more/less.
Before you go out to eat, check out whether a restaurant has a website that lists the calories in any given dish, and whether it gives the macronutrients in each serving. Restaurants are getting better at publishing their nutrition data online. Fast food restaurants usually have the information on their website.
So, in concluding you should focus on macronutrients more than calories. Calories are important if you want to lose weight because you want to create a calorie deficit. But, if you only focus on calories and not macronutrients you can still gain weight and not build up that lean muscle mass that you’re yearning for.
