Calculate Macros For Weight Loss I Diet Plan For Weight Loss
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts walks viewers through the fundamentals of calories and macronutrients, explains why calories are the primary driver of weight loss, and details the caloric values of protein (4 kcal/g), carbs (4 kcal/g), and fat (9 kcal/g). He then provides a step‑by‑step worked example for a 200‑lb individual aiming to reach 160 lb, using the formulas: calories = goal weight × 12, protein = goal weight × 1 g, fat = current weight × 0.3–0.4 g, and carbs = remaining calories ÷ 4. The resulting macro targets are 1,920 kcal, 160 g protein, 60 g fat, and 185 g carbs. Roberts discusses tracking approaches, recommending that most clients focus on hitting calorie and protein goals (the two most important metrics) while allowing carbs and fat to fall into place, but he also acknowledges that advanced users may track all four macros for finer control and self‑learning. He highlights the value of macro tracking for discovering personal macronutrient preferences (high‑carb vs. high‑fat) and for adjusting energy levels and digestion. Throughout, he references additional free resources (a calorie calculator video) and invites questions in the comments.
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What is going on, YouTube? Hope you're doing super well. Welcome to the channel, welcome back to the channel. Either way, incredibly happy to have you here, and I hope you're doing super amazing. It's Friday when I'm recording this, not sure when it'll come out honestly, but it's Friday when I'm recording this. Ready to start the weekend off right, feeling good, got my haircut, got my turquoise polo on, ready to teach you about how to set up and how to find your macros if you are looking to lose weight. What should your macros look like? Exactly how many grams of protein, exactly how many grams of carbs, exactly how many grams of fat. We're going to go over everything here in this video. Let's dive right in. So first and foremost, we're going to talk about calories versus macros. What's the difference? We're going to talk about the macros right here. I'm going to wipe the board entirely clean and give you an example of a 200-pound person looking to lose weight. What should their macros look like? It doesn't matter if you're male, female, dog, cat, whatever. A 200-pound individual looking to lose body fat. I'm going to give you exactly how to set up that macro equation. And even if you're not 200 pounds, this will be tailored towards whatever you are. If you're 150, if you're 250, I'll give you the exact equation of how to calculate it for yourself. And last but not least, we're going to talk about should you be tracking calories or should you be tracking macros or should you be tracking both? I'm going to give you my opinion on what I believe to be the most effective way to make sure you see weight loss progress. Without further ado, let's dive right in. So first and foremost, what is the difference between calories and macros? So there's a list of hierarchy of importance basically. At the top of that list is going to be calories. Without being in a calorie deficit, you will not lose body fat. So you have to make sure that you are intaking less calories than what your body burns. So that being said, you're going to need to know what your calorie deficit is in order to find your macros. If you need to know what your calorie deficit is, we're going to talk about it in this video. But also, I did an entire video here on YouTube. It's totally free. I give you my free calorie calculator for fat loss. So click this link above or head to the description below. It will be in there as well. You can watch it before this video, after this video, simultaneously in 2 different screens and 2 different window browsers, whatever works for you. But again, totally free. Head there to watch that video if you need to find out how many calories you need to eat to lose weight. So with that being said, calories most important, and then after that comes macros. And again, macros mean macronutrients. The 3 macronutrients are protein, carbs, and fats. Those are the 3 macronutrients that make up So every single calorie is either a protein, a carb, or a fat. All of the macronutrients make up calories, whether you eat calories from a donut, whether you eat calories from a steak. Macros from a donut, for example, is going to be mainly carbs and fats. Macros from a steak is mainly going to be protein and some fat. Macros from olive oil is mainly going to be fat. So all these foods have macronutrients in them that make up their calorie intake. That make up their calorie limit. Because again, macronutrients make up calories. And we're going to talk about list of importance as far as protein and carbs and fats, and we're going to talk about that as we get into the video as well. So don't worry about that. That's the short and sweet answer of what are calories, what are macros. Calories are the unit of measurement. They're the main guy, they're the king or the queen. And then macros fall right after that because you can't have calories without having macros. You can't have macros without having calories. They work hand in hand. But when it comes to seeing progress and seeing results, If your calories are not in check first, nothing else will matter. So that is calories versus macros. Now let's dive into each macronutrient, because again, there's 3 macronutrients: protein, carbs, and fats. So let's talk about protein. On the list of importance, it goes calories first, protein second, carbs and fats third and fourth. Okay? They're interchangeable. We're gonna talk about that as we get into the video as well. But if we're covering protein, I did an entire video here on YouTube explaining why protein is Damn near is one of, if not the most important thing after calories when it comes to losing body fat. I'll put the link here above as well in the description below, but I highly, highly, highly encourage you to go watch that video to get informed about why protein is so damn important to lose body fat. I will tell you this, 8 out of every 10 new online coaching clients I get by far are undereating in protein. So please, I know it's a very, very important thing and I know you need to hear it, Please go watch that video to understand why protein is so important. After you watch that video, now we can talk about protein. So again, like I said, each macronutrient has calories, right? So for every 1 gram of protein, you get 4 calories. So for example, if you have 20 grams of protein in a piece of steak, that is going to be 80 calories because 20 times 4 is 80 calories. And that's how you start to see your calories and macros start to add up to what they— what I was talking about earlier. So that's protein. Next comes carbohydrates. For every 1 gram of carbohydrate, there is 4 calories. So again, if you ate something that was 20 grams of carbs, you're getting 80 calories. And last but not least comes fat. This is a bit higher in the calories per gram. So for every 1 gram of fat, you have 9 calories per 1 gram of fat. So if something has 10 grams of fat, that has 90 calories in it. And also you have to remember, most foods are not just one macronutrient. For example, a donut, like we said, is going to be a mix of carbs and fats. A steak, for example, or an egg. An egg is a mix of fat and protein. So each food probably has more than one macronutrient to it, unless you're eating like a pure straight protein powder or pure straight egg white or something like that. Most foods will have different macronutrients to them, which will add up to your total for the day when we talk about how to set up your macros. Now again, quickly covering again, there's a list of hierarchy here because you're going to think like, oh well, what's the most important? Because fat has the most calories and protein has the least, but you said protein's important. Again, remember, Calories first, protein second, carbs and fats third and fourth. Those are interchangeable. They may just be one line. So just make sure you know that because we'll talk about that later. Okay, now that we know about calories versus macros, we know that macros make up calories. We know that protein has 4 calories, carbs have 4 calories, and fat has 1 calorie per gram each. Now let's talk about how you would set up a diet for macros for somebody who is 200 pounds. Alrighty, so we are back here. We're gonna talk about exactly how to set up your macros for a 200-pound individual. And again, This is going to be based off you. So whether you weigh 200, 150, or 250, this is going to work the same way. I know there's a lot of stuff on the board and there's a lot of numbers and a lot of things going on. I'm going to cover it piece by piece, so don't worry about it. So number 1, we start off with calories because without knowing your calorie deficit, you will not be able to calculate your macros. So for starters, again, I talked about the video earlier. If you need to go watch that video on how to calculate your calorie deficit, it's going to be in the description below. But for your calories, we're going to take your goal body weight times 12. Okay, so goal body weight, whatever your goal body weight is, goal body weight times 12. I talk more about goal body weight in that calorie deficit video, so please feel free to go watch that video again. But for the sake of this video, we have a 200-pound individual who is looking to weigh 160. So we're going to do 160 times 12 is going to give us our calorie number, which is 1,920 calories. So that is the mecca. That is the most important. Again, we talked about the hierarchy of importance. That's the top of the pyramid. Without that, you will not be able to calculate your macros. So 1,920 calories is what we are starting off at first. Second, after that, we go to the next most important thing on that list, which was protein. So for protein, we are going to do— take your goal body weight times 1. So again, in this situation, we're going to take 160 times 1. That is 160 grams of protein per day. Now, if you remember back to the first part of the video, we said that protein has 4 calories for every 1 gram of protein. So to find out how many calories from protein we are getting, we are going to take 160 times 4. That is going to give us 640 calories. And you may be thinking, why do I need to know that if I just track the protein? I'm not going to track the calories from protein, I'm just going to track the protein. Why do I need to know that? Don't worry, it's coming up. But that's how you find out how many calories you are getting from protein is 160 times 4. So 640 calories from protein. That's going to come up soon here. Give me one second. Next we find our fat. So again, it goes calories, protein. Now let's set our fat number for the day. So how to find your fat number for the day. My preferred way of doing this is actually taking your current body weight, not your goal body weight, taking your current body weight and multiplying between anywhere between 0.3 and 0.4. So I used the lower end for this example. So I took 200 times 0.3. That is 60 grams of fat per day. So this person so far has 1,920 calories per day, 160 grams of protein per day, 60 grams of fat per day. And also remember, fat has 9 calories for every 1 gram of fat. So I did 60 Times 9, that's 540 calories from fat. And if you recall back to what we just said, we had 640 grams of calories from protein and 540 grams of calories from fat. That leaves us with 1,180 calories left over. Why does that matter? Because the remainder of your calories is going to be what you use to make up your carb intake for that day. So again, one more time, just to make sure I'm not losing you. So we have 920 total calories for the day. That brings us to 1,180 calories for protein and fat. Why does this matter? Because the remainder of your calories are going to get used for carbohydrates. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take our total calories, 1,920, we're gonna subtract it from 1,180. This is going to give us 740 calories. Now, if you recall back to what we talked about earlier, For every 1 gram of carb, you have 4 calories. So what we're gonna do is 740 divided by 4. This is going to give us 185. This individual is going to intake 185 grams of carbs per day. That's gonna be his macro count for the carbohydrates. So again, wrapping up, 'cause I don't want you to miss anything. I know it can be confusing at first. First and foremost, we found our calorie deficit, which was our goal body weight times 12. So that gave us 1,920 calories. From there we got our protein macro, which was goal body weight times 1, so that's 160. From there we did 160 times 4, 'cause there's 4 calories for every 1 gram of protein. That got us to 640 calories from protein. Next we did fat, which was your current body weight times 0.3 to 0.4. So we did 200 times 0.3, which gave us 60 grams of fat. We then did 60 times 9 because for every 1 gram of fat there's 9 calories. So 60 times 9 is 540. And then to find our carb macro, we did 640 calories from protein plus 540 calories from fat got us 1,180 calories. We took 1,920 minus 1,180, got 740. We then did 740 divided by 4 because for every 1 gram of carb there's 4 calories. That gave us 185 grams of carbs. So for this 200-pound individual, for their macros for weight loss would be 1,920 calories, 160 grams of protein, 60 grams of fat, and 185 grams of carbohydrates. Now again, let's say you're 160 right now and you want to be 130. Perfect. You plug in 130 into all these numbers right here and you plug in 160 to your fat total, but you would plug in your numbers to this equation right here. And that would give you your macros for your goal weight for your current situation. I know it was a lot. Any questions or concerns, drop them below and I will be happy to help you. Okay, I'm going to give you my personal coaching opinion of whether you should track calories or you should track macros or should you track both. Personally, what I do with basically online coaching clients is we track calories and we track protein because normally if you track calories, And you track protein and you hit those 2 goals, your carbs and fats are going to fall in place. If we go back to our kind of like hierarchy system, calories were the most important, protein was the second most important, and then carbs and fats fell after that. So if you check off your most important and you check off your second most important, not only are you gonna see results, but the third and fourth are gonna have to fall in place. And I do this because number one, if somebody's new to tracking calories or new to tracking macros, And I don't want to overload them with all these numbers they have to hit. As opposed to hitting 4 numbers, calories, protein, carbs, and fats, why not just hit 2 numbers, calories and protein, and see the same results? Also, I do this for people who are very Type A perfectionists, which I know a lot of you are watching. I do this for those people because again, as opposed to worrying about whether you ate 187 grams of carbs or 182 grams of carbs or 64 grams of fat or 58 grams of fat, doesn't matter. You're still going to see results as long as your calories are in check and as long as your protein is in check. check. And number 3, if people are just busy, if they have a lot going on, why track 4 things when you can track 2 things and get the same results? So for me personally, I enjoy tracking calories and protein, and I have most of my online coaching clients do that. Now I will say this about tracking all 4— calories, protein, carbs, and fats— tracking macros as well. Number 1, if you're more advanced and you want to take it to the next level, tracking macros can be a good thing for you because you're going to be on point with every single thing. So if you're more advanced, feel free, use all this, track your macros to be awesome. Number 2, I will say about tracking macros is you can learn a lot from tracking macros. So for example, you can learn what foods are going to have high carb. You can learn what foods are going to have high fat, low carb, high fat, vice versa, all that. So first of all, you can learn a ton because you'll be looking at it and tracking it. But also number 2, you can find out if you prefer a more high carb, low fat diet or if you prefer a more high fat, low carb diet. Because myself, for example, I prefer a higher carbohydrate diet. I have good energy, I have good workouts, I have good stamina, I feel better. I prefer a higher carb diet. Now I have people who prefer a lower carb, higher fat diet. Those people flip-flop the two and they have more energy, they feel better, they have better digestion. Perfect. Great. That's one way tracking macros can let you see that because you can see, okay, cool, I have this carb goal, but I don't really feel great. Let me try to flip-flop. For example, instead of doing 185 grams of carbs, maybe you did 125 grams of carbs, and you put the calories of carbs you're taking away and you put it towards fat. So you would eat more fat and eat less carbs, and you would change your goals that way. And you might see, wow, it makes me feel better, I have more energy, I feel more focused. Cool, perfect, now you know. The third thing you could possibly do is you could track calories, protein, carbs, and fats, but only have a goal for your protein and your calories. I do this with actually all of my online coaching clients. We track all 4, but we only have a goal of 2 because this way you hit your goal of calories, you hit your goal of protein. Perfect. Good to go. But we track carbs and fats because why not? This way you can see, do I normally tend to lean towards a higher carb? Do I tend to lean towards a higher fat? Maybe this day my energy was super low. Why was that? Because maybe because I had lower carbs, maybe because I had higher carbs and it messed me up. So you can get information that way as well, but instead of having the pressure of hitting a specific goal, you could possibly just track it without having the pressure of hitting the goal. And that way you can still gain the knowledge from tracking macros without having you overburdened with pressure and hitting all these specific numbers. Because again, I need to stress to you, whether you hit 185 grams of carbs or 182, or whether you hit 60 grams of fat or 63, as long as your calories and protein are in check, don't fucking worry about it. So that is my 2 cents on whether you should track calories or macros. Again, honestly, my favorite way is tracking calories, Tracking protein, having goals for those 2 things, making sure you hit those goals, and then tracking carbs and tracking fats and just seeing what's up. So again, I know this was a lot of information. If you have any questions, if you have any concerns, drop 'em below. I'd be happy to help you out. And remember, I'm always here to help. Thank you so much for watching the video and we'll talk soon. Peace out. Peace out.
