“For some individuals, this is the hard part. For some, what comes next is the hard part- dieting.”
In this post we will walk through a step-by-step guide on calorie tracking, using the popular and free app- myfitnesspal. myfitnesspal is not a sponsor and I’m not being paid to endorse it. It is the most widely used calorie tracker app and available on both iOS and Android.
There are premium features on the app, locked behind a paywall. Don’t worry, we won’t be using these features.
Setting your macronutrient goals.
To keep it simple, we’re going to track Carbohydrates, Protein, and Fat. Carbs will always be 4 calories per gram. Protein will always be 4 calories per gram. Fat will always be 9 calories per gram. Virtually everything we consume will be made of a combination of those 3 macronutrients.
Once the app is downloaded, you’ll be met with the main page. Feel free to explore, but we’ll be tapping on the “More” tab on the bottom.
Here you’ll find a bunch of options. We’re going to customize our nutrition goals.
If you look toward the top, you’ll see options to enter your weight, goal weight, etc. Feel free to explore this option, but be aware that it will set your macros automatically for you. If that’s what you want, try it out, but I recommend starting by setting your macro goals manually. To do this, tap on “Calorie, Carbs, Protein and Fat Goals”.
Tap on “Calories” if you want to manually set your daily caloric goal.
You’ll notice that we’re forced to enter these quantities by a percentage, specific grams being locked behind the aforementioned paywall. That’s ok, we don’t have to be pinpoint accurate to achieve great results.
You can see my percentages above. To be honest, I only use these as rough guidelines. I consume the recommended amount of protein for a bodybuilder- 1g/lb of body weight. I currently weigh 176lbs, so I’ll consume 176g of protein. However, the app insists that we use 5% intervals. 20% comes out to 165g of protein, but I’ll shoot for 176g anyways.
65% carbs and 15% fat is personal preference. I prefer to have a high amount of carbs since I work a very active job Mon-Fri. Feel free to adjust these until you find something comfortable for you. If it’s comfortable, it’ll be easier to adhere to. I recommend ~60% carbs for most people, but everyone is different so it would be absurd to force a rule like that.
Remember carbs are an easy-to-breakdown energy source. If you’re very active, you may want to lean into the carbs a little more. If not, raise the fat a little bit.
Recording your meals.
Now that we have our goals set in place, we can begin tracking our food.
Tap the “Diary” tab at the bottom of the Home Screen.
If you entered your calories manually, you’ll see that reflected at the top.
We can enter our food under “Breakfast”, “Lunch”, “Dinner”, and “Snacks”. If you would like to organize your meals like this, feel free, but I prefer to just categorize everything into breakfast. It has no effect on the calculations.
Tap the “Add Food” button.
You can search for the food you want to enter manually, but you also have the option to scan the food, scan the barcode, or choose from your history.
I had oatmeal with two bananas this morning, so I’ll record that.
You can see that my breakfast added up to 510 calories which are subtracted from my goal for the day. As I add more food, more calories will be added up and subtracted.
If you tap anywhere up top where I’ve circled, a new page will pop up with your nutrient totals for the day.
That’s pretty much it! The key is to record everything, and be persistent.
A few tips:
- Don’t forget condiments and sauces.
- If you’re eating something from a package, check the portion size and consider having just one portion, or doubling it to make the calculation easy.
- Record right away so you don’t forget.
- Lots of restaurants or odd meals won’t be in the library, so just pick something similar and make an educated guess.
- You’ll eventually learn to estimate nutrients accurately!
Finding your caloric maintenance
To bulk up (or cut, for that matter) you’ll have to first find your caloric maintenance. This is the amount of food you eat on a regular basis that results in very little weight loss/gain. This is how much you eat to maintain your current weight, but remember, our weight will fluctuate naturally by a few pounds.
You now know the basics of tracking calories. So we have to find our maintenance.
If you’re not currently gaining/losing weight on a weekly basis, you’re already eating at a caloric maintenance, so just track what you eat for a week.
If you are currently gaining/losing weight, track what you eat for a week but push it in the desired direction. Add or subtract 100-200 calories a day and see what happens. At the end of the week, you should have an idea of what your maintenance might look like. If you want a solid number you can rely on, go for another week and try to eat the exact amount where your weight doesn’t change.
Ok, so you have an idea of what your maintenance is. The next step is to eat according to your goals.
How to track to gain/lose weight
Simply add or subtract calories to or from your maintenance intake. For example, if my maintenance is approximately 2700 and I want to gain weight, I’ll bump it up to 3000 per day.
How much should you add or subtract? Well, 3500 calories equals 1lb. So if you want to gain/lose 1lb a week, you’ll have to add/subtract 500 calories per day, since 3500/7= 500. Pretty neat, right?
For some individuals, this is the hard part. For some, what comes next is the hard part- dieting.
I struggled for a long time to gain weight, but eventually figured it out. If you want more tips on bulking for hardgainers, go here.