The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

148. Making Sense of Macros: How to ‘Budget’ Your Macros and Stop Dieting for Good

• Kristy Castillo

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One of my all-time favorite topics to dive in and educate on is…MACROS!


I’ve talked about macros many times in previous episodes (check some out linked below), but my goal for today’s episode is to break them down super simply, and with a bit of a fresh perspective.


Macros (short for macronutrients) are the biggest piece of the puzzle; they’ve transformed sooo much for me over the years, and really changed the game for me on my fitness journey! 


As I’m working with many new clients right now, I’m continually reminded of how women don’t really understand what macros are, or even how their bodies work. Macros are not just some ‘fad diet’ or ‘quick fix’ - they’re made up of proteins, carbs, and fats, so they’re in literally EVERYTHING you eat. If you’re consuming food, you’re consuming macros!


Counting and tracking your macros is very similar to budgeting your money. Just like you track, save, and spend your money, you’ve got to know what YOUR specific body needs in terms of macros. When you start counting and tracking your macros, that’s when you truly start to understand what macros are, and how they work for you (not against you).


If you’re stuck in a ‘diet’ mentality and think you can only reach your goals by doing low carb or low fat diets forever, this episode is for YOU!


I want to help you go forward, and be empowered to make macros work for you and YOUR life, for the long-term. I’m proof that it’s possible, and I would love to help you get there, too!!



In this episode, we cover:

  • Realizing that you’re already consuming macros in everything you eat + why this is NOT a ‘diet’
  • Why macros = energy
  • Macro counting vs. macro tracking + why macros are like money
  • How to adjust your macros ‘target’ based on your goals (fat loss, muscle gain, etc.)
  • Why it’s essential to be consuming ‘enough’ proteins, fats AND carbs + getting specific data on YOUR body
  • Learning to *truly* understand macros and break free from fad diets


Links/Resources:

Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed. What's up?

Speaker 2:

Welcome to today's episode. I am, I'm extremely excited about today's episode because I'm going to be talking about macros, hopefully in a way that you really, really understand. That's the goal of today's episode is just to break down macro counting, macro consumption, macro tracking. Not necessarily I shouldn't say that I was going to say not necessarily the exact how to, of course, like how to enter the food into the apps and things like that but I am getting new clients right now. Of course, it's the beginning of the year, you know new year, new me, new Year's resolutions, all the things and this is a very busy time for personal trainers and in my world, of course, this is busy time of year. So I'm getting a lot of new clients right now, which is amazing. And what I am noticing is when I go to talk to them about workouts. It's really simple, especially if you're joining Fit Club, you're in my app and the workouts are there and you push play and it's a really quick rundown of how the workouts work and how the app works.

Speaker 2:

The biggest piece of the puzzle when people are joining me or whether it's just anyone's health and fitness journey, the biggest piece of the puzzle is always macros, because that's what I'm teaching. That's, when you join the app, I give you a macro count, a macro target, and obviously I've talked about that on the podcast before and macros are a big part of what have healed my relationship with food, have given me the body that I want, have given me. Macros have helped me in so many different ways and I don't want to get into all of that in this episode. So if you are interested in hearing more about my journey with macros, please go back and search through previous episodes about macros, because I talk about that. But really macros have helped me to understand food and what it does for my body and its role in my body, and it's really helped me so, so, so much to get away from the negative mindset that I used to have around food and all the things that kind of come with that. It's a very deep concept when we really dive into it. But right now I have a lot of clients joining and, like I said, they're saying I've never counted macros before.

Speaker 2:

I don't understand how to count macros, I'm new to macros and so I want to explain them in a way that I wish somebody would explain to me maybe the first time, because it makes so much sense. So let's dive in. I hate to say this is kind of going to be all over the place. That's kind of how I roll and that's kind of what I do. I really want to deep dive and I really want to. You know, if something pops into my head, I'm going to veer for my notes a little bit and kind of make it make sense, because I find the more that I explain to my clients and make it applicable, the more they understand. I'm excited. Let's dive in. I hope this is really, really helpful.

Speaker 2:

This concept came to me, honestly, as I was trying to sleep last night and I don't know even what I was thinking probably about. What am I going to record tomorrow? And, yeah, I think this concept of just you know, what are my clients struggling with? What am I hearing a lot of right now, this is what I'm hearing a lot of and what I really want to get across to all of you, especially if you are kind of far into this journey of macros. Maybe this is the way you haven't really thought about it, but this is a way that really helped me.

Speaker 2:

So I tried I think it was about eight times to track macros, to figure out macros. What the hell are they? What's going on? Why do I need that Like? How do I do this? It seemed really confusing, and so the first thing I want to start with is you are consuming macros with everything that you eat. You're doing it anyway.

Speaker 2:

So macros are not a diet. This is not. Yes, you can use macros to lose weight. You can use macros to lose fat. Like this is obviously macro tracking, macro counting. However, you know there's different ways people talk about it. Obviously, counting and tracking are two different things. But it's not a diet. It's not like oh, I tried. I hear that a lot Like oh, I tried macro tracking to lose weight and that didn't work for me. Well, that makes my brain go a little crazy, because that's not it at all. Right, macros, it's not a diet. So I don't want you to think of it like Weight Watchers or like keto, where Weight Watchers is kind of like I feel like it's designed for weight loss. It's like when you think of a diet, a diet, it's to lose weight. That's what we think about, but your diet is just what you consume for food.

Speaker 2:

But macros the term macros macro is short for macronutrients. Macronutrients are carbs, fats and proteins. That's a macronutrient and those carbs, fats and proteins have a certain amount of calories in each one of those. They're not the same, but those calories add up to your overall calories. So whatever you're consuming in a day, it equals calories and the breakdown of those calories are macros. So you can change the amount of calories. You can change the amount of macros, the amount of protein, the amount of fats, the amount of carbs that you're consuming to reach your goal of body recomposition or fat loss. To reach your goal of body recomposition or fat loss, whatever your physical goal is, macros can help you get there, but it's not a diet, okay.

Speaker 2:

So whether you are counting macros or tracking macros or doing fucking anything with macros, you're consuming them. You've been consuming macros your whole life. So this is why I love it so much and this is why I think that everyone should understand macros, because you're eating food. We all eat food every single day, so why not understand that? And then you won't really ever have to diet. You can just change the amount of macros, the amount of calories that you're consuming, to fit your needs. Does that make sense? The amount of calories that you're consuming to fit your needs, does that make sense? For me, that's like oh my God, duh right. So if you quote, unquote, tried macros and they didn't work for you, it's because your macros, you were eating too much food or something wasn't right. It's not that the macros didn't work for you or tracking them didn't work for you. You're eating them regardless. So if you're eating a low amount of carbs, then you're eating a low carb diet. It's not a thing, it's not a diet. So you are consuming macros. That's the first thing I want to note. You are consuming macros, whether you're counting them or not. So that's the first thing that I really wanna say is like you really should understand this and really try to understand it. No one said that to me the first time. It was just like you should be eating 1,900 calories and you should be eating this amount of protein, this amount of fats, this amount of carbs. So I tried it didn't know what the hell I was doing or why, tried again, tried again, it again, and once I figured it out, it made so much sense to me and I was able to make it work for me. And this is how.

Speaker 2:

So I like to think of macro counting as money. I like to associate it with money, which I've done in podcast episodes in the past. But to go back before I start getting into the money part, macros is a way of thinking about food as energy. So you're not thinking of macros as a diet, you're thinking of macros as energy. Food is energy, calories are energy. It's like how many macros can I eat? Not, what kind of diet is this and what can I cut out? Right? So I want you to think of this is your energy. This is the amount of food that you get to give your body energy, to run your body effectively, to have energy to carry out your chores and your tasks for the day, right? So, like I was saying, I like to think of macros like money.

Speaker 2:

Little backstory here my husband and I we lost our house to home foreclosure when my son was he's 16 now and I think he was like one at the time, maybe not even. So we lost our home to foreclosure and we really had to learn how to budget. So we did Dave Ramsey's programs, we did the debt snowball, we did all the things. I don't even really follow much about Dave Ramsey anymore, but if you're familiar with Dave Ramsey and the debt snowball and the EveryDollar app if that's even still a thing shout out because that really got us out of debt. We ended up saving a bunch of money. We ended up paying off all of our debts except for our home, and it was a lot of work, a lot of work, a shit ton of work. But it taught me a lot about control, dedication, all the types of things, right, consistency, budgeting and just like I had to budget my money, I now budget my macros. And I don't budget my money so that I can necessarily I mean, I do so that I can necessarily have more, but I learned to budget my money so that I could spend my money more wisely.

Speaker 2:

I only get a certain amount of money each month, my husband and I. You either get paid weekly, biweekly, whatever, but monthly is when all your bills are due, so it's like you look at money as a month whole. So I think of it like money. So macro counting is like money. You are spending money. Just like you're consuming macros, whether you count them or not. You're getting paid from an employer and then you're going out and spending money on things. Whether you track that or pay attention to that or not, you will run out of money. So it's the same thing with your macros.

Speaker 2:

You have a certain amount that you get each month for your money, right, weekly, biweekly, but monthly overall. Whenever you get paid, you have a certain amount to work with. You have to know how much you have incoming to be able to know how much you can spend. Like the first thing that you need to do is know how much money you have. In terms of macros, you have to know how much you can intake, which would be the overall calculation. So you're either spending too much money or you're spending a little less than you make, and then you have some to save. Just like macros.

Speaker 2:

You're consuming calories regardless. You're either consuming too many calories for your body to spend, and then you're gaining fat and you're overweight, or you're not maybe consuming enough, and so you're malnourished. You know you have a little extra to spend. Or you're doing it correctly you're in a deficit and then you're losing fat, but you have to count how much you have to begin with. This would be your overall calculation. So somebody you trust should be calculating your macros for you. Or if you're doing it online, then you know, based on your age, height, weight, certain amount of things that you input, you get a certain amount of calories to spend every single day. This calorie amount, like I'm saying, is broken down into a certain amount of macros, certain amount of protein, a certain amount of fats and a certain amount of carbs. So that is what macro counting is. So when you come to me and say I'm new to macro counting, I don't know what that means. That's what it means. It means that you are consuming these things anyway. You need to start counting them to know how much you have.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm sure you've heard you can lose weight without macro tracking. You can lose weight without counting calories. You can lose weight without doing blah, blah, blah, blah. You can, you absolutely can lose weight without doing blah, blah, blah, blah. You can, you absolutely can. It's kind of a throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks situation. And it's still not knowing your body, which is why I have a really hard time with quick fixes, these shots, all this shit coming out. That's not really teaching you anything. You still don't know what you're putting in your body and why and how much, and without that, if you don't know how much money you're getting, how much money you're spending, you're always gonna be broke. If you don't understand macros and you don't understand your body and the food that you're intaking to nourish it, you're always gonna be a little confused on why you look the way you look, why you feel the way you feel. So I do think it's absolutely necessary to do this if you want to look and feel a certain way. So that's macro counting. It's just counting the amount that you have incoming and have outgoing. How do you do that? You have to track it right. You have to write it down. So you track macros, just like you track money.

Speaker 2:

We used to track our money using the EveryDollar app, like I said, by Dave Ramsey. Track money we used to track our money using the EveryDollar app, like I said, by Dave Ramsey. So we learned that we were spending way more money than what we had coming in. I don't know what we were thinking. This was a long time ago so I don't remember, but I was working as a hairstylist. I don't remember what my husband was doing at the time. We had two little kids. We were just spending and spending and spending on credit card and everything was on credit and eventually it was like well, now we can't afford our home. So that smacked us right in the face and we were faced with, obviously, home foreclosure, which we went ahead and did, but we didn't blame the system or anything. We were like that's our fault, we need to learn how to keep this from happening again.

Speaker 2:

So we started tracking on this app and what we would do is Well, first we actually started getting cash we ended up cashing his check and I was paid cash from doing hair and then we would literally go to the bank and deposit a certain amount to pay our bills, and then the rest I would keep in cash in a safe, but that's the way we learned to do it. And then, after we felt confident in that and felt like we could control the money even if it was out of our hands, like we needed to see it physically first, which is maybe like you're measuring, you're weighing your food. That would be kind of similar to that. You need to see it right, to associate it with a number or an amount. So, once we felt comfortable with using the app and not physically seeing it leave my hands, we would then track how much money we made into this app and then every expense that we made we would put into this app to see where our money went.

Speaker 2:

So again, this looks like you get paid a certain amount. Your spouse, your significant other, whoever is in contributing right Gets paid a certain amount. That's your overall kind of calorie goal, that's your overall money goal. And then if you go spend a certain amount on groceries, or if you go to the gas station, you get gas, but you also bought a piece of pizza and you bought an energy drink and then you had to pay $5 to get into your kid's basketball game and then you had to pay $5 to get into your kid's basketball game and then you had to pay $8 at the concession stand and then you had to order something on Amazon and then something else was on sale. So you bought something else on Amazon and then you had to pay. There's all of these things right, and if you're not tracking them, the money goes freaking quick. Just like that macro tracking is. You can set up your kind of daily budget right. With your macros. You get a certain amount of calories, protein, fats and carbs and then you can enter.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to have for me looks like my overnight protein oats, literally overnightoatscom or whatever it is. I don't make my own overnight oats, I get them online. So I'm going to maybe enter that as my breakfast. I'm going to enter my Oikos Greek yogurt and my new Heath toffee bar bits and my chocolate chips. That's my snack. I'm going to log a salad for lunch. I'm going to log my protein bar, my protein shake. I'm going to log that. I'm going to have some salmon and rice for dinner. I'm going to also have a half of a piece of pizza that my son doesn't finish from his pizza. I'm also going to have a Yasso bars. So I'm just thinking of random foods I have in my house.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to track all of those things because I can think to myself okay, I think I did pretty good today. You know I eat this, this and this and this and this. I think I did pretty good. Like that's pretty healthy. I didn't have any Oreos. I didn't have any Cadbury mini eggs, I didn't have three pieces of pizza. I didn't have six cookie, whatever. It is right, but I don't know how much I actually spent.

Speaker 2:

So there's a difference between eating healthy, quote, unquote, not eating a lot, or maybe I ate too much. Whatever you're thinking, it may or may not match up to if I track it in the app and be like needed a little more protein, because I don't think any of. I don't think what I mentioned right there. I don't think that would get me to my protein goal. But I could say like, right, that's not an unhealthy amount of food and that's not unhealthy foods. But when you're thinking of macro tracking, you're trying to hit a certain amount. It's not a diet, it's not like what's the least amount I can have. It's like what do I need to fuel my body? I actually need more protein and maybe a little less carbs and maybe a little more fats. So you don't know until you track that.

Speaker 2:

I love using MyFitnessPal. Quite honestly. I have had clients of mine use the Lose it app. I like that. I've had clients use the MyNet Diary. I have a client using that right now actually, and I really like that as well. I personally always use MyFitnessPal. I probably would use my app if I didn't have to log in as the coach on the coach side of things. But I use my fitness pal and I use the paid version. I am able to scan UPC codes, so I can just scan the code on something and it logs it right in the app. I can actually voice it now and say I had overnight oats brand strawberries and cream oatmeal with a tablespoon of coconut whipped cream. Whatever brand it is, I can say it right into the app now and it will log it for me. So it's really really simple to do that and it doesn't take a lot of time. It's not overwhelming. After you do it a couple of times, right, just like anything else that's new. Of course, it's going to take a little while, but that's macro tracking and that's macro counting and that's what macros are, so they're not scary.

Speaker 2:

It's not a diet. It's not something to look at as restrictive. You actually get a certain amount of calories to spend. If you want more calories to spend, if, based on your age, height, weight goals, movement level, workouts, all the things if you get a certain amount and you're tracking, you're like I am starving after eating this what you need to do is very slowly reverse diet, which means increase your calories very, very slowly. If that causes you to gain weight, then we need to go back down, or you need to increase your workouts. You need to take more steps. You need to do a little bit more activity to be able to offset the amount of calories that you're spending.

Speaker 2:

So if you are at a very low calorie amount and you're like, yeah, I need more, right, just like having a job where you're like I'm spending too much money, I need more money incoming to cover my bills. That's what was happening to us when we didn't have enough money. We were spending more money and we needed to either make more money or spend less. That's exactly what macros are. Okay, so you can use an app to track, you can calculate yourself to get your overall budget, or you can have someone do that for you. But when you start to count and when you start to track, that's when you truly start to understand what macros are and how they work for you, not against you. You also start to see okay, I'm eating X amount of calories and I'm feeling really good and my body's changing and I'm losing fat or I'm gaining muscle.

Speaker 2:

If you want to gain more muscle, then obviously your workouts need to be in accordance with that, but we're mostly talking about macros on this episode. Then you need to eat more food, more protein, more carbs, because your body needs more fuel to be able to repair the muscle that you break down in your workouts. If you're not feeding your body enough fuel you cannot gain. You don't have enough. It's like, if you want to save money savings account, you want to save for a vacation, but you're not bringing in enough money, or your job isn't paying you as much as you need or you're spending too much. You want to save for a vacation, but you're not bringing in enough money, or your job isn't paying you as much as you need or you're spending too much. You have to figure out how to get more. You have to have more, and that's what calorie surplus would be. You would want to eat more calories to build muscle. If you want to lose weight, lose fat, right, then you have to save more and not eat that much. So you'd have to eat less. You need to spend less.

Speaker 2:

So that's exactly what that looks like, and you can change your macros to lose fat, to gain muscle, depending on any physical goal that you have. Yes, your workouts and your movement, your outgoing, your expenditure, your outgoing calories need to be changed to match or to balance, not gram for gram, not match or perfectly, but they do have to balance each other. So you can change your macro amount, your calorie amount, based on your goals. But it's not a diet. It's not something that you do for a little while only to lose weight, right, you change the tracking, you change the amount so that you can lose weight, but then after that, you still have to maintain. That's the problem with normal quote, unquote diets, I guess, or popular diets. You cut carbs to lose weight, you do keto to lose weight, you do Weight Watchers to lose weight. Well, what do you plan on doing when you need to maintain After you've lost that weight? What are you going to do? You're still eating macros. You still need to count them. You still need to figure it out, right, what's your goal and then what's your macros to match that. So this is exactly what I mean when I say we're going to count macros. We're going to track macros, or what are macros? This is exactly what they are, and I think this is such important information. Just like I just said, a lot of women and right now I only coach women, so I'm saying women, and I'm sure I know this goes for men too A lot of people, a lot of women coming to me, do not understand their bodies.

Speaker 2:

They don't understand calorie burn with cardio and calorie burn with lifting weights, and calorie burn increases with the amount of muscle you have on your body. The more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you're burning at rest all the time time. Most women don't understand macros. They don't understand that they're consuming a certain amount of calories. We know that. We're like well, duh, everything I eat has calories. I understand that, but you're not counting them. You don't know how many you should be having. You don't know how many you are having, and so it's just a free-for-all. Like I said, you're just throwing shit at the wall, hoping it sticks. This way, you know your calorie target. You know exactly what you should be having. You also track, so you know what you are having in terms of macros.

Speaker 2:

And then you're like oh, that's why I'm not hitting my goals. This is why, when I have a client come to me, I do ask them to track every single thing they're eating, for a couple weeks at least, because I cannot help. That would be like you coming to me saying I need to save more money. I'm broke all the time. I need to save more money, but I don't know how much money I make and I don't know how much money I spend. So help me save money. No one can do that. If you're not telling them how much money you have or how much money you spend, where the fuck is your money? Then I don't know If you're coming to me saying I need help losing weight. I don't know how to do it, but I don't want to track macros.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I can help you get habits in place. I can help you do a lot of things, a lot of things, and a lot of that would work. But I'm not willing to help someone throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. You can do that on your own. What I'm helping you do is to figure out all the pieces. We're going to put workouts together for you. We're going to figure out where your steps need to be. We're going to figure out water. We're going to figure out all the things and we're going to figure out this is the allowed macros calories, the amount of calories and energy that you need a day.

Speaker 2:

This is what you get, babe. This is what you get, and it's a pretty good amount. Let me just tell you it's exciting and we need to figure out how to spend it. This is what you get. Where are we going to put it? What are we going to do with it. What kind of foods are we going to eat and how is this going to get you to your goals? How does this help you? How does protein help your body? Builds muscle, makes you feel satiated.

Speaker 2:

Protein does so many things for your body. You need it so much. What do carbs do for your body? It's your main energy source. What do fats do for your body? They protect your organs. You need all of these things. They're so, so, so important.

Speaker 2:

And without me knowing your goal, like your target, your age, height, weight, sex, how busy you are, how many steps you take, like without your stats, I don't know you as a person. So I'm talking to you on the phone and I don't have any information on you. I can't help you. So I need all of that information, along with how many calories are you intaking and what's the breakdown. Are they fats? Are they carbs? Are they carbs? Are they proteins? Is it enough, is it too much? What is it?

Speaker 2:

Because I need to be able to explain that to you and help you so that, going forward, you understand, you understand, you have the knowledge for yourself that, my friends, is the piece. That's the piece. I'm not willing to just give you a quick fix and send you on your way. I want you to understand this that way. Like I said before, I want you to want to work with me forever and I want you to stay on my app and do my fit clubs forever, and I want you to be a part of my world and be on my Instagram forever and be my friend, but I don't want you to have to need me forever. I want for you to understand this and understand your body, to understand who you are and understand all these things so well for yourself that you understand yourself, because what a freaking blessing to be able to understand our bodies and understand ourselves. That is so underrated, and that's what macro tracking has done for me.

Speaker 2:

I know it seems kind of silly, like the gym saved me or macros saved me. Did they save me physically? I don't yeah, probably actually, but macro tracking allows you to have such a better relationship with food because you're literally having, you're consuming, macros. Either way, you need to understand them and I just can't explain to you how empowering that is. So I hope that breakdown really, really helped you to understand.

Speaker 2:

I know this was a very simple kind of silly, maybe topic, but I cannot wait to hear your feedback on it, because I think it just changes things. Instead of thinking I don't want to spend my money, I don't want to spend my macros, I'm scared to eat this much, whatever, it's just like it's money, so you can spend it on a vacation or you can spend it on a purse, or you can save it. It's macros. You can spend it on Oreos. Sometimes you can spend it on McDonald's. Sometimes you can spend it on chicken. You can spend it on broccoli. It'll go a lot further if you have chicken and broccoli, right, and it's better for you, but sure you get to have the other things too. So it's really allowing you to have a better relationship with food because you're understanding it. It's not just a diet, it's not limited. It stops that limiting belief a little bit with food and then that goes into other areas of your life. But I hope this is really helpful. I'm super excited to hear your feedback. Like I said, please share this everywhere that you can because this is really important information.

Speaker 2:

I hear a lot that I have helped people to understand macros with this podcast.

Speaker 2:

I get a lot of messages saying Christy, you helped me understand macros.

Speaker 2:

You said things in a way that I finally understand, and I think this is even breaking it down even more. So please share this with anyone who is stuck dieting, is stuck in a mentality of low fat, low carbs. I know you think of someone if I say someone who's always talking about a diet, someone who's always talking about eating too much on the weekends and falling off track and all of that, and understanding diets, diets, diets. Whoever comes to your mind when you think of diet, diet, diet, please send this to them, and just not even to. I don't want to push you out of yes, I want you to get out of a diet mentality, but I'm not going to push you out of that. I want you to just understand macros, quite frankly, because the more you hear about them, the more you will naturally be like, yes, that is exactly what I need. That's exactly what I need to stop falling off. So I hope this was so helpful for you and I cannot wait to talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time. Bye.