If you’ve been tracking macros for some time, the question of how to adjust your macro targets has definitely crossed your mind – sometimes it even comes before you’ve downloaded your first set of macro targets! You’re a go-getter and a thoughtful planner so you’re anticipating making adjustments in the future. That’s great – below, you’ll learn how to adjust calorie and macro targets for your unique goals.
First, understand that your needs do change over time, but they might not change as often as you’d think. Some of the most common reasons to adjust macro targets include: a change in goals such as wanting to gain muscle instead of lose fat, wanting to experience more energy, food freedom and flexibility in your diet, or a need to match your highly active lifestyle with more food.
When macro expert dietitians (like me!) calculate macro targets for a person, it is our “best educated estimate” of your needs, but your personal experience with that prescription is the ultimate test. Tried-and-true formulas are a great start, but we often take into account your health history, specific health, body or fitness goals, as well as food preferences (because if you don’t enjoy how you eat, you be consistent)!
earn your right to adjust your macros
I always tell my clients that they need to “earn their right” to adjust their macros, and that goes for you too!
adjusting macros without adjusting calories
Consistency matters for success in your health, body composition and athletic performance goals, so you must enjoy your eating pattern. Remember that you are welcome to eat a flexible amount of fats and carbohydrates while hitting your protein targets and calorie goals.
If by allowing for more or less carbohydrates or fats, you are more consistent with your macro goals, then you should make changes to your current prescription. While your food tracking app will do this on its own, you are welcome to adjust your current prescription by taking these steps:
- To increase carbohydrate targets, decrease fat targets while keeping calories the same.
- Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram and fats contain 9 calories per gram. So, since there are about 2 grams of carbohydrate for every 1 gram of fat, you will increase carbohydrates and decrease fats in a 2 to 1 ratio.
- With a prescription of 1740 calories from 150 g protein, 60 g fat, 150 g carbohydrate, consider adding 10 g of carbohydrate while subtracting 5 g of fat. For an even more drastic change, add 20 g of carbohydrate while subtracting 10 g of fat. Remember, total calories and protein targets stay the same.
- Your new prescription would be 1735 calories from 150 g protein, 55 g fat, 160 g carbohydrate. You should not worry about the slight difference in calories when making this change; 5 calories is negligible.
- To increase fat targets, decrease carbohydrate targets while keeping calories the same.
- Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram and fats contain 9 calories per gram. So, since there are about 2 grams of carbohydrate for every 1 gram of fat, you will increase carbohydrates and decrease fats in a 2 to 1 ratio.
- With a prescription of 150 g protein, 60 g fat, 150 g carbohydrate, subtract 10 g of carbohydrate while adding 5 g of fat. For an even more drastic change, subtract 20 g of carbohydrate while adding 10 g of fat. Remember, total calories and protein targets stay the same.
- Your new prescription would be 1745 calories from 150 g protein, 65 g fat, 140 g carbohydrate. You should not worry about the slight difference in calories when making this change; 5 calories is negligible.
adjusting calories down to create a calorie deficit
The purpose of a calorie deficit is to lose body fat while maintaining as much lean muscle mass on the frame as possible. Best practice for calorie deficits is to decrease calories by ~10-30% from maintenance calories. The goal is always to be eating as much food as possible while seeing fat loss results. In other words, always start with the least amount of a deficit possible (usually 10-15%) and adjust as needed. If you are seeing results with a 10% deficit, you would not increase the deficit. Alternatively, if you are not seeing results with a 10% deficit, you would increase the deficit to 15%. Protein stays the same and we reduce calories from fats only, carbohydrates only, or a mix of fats and carbohydrates.
- Identify maintenance calories and multiply by .90, .85, or .80 to find 10, 15 or 20% deficit, respectively. These are your deficit calories. Find the difference between your maintenance and your deficit calories by subtracting your deficit calories from your maintenance calories. This might be about 100-250 calories, but it could be a larger number.
- Fat contains 9 calories per gram. We typically adjust fat in increments of 5 or 10 g. Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram. We typically adjust carbohydrates in increments of 20 or 25 g. Look at your current macro prescription and decide where you want to take calories from – fats, carbohydrates or a mix of both.
- Decreasing calories from fats: Take the number of grams of fat that you wish to decrease and multiply it by 9. Example: 10 g fat x 9 = 90 calories.
- Decreasing calories from carbs: Take the number of grams of carbs that you wish to decrease and multiply by 4. Example: 20 g carb x 4 = 80 calories
Add the calories from fats and the calories from carbs together and ask yourself if this number is close to the number of calories you intended to decrease by to create your deficit in the earlier step. Example: 90 + 80 = 170 calories. Is 170 calories close to the number you found above when you found your maintenance calories minus your deficit calories? If yes, stop here. If no, remove additional fats and/or carbs until it does.
adjusting calories from a deficit to maintenance
In moving from a calorie deficit for the purpose of losing body fat or weight, macros need to be adjusted up to get to maintenance. Understand that staying in a calorie deficit forever is not the goal. Calorie deficits are meant to be finite periods of focused time where you attempt to accomplish as much as you can before moving back to a calorie and macro amount that represents how much your body needs to function optimally. Failing to end a fat loss phase and prolong eating less than what your body needs can result in metabolic and hormonal dysfunction.
Returning to maintenance calories from a calorie deficit is often termed a “reverse diet“. The purpose of a reverse diet is not to lose additional weight or body fat, but rather to recover and enhance your metabolic rate so you can:
- Minimize body fat gain after a period of fat loss i.e. maintain the results you achieved in the fat loss phase
- Increase calories to a level the supports your hormones, metabolism and daily functions
- Increase calories to a level that supports higher level of strength training and conditioning
- Prime your body for future fat loss
First, you need to find out where you are going. In order to know how much you need to increase calories from your current intake, you’ll need to find your estimated calorie needs at your current body weight.
- If you do not know what your estimated maintenance calories are, you can use this guide to figure it out based on your current weight and activity level.
- In general, reverse dieting involves making incremental jumps in calories every other week by about 100-150 calories until you are at your estimated maintenance calories (that you found in the step above). Protein macro targets stay the same and increases in calories come from carbohydrates only, fats only, or a mix of both. Your choice to increase carbohydrates, fats or a mix of both macronutrients depends on your preference for each in the diet. But, in general, it’s best to adjust carbohydrates by a greater degree than fats because metabolic rate seems to respond well to more carbohydrates in the diet. Fat contains 9 calories per gram. We typically adjust fat in increments of 5 and 10 g. Carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram. We typically adjust carbohydrates in increments of 20 and 25 g.
- Increasing calories from fats: Take the number of grams of fat that you wish to increase and multiply it by 9. Example: 5 g fat x 9 = 45 calories.
- Increasing calories from carbs: Take the number of grams of carbs that you wish to increase and multiply by 4. Example: 25 g carb x 4 = 100 calories.
- Add the calories from fats and the calories from carbs together. This is the amount of calories you will increase from your deficit calories. Example: 45 + 100 = 145 calories. You will add 145 to your calorie deficit prescription. Ensure that the calorie amount from carbohydrates + fats is between 100-150 calories. If the calorie amount from carbohydrates + fats does not equal at least 100 calories, add additional fats and/or carbohydrate grams until it does.
Repeat these steps every other week until you are at or around your estimated maintenance calories that you found in step 1.
Once you’ve found maintenance, you can hang out there as long as you want. In fact, maintenance should be where you spend the majority of your calendar year. Benefits to spending most of your time in maintenance include: eating more food and having more flexibility in your eating, better energy for workouts because you are well fueled, gaining more lean muscle mass, better support for hormones and metabolism – remember, your body doesn’t like being in a deficit.
The methods for adjusting macros described here are the simple version. If you are more versed in macros, you may have more experience with adjusting macros on your own and doing it differently than I explained here – that’s totally okay!
