PORTIONING & LEARNING WHAT YOUR NUMBERS LOOK LIKE IN REAL FOOD – As you read below you are going to see a number of different ways that you can go about having high quality foods on hand to fit within your numbers each and every day. One of the most challenging aspects of learning how to hit your macros is determining what Numbers look like in REAL food. For example, you did the math above and you have down that your meal needs to consist of the following:
- Protein – 40grams
- Carbohydrates – 25grams
- Fat – 20grams
Now what the heck does that look like in food? Over time you start to get better at seeing this and knowing. Furthermore, as you recycle staple foods in your diet you will begin to remember what numbers equate to what portions sizes. However, I encourage variety and as the seasons change so do our foods often. This means you are always having to recalibrate what 40grams of protein is with new foods.
Don’t sweat it too much. There is a learning curve here and once you get it down you are going to be able to do this fairly easily with the help of a tool like MyFitnessPal (MFP). Below you will read that on a weekly basis it is good to figure out what foods you are going to have on hand and be using to build your meals. People typically shop one day of the week and know what meat, vegetables, carbohydrates, and fats they will have on hand to build their meals. What you can do is spend a little bit of time plugging these staples into your MFP on a random day just to see how big a portion of ground beef for example you will need to fulfill your protein requirements.
We are providing resources to help you know what foods will help you fulfill certain macros more than others. Some foods like ground beef will deliver a large amount of protein and fat per serving and this may or may not fit your numbers that well. You might find yourself better served eating a leaner cut of poultry and then adding in fat with other foods that are predominantly fat.
BE PATIENT – this is the part of the process that bogs most people down. “I’m supposed to have 30grams of carbohydrates. Wait, that isn’t 30grams of rice? I have to do math? When I just added that rice, my protein number went up by 3? Now that number is off a little bit. AHHHHH!!!!”
This is why people often give up on tracking. It is a bit like learning complex math at first but it will eventually feel like simple arithmetic. There are other methods of measuring that are less exact, don’t involve a scale, and can get you pretty close. These methods include hand portioning and even eyeballing. I think it is worth learning the hard steps first and becoming competent in how to use a scale, enter foods into a food tracker, and portion out meals precisely for yourself. With that foundation, you can ease off in the future and use hand measurements and eye tracking with much greater accuracy.