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20. Why you have calories left over even though you hit your macros
23 Plays2 months ago
Have you ever hit your macros but still have calories left over?
This is super common and there's a really simple explanation for why your macros and calories don't match when you're tracking your food.
A big part of it comes down to how accurate nutrition labels actually are — and the answer might surprise you. The FDA legally allows nutrition labels to be up to 25% inaccurate, which means even if you're tracking everything to the gram and following your calorie deficit, you could still be off without realizing it.
In this episode I discuss why this happens, why net carbs aren't actually a real thing, how to read a nutrition label more accurately, and whether you should be following your macros or your calories.
If you've ever wondered why things don't add up this episode will help clear up a lot of confusion so you can get back to focusing on what matters - showing up and doing your best so you can keep going.
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Transcript
Introduction to Calorie-Macro Mismatch
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, my friends, welcome back to another episode of the Basics of Balance. My name is Ariella. We are going to be talking today about something that comes up very often with ah with my nutrition clients when they first start logging their food. ah And that is they notice that sometimes they will have a variance in their day as it relates to their calories don't match their macros. Like they've hit their macros for the day ah but they have
The Role and Benefits of Food Logging
00:00:27
Speaker
calories left over. And like, why does that happen? What should you do about it? All of that stuff, right? And I will say, I am a big fan of logging your food. I don't think that logging is a requirement. I think logging has value depending on the goal, depending on the person, depending on a lot, right? Context matters. But I do think it's worth saying there's always going to be exceptions to the rule. And so I do think that logging your food is massively beneficial for reasons like we're about to get into that are very indirectly related. It helps you grow in your understanding as far as what a balanced diet looks like, things to be mindful of that just give you general knowledge. um, life skills that you can use for the rest of your life. Um, I think logging our food is a massive tool that basically helps us learn, um you know, how our choices add up so that it puts us in a position where we can accurately guesstimate if we're in situations where we're not logging, because the goal of logging your food is to not log forever, right? It's the information that we get from logging our food, like this example, where we're better able to identify how to make a balanced choice or you know, just things to pay attention
Misconceptions in Caloric Intake
00:01:38
Speaker
to.
00:01:38
Speaker
it's also It's also, excuse me, ah proven, we have a lot of research that shows we as a society largely underestimate how much we are eating. Like we'll look at a food and it visually does not look like a lot. And so we don't think it's a lot when in reality, Those options are very calorically dense, right? So maybe like ah a latte at Starbucks and like a muffin from Starbucks. Well, that doesn't look like a lot, but in reality, that's hundreds, if not approaching a thousand calories, depending on what's in that latte, right? And so all that to say, logging your food is massively beneficial. And I do think that it is worth... um a lot of people's time and effort at least for a temporary phase of their journey because it really just gives you a level of awareness that you don't have if you don't spend some time longing right uh okay so all of that to say it is very common when we um we've hit our macros for the day and we have calories left over okay and the reason that that is Or the biggest reason, I should say, that is indicative of you had a lot of food that had a lot of barcodes that had nutritional labels. Right. So you had a lot of food that was not produce, that was not meat. Right. You had a lot of non whole food options. And that's not necessarily to shame. That's just typically when we see a lot of that. Right. when we're having more packaged food versus more whole, unprocessed food.
Nutritional Label Inaccuracies
00:03:03
Speaker
ah And the reason that is, the FDA is legally allowed to be up to 25% inaccurate, wrong on their nutritional labels and still be allowed to say, hey, this is what's in what you're eating. And so when we when we understand there's a variance, I likely ate food that had a lot of barcodes or nutritional labels. um That kind of makes sense then. You know what I mean? like Food is going to be a lot more accurate, at least as far as our logging is concerned, um when it's real food, when it's single ingredient, right?
00:03:38
Speaker
And so the thing is, is that 25% is kind of a big deal. When you are in a deficit, you're you might be in a 10% to 15% deficit. okay and so twenty five Let me back up. I'm sorry. I do this a lot. 10% to 15% deficit of your daily caloric intake. okay so Your daily caloric intake, how many calories your body needs ah just to maintain, right? Just to be a healthy individual, ah your body is thriving, it's healthy. We we subtract 10 to 15% of whatever those daily caloric um you know targets would be, and that would be your deficit target, okay? 10 to 15%. That's what I meant by that.
00:04:19
Speaker
Sorry. I think I go too fast sometimes and I I forget explaining is helpful. um So when you're in a deficit, let's say 10 to 15 percent, a 25 percent variance is kind of
Impact on Dieting Efforts
00:04:30
Speaker
a big deal. Like that's definitely enough to like throw you out of a deficit. If you have a lot of those foods where, hey, you're you're eating more than you think you're eating, that could be enough to throw you out of that deficit, put you you know back into maintenance. Right.
00:04:44
Speaker
um And so that that matters. You could be weighing everything to the gram. You could be measuring everything and still be 25% off and feel like you're not making as much progress. And hey, that would point to let's make sure that we're eating as many you know single ingredient, whole food you know options as possible, but also like no wonder why we have trust issues. You know what i mean? That's a big reason why the FDA is like, come on, man, like how are we supposed to trust what you say? Because in situations like this, you let a lot fly under the radar. But the thing is is that knowledge is power. okay So when we are when we understand how our food is broken down, we're better able to and identify variances like this and be a little bit more accurate in our reporting and traces and whatnot. so um
00:05:29
Speaker
This is not something that you need to necessarily do when you're in a grocery store. It's just, again, helpful information for you. If you feel like something is fishy, now you know better kind of thing. So we want to understand and remember that carbs and protein have the same ah ah calorie per gram breakdown. There are four calories associated with one gram of carb and protein.
00:05:58
Speaker
protein. Okay. Now fat is going to take a little bit more. Fat is nine calories per gram of dietary fat. Okay. So with that understanding, we're going to go through a little example really quick. And with that understanding, we have that basic general awareness that as we are reading a nutritional label, before we even can tell if anything is fishy or not. All right. And the reason that this matters is when you are, when you see that variance in your log and you see that you've hit your, your macros, but there's calories left over, you can double check. You can see if this is accurate or not. So that's the, that's the beauty of having this kind of knowledge.
Example of Carb-Balanced Tortilla
00:06:39
Speaker
All right. um Okay. So we're going to look at, um and I just have this as an example, because I've used it as an example recently. a carb-balanced tortilla, a mission carb-balanced tortilla, yeah all right?
00:06:52
Speaker
um And so the the nutritional label says it is 70 calories per tortilla, all right? And so when we're looking at it, I'm looking at the carbs, it's saying it has 19 carbs,
00:07:05
Speaker
I'm looking at the protein, it's saying it has five grams of protein. So we take nine plus five and we get 24, all right? We know that carbs and protein is going to have four calories per gram. So we take 24 and we multiply that by four. And guess what we get? We get 96 calories.
00:07:25
Speaker
That's a red flag because didn't we just say that the nutritional label says one tortilla has 70? Well, how are we getting 96? We're starting to learn, right? Now let's take fat. We have to take fat into consideration.
00:07:38
Speaker
Fat is going to give us, if we have three grams of fat times nine, right? How many calories per gram? That gives us 27 calories. So we take the 96 calories coming from ah carbs and protein. We add them to the 27 calories coming from fat, and that gives us 123 calories. What happened to What happened to 70, guys? This is why we have trust issues. The label said 70, but our calculation 123.
00:08:05
Speaker
says a hundred and twenty three That's calories. Now, calories, when you are basically eating in let's say a two hundred and fifty to three hundred calorie deficit that can be substantial if that is not only your only incorrect entry. What about if you had another entry that was 53 calories off?
00:08:26
Speaker
Now we're off by 100 calories. You can see how easily these little tiny variances can add up and throw you out of a deficit, right? It's helpful to know. um And so when we think about it, when we have 53 calorie variance A big reason as to why options like this specific carb balance tortilla is wrong is because a lot of companies are still going based off of the information of net carb versus total carb. Okay. So in this situation specifically, we have a total carb count of 19 grams.
00:09:01
Speaker
that you have a dietary fiber count of 15 grams. And so they are subtracting that dietary fiber, 15, from 19, all right? So we're basically getting four quote-unquote net carbs. And so that is basically what is assisting in the variance of the nutritional label, okay?
The Misleading Concept of Net Carbs
00:09:21
Speaker
However, the thing is, is that when we are working on... um ah a science-based nutritional approach, we have to understand that net carbs are not a thing, okay? Your body does not just automatically not use the calories associated with fiber. it ah It doesn't just like, oops, we're not going to use those. It's taking energy, right, to break that food down, right? That's that dietary fiber doing its thing, if you will. Okay. It's going to take energy to break that food down. And so therefore, we don't want to just ignore the calories that are coming from fiber. Okay. So when you are looking um at your nutritional labels, understand how the protein, the carb, and the fat are broken down. Remember that calculation so that it's a really easy you know calculation to do in the in the aisle. But um you know also at the end of the day, dietary fiber, we don't want to subtract those calories. Now, imagine for just a second, we had a 53 calorie variance on this nutritional label. okay
00:10:26
Speaker
Now, let's say something else that we ate had 20 grams of fiber and that nutritional label is just basically going based off of ah the net carbs, right? It's subtracting all of those calories from that option over there. That's throwing off our daily caloric intake massively, you guys. And that is something that is a real life situation that keeps people from feeling like calorie deficits don't work. That is a situation that keeps people feeling like they are on a hamster wheel. They are logging their food, right? They are following these terms like net carbs, right? They think that they are being accurate, though they have these great discrepancies and they're only in a 10 to 15 percent deficit. And so these discrepancies are adding up. They're putting in all this effort and arguably they think they're doing it right. And they are based on their understanding. But.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's these little nuances that pop up here and there that if we don't know better, we don't understand why we feel like we're on a hamster wheel. We don't understand why it's not working for us when it worked for someone else. And we're being told that you just didn't do a calorie deficit, right?
Importance of Macro Tracking Over Calorie Counting
00:11:40
Speaker
And it's just because we don't have an understanding of these things. um And so all of that to say, when you experience this,
00:11:47
Speaker
Follow your macros. Don't follow your calories. Allow the calories to be off. Follow your macros because the macro app that you're hopefully tracking um your food with, because that's the more accurate way, right? If you're going to put in that effort, we want to make sure it's accurate, like we just said. But you want to follow those macros because that macro tracking app is using that calculation, okay?
00:12:11
Speaker
And so we're going to see that variance and we're going to be okay with that variance because if we're following macros, hey, we know we're accurate, okay? We also know there's going to be some kind of variance based on if we had a lot of food that maybe had a lot of barcodes and and labels and whatnot, right? So use those brain gains to kind of decode nutritional labels. Use those brain gains to understand little variances here and there can add up and throw you off. But also taking some time to log your food,
00:12:43
Speaker
shines light on things just like this. And taking some time to log your food is going to be massively beneficial because now you know a little bit
Listener Engagement and Feedback
00:12:52
Speaker
more, okay? You're a little bit more educated. you got a little bit more skin in the game, a little bit more experience to basically know how to handle these situations, okay?
00:13:00
Speaker
If you have any questions on that, let's talk about it. Use the form in the caption. just to kind of connect and we can kind of keep this conversation going. But I hope that was helpful a helpful resource for you. I would be so appreciative if you would share this episode, if it was helpful for you. It'll probably be helpful for somebody else. And then of course, I would very much appreciate if you would leave a review, um five stars only and above, anything less than that. I hope you're filling out that form. Kidding, but also not. Have a wonderful rest of your day, guys. Until next time, now you know how to read a nutritional label.