How to Track Macros, Step by Step

To track macros, turn your calorie goal into three gram targets for protein, fat and carbs, then weigh your food and log it against them. Protein comes first. The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans set a protein goal of 1.2–1.6 g per kg of body weight a day. For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, the range is 84–112 g. Fat and carbs split the calories that remain.

What are macros, and how many calories is a gram of each?

Macros, short for macronutrients, are protein, fat and carbohydrate, the three main sources of calories in food. Under the Atwater general factors, protein and carbohydrate give 4 kcal per gram and fat gives 9 kcal.

Fat is the dense one. One tablespoon of olive oil (13.5 g) has 119 kcal, which is more than a whole banana at 101 kcal. That’s why the oil in the pan is the first thing I weigh.

Write 4, 9 and 4 on the first page of your notebook or notes app. Every conversion below uses them. If you only want the calorie side, how to track calories is the shorter method.

How do I set my macro targets in grams?

Set protein by body weight, give fat a share of calories, and let carbs fill what is left. I’ll use a 70 kg adult at 2,000 kcal, a level the appendix of the previous, 2020–2025 edition tabulates. The round number keeps the sums clean.

Step	Math	Result
Calorie goal	chosen for this example	2,000 kcal
Protein	70 kg × 1.4 g/kg	98 g (392 kcal)
Fat	30% × 2,000 kcal = 600 kcal, ÷ 9	67 g (603 kcal)
Carbs	(2,000 − 392 − 603) kcal ÷ 4	251 g (1,004 kcal)

I take 1.4 g/kg, the middle of the Guidelines’ range, and move it after two weeks of real data. The Guidelines say to adjust it to your individual caloric requirements but give no formula, so that choice is mine. For fat and carbs, that appendix lists the National Academies’ adult ranges: 20–35% of calories from fat and 45–65% from carbohydrate. The 30% and 50% here sit inside both. They are ranges, not targets, so pick shares you can actually eat.

For a calorie goal from your age, height, weight and activity, use the calorie calculator, which has a safe minimum built in. For a gram split built on your own calories instead of my example, use the macro calculator.

Write your three numbers on one line. Protein first.

How do I log macros from real food?

Get each food’s per-100 g values from its USDA record, multiply by grams ÷ 100, and add up the columns. Round each row to one decimal and the energy to whole kcal. Here is part of a day for the person above, with the multiplying done by me.

Food (state)	Grams	Protein	Fat	Carbs	Energy
Eggs, whole, large	100.6 (2 eggs)	12.5 g	10.0 g	1.0 g	148 kcal
Greek yogurt, plain, nonfat	156 (1 container)	16.1 g	0.6 g	5.7 g	95 kcal
Banana, raw	115 (1 banana)	0.9 g	0.3 g	26.4 g	101 kcal
Chicken breast, braised	150	48.2 g	4.9 g	0.0 g	249 kcal
Brown rice, cooked	202 (1 cup)	5.5 g	2.0 g	51.7 g	248 kcal
Broccoli, raw	152 (2 cups chopped)	3.9 g	0.5 g	9.5 g	49 kcal
Olive oil	13.5 (1 tbsp)	0.0 g	13.5 g	0.0 g	119 kcal
Total		87.1 g	31.8 g	94.3 g	1,009 kcal
Left of the targets		10.9 g	35.2 g	156.7 g	991 kcal

Where a record lists two energy figures, the table uses the food-specific one. Read the last row first. Protein is nearly done, while fat and carbs have most of the day left, so the next meal leans on rice, potatoes or fruit. That’s the point of tracking macros. The gap tells you what to eat next. If the gap sits at breakfast, calorie counting breakfast ideas has five weighed ones with the protein listed.

Match the state, too: the record’s state is the one you weigh. The tare and raw-versus-cooked routine is spelled out in how to weigh food for macros. The braised chicken above has 32.1 g of protein per 100 g, while raw chicken breast has 22.5 g. Weigh 150 g of cooked chicken and log it as raw, and you record 33.8 g of protein instead of 48.2 g. That’s an undercount of about 30%. Cooked and raw are different foods.

Weigh tonight’s dinner portion and write whether it is raw or cooked next to the grams.

Why don’t my macros add up to the calories on the label?

Because there are two ways to turn grams into calories, and a database may show either. Multiply the macros by 4, 9 and 4 and you get the general-factor figure. Many records also list a second energy value, worked out with food-specific factors instead of the general 4, 9 and 4. The two figures for one food can disagree. The FAO conversion chapter adds that in Atwater’s original system carbohydrate is determined by difference, so it includes fiber.

Food, per 100 g	4 × P + 9 × F + 4 × C	Energy, general factors	Energy, specific factors
Chicken breast, braised	157.6 kcal	158 kcal	166 kcal
Banana, raw	97.6 kcal	98 kcal	88 kcal

The chicken sum is 8 kcal under the specific figure, and the banana sum is 10 kcal over it. They move in opposite directions. No single correction fits both. My rule is to pick one energy column, keep it, and never recompute calories from macros halfway through a week. Gaps like this are small beside a handful of rice weighed by eye.

Check one packaged food today. Multiply its macros by 4, 9 and 4 and compare with the calories printed. A gap that size is normal.

How do I track macros without an app?

You need a kitchen scale and a notebook. Everything above works on paper, because the formula is just grams ÷ 100 × the per-100 g value. A reference page of the foods you eat most saves the lookups.

1. Set your three targets on the first line of the page.
2. On a reference page, copy the protein, fat, carbs and energy per 100 g for your ten most common foods, from the label or the USDA record.
3. On the scale, each food gets one row: grams, then the four products.
4. Add the columns when the day ends and write what is left.

On paper the weighing goes fast. The multiplying at 10 pm is what drags, and a recipe with six ingredients makes it worse. Foods outside your reference page cost a lookup each, and that is where my paper logs used to stop. If you keep it on paper, the columns described in how to keep a food journal cover the rest.

Try three days on paper first. If the reference page keeps growing, a database would save you the lookups.

How close do my macros need to be?

Close enough that the weekly average lands near the targets. I call a week a hit when average protein is within a tenth of its target and calories sit near the goal. That is my own rule, not a published standard. A single day that’s a few grams off in fat tells you nothing, because the database values behind it are rounded and the weekly average is the only number steady enough to steer by.

Don’t pay back a short day. Miss protein on Thursday and the fix is a normal Friday, not a double one. A catch-up dinner treats the shortfall as a debt, and the weekly average already absorbs the dip.

If full tracking feels like too much, track protein alone. It is the only macro with a body-weight target in the Guidelines, and the gram sums are the easiest.

Some people should not use these numbers. People with kidney disease should take their protein figure from their doctor, since the range above does not apply to them. Pregnancy, breastfeeding and anyone under 18 are outside this guide too.

Calsa runs the same arithmetic: edit calories or macros and the other adjusts to match, and every entry shows its source and the math.