Counting macros for weight loss but not losing weight? These mistakes could be costing you.

Are you accurately weighing your food for macros? What I learned in my first month from my nutrition coach around weighing my food and counting my macros for weight loss, was nothing short of mind blowing.  If you are counting your macros, make sure you aren’t making these big mistakes. 

After just the first two weeks of working with a nutrition coach, I had some major wake up calls and aha moments worthy of sharing.  If you are new to counting macros or just want to avoid a few major pitfalls of your calorie and macro counting, this post is for you.

Related: Why I Hired A Health Coach

A little background

I consider myself a healthy person, I exercise 4-6 days a week and generally eat well.  However, I felt the need to enlist the help of a coach because truthfully, I’ve never been able to maintain my ideal weight and body composition.  I wanted to see if there were any errors in my ways and learn how an expert would recommend I eat. Ultimately, I want to use nutrition versus exercise and activity to maintain my goal weight and body composition.  

During the first week of my nutrition I did my best to weigh and estimate my calories and macronutrients using a scale.  However, I was eating more than normal. My clothes were starting to fit tighter and the scale number was creeping up.  

I couldn’t figure out why I was gaining weight when I was seemingly eating much better and more consistently.  

I told my coach, I don’t think I can’t be eating this much.   I was gaining weight and just couldn’t continue this trajectory or my clothes wouldn’t fit.

The good news?  Come to find out, I had a few MAJOR things wrong…

When I started my macro counting journey I thought I was doing everything my coach told me to do. Weigh your food, input into your tracker (I use MyNetDiary) and get to your macro numbers everyday. 

While I never really got exactly to my numbers, I was always very close, my coach approved. The odd thing was, I felt rather full each day. Like, overly-full.

I let my nutrition coach know how I was feeling and how full I was each day. While she wants me to be full, she doesn’t want me to be focused on the scale. The scale doesn’t tell the whole picture. I agreed.

My coach felt my macros were set correctly, however, what often happens is incorrect estimation and weighing of food.

She sent me some tips on how to measure food and my jaw literally dropped after reading what she sent. 

Weigh your food based on the raw (not cooked) serving. 

Food shrinks when it’s cooked, usually about 25%, so, by weighing it cooked, I was clearly overeating. 

A standard serving of meat is 4 oz based on raw meat, not cooked meat.  When counting macros for weight loss, weighing your food based on how the nutrition standard was developed is especially important.   

Here’s how it works…

If you take a 6 oz piece of raw chicken you get:

194 calories, 38 g of protein, 4.5 g of fat, and 0 g of carbs

If you measure a 6 oz piece of cooked chicken, you get:

261 calories, 50 g of protein, 6 g of fat, and 0 g of carbs

A 6 oz portion cooked, is actually 8 oz raw, which is the true nutrition count.  

Related: 5 Simple Clean Eating Rules To Follow

By not measuring your meat based on the raw serving size, you would be underestimating your calorie and macronutrient intake, thereby, over-eating.  

But how do you do get the correct weight when you just cooked your meat, poultry, or fish?  

Yes, weighing your protein raw is not convenient. Not to worry, you simply use a calculation to estimate the oz of raw vs. cooked.  

In general, you would estimate protein loses about 25% of its mass when cooked, therefore, the calculation is simply:

Cooked protein in oz / .75 = raw protein in oz

This principle applies across the board, even at restaurants.  When you order a “quarter pounder,” it’s using the raw meat as the weight, not the weight of the cooked meat on your plate. 

If that wasn’t mind-blowing enough…

Weigh packaged foods because the labels are not accurate.

Your food labels are (usually) misleading you.  If you are wondering why you aren’t losing weight, even with tracking your macros or calories, chances are, this is your problem. 

The FDA requires that packaged goods estimate their serving size based on the average weight of the product.  That means if your bread slice claims it’s 60 calories per slice, take a look at the grams it claims the serving is. Then, test this by using a food scale to weigh your slice of bread in grams.  

Does the weight of the slice match the weight on the label?  Usually I’ve found the label to be lower than the actual weight!

This means if you are calculating your macros based on the label (like most people) you are most likely under or over-estimating how much you actually consume. 

We trust the manufacturers to correctly label their food. We use the label as truth. But, because the FDA requires an average on their labels (understandably so) we end up with an inaccurate consumption calculation. 

The main point here?  If you are counting your macros for weight loss, weigh all your food, even those with labels. 

Weighing your food to track your macros can be a very effective way to lose unwanted fat and get into great shape. For those that have 10 lbs or less to lose these common mistakes can derail or even have the reverse effect (weight gain) for someone who thinks they are counting macros correctly. 

For more macro counting tips, meal ideas, and my journey to live a balanced healthy life, follow me on Instagram @thebodybulletin