4 Tips for Your First Week Tracking Macros
You’ve decided to find out wtf macros are.
Now what?
Tracking macros isn’t about being perfect or cutting things out.
It’s about learning what’s in your food and how protein, fats, and carbs fuel your body. All of these are essential. Tracking helps you focus on how your food serves you—whether it’s providing energy, balance, or comfort—and lets you move away from guilt and toward understanding. Here are four tips to help you get started:
1. Track What You’re already Eating. Just Start.
The first step is simple: log what you’re eating without changing anything. This helps establish your maintenance calories—the baseline amount your body needs right now.
Don’t worry about hitting specific numbers or adjusting your meals. Think of this week as data collection. The more honest you are, the clearer picture we’ll have. Just log everything—no editing or judgment.
Want to work with a coach on how to track and creating a macros plan built for your body? Book a free call.
2. Break Restaurant Meals & mom’s lasagna Into Parts
Meals cooked by others or served at a restaurant don’t need to derail your tracking. Just break them into parts:
Lasagna: Think about what’s in it. What are the ingredients you saw on your plate or know are in there. Log pasta, sauce, and cheese separately so you actually get a sense of what you consumed for macros at that meal. (Maybe you finally hit fats. Congrats!). You don’t need to know exact amounts—just approximate.
Chicken enchiladas: Count how many tortillas you ate. Were they corn or flour? What was inside—chicken, veggies, beans? Was there cheese or sauce on top? If someone else cooked it, assume they used more oil or butter than you would at home and factor that in.
Guessing is okay. This approach is still more accurate than selecting a generic “lasagna” or “enchiladas” entry in your tracker, where the portions and ingredients might be completely off.
3. Don’t Skip Tracking Just Because You’re Unsure
Feeling uncertain about what’s in a meal? That’s normal. Don’t let it stop you—log it anyway. Tracking is a skill, and like any skill, it improves with practice. When you’re unsure, think about:
What ingredients were likely used?
How much of each was on your plate?
Are there extras, like oil, butter, or cheese, that someone else might have added?
Overestimate a bit and you’re good to go. Skipping entirely just holds you back from building the habit. Want to know more about how tracking can actually improve your relationship with food? See this post and contact us for a free consult.
4. Challenge Assumptions About What You’re Eating
Macro tracking can open your eyes to what’s actually in your food. Sometimes, foods you think are one thing turn out to be another. This isn’t about judging carbs, fats, or any other macro—it’s about debunking some weirdly successful marketing to make sure you actually give your body everything it needs that day.
Peanut butter: Peanut butter is a whole religion. It is not, however, a protein source. It’s a fat, with a little protein. Eat it, bathe in it, worship it. But stop calling it protein.
Vegetables: They’re carbs. All of them. If you think of your chicken-rice-broccoli dinner as “protein, carb, starch” what that really means is “protein, carb, carb.” That’s not a problem - carbs are good - but where are my fats girl? You need those, too, especially if you have fertility goals, hormone imbalances, or a whole host of other things fats are critical for.
Bacon: It’s primarily fat, with just a bit of protein. Again, not an issue, but counting on it as your protein source at breakfast will leave you scrambling to hit that protein goal later in the day. Add some greek yogurt into that breakfast.
The goal is to understand what’s on your plate so you can create a balance that works for your body and your goals.
The Bottom Line
Your first week of macro tracking is about building awareness, not perfection. Log what you’re eating, break meals into parts, and don’t worry if you’re unsure. Every meal is an opportunity to learn what fuels your body.
