Want to give your body the exact amount of nutrients it needs to fuel your lifestyle correctly? Enter the macro calculator. You can use it to tweak your daily diet in order to lose weight, lean out, gain muscle, or stay in shape. But let's take a quick step back.

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What are Macros?

Before you start on this macro-calculating journey, you may be wanting to know what a "macro" is in the first place. Macros, short for "macronutrients," are the three main nutrients your body needs: protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Your body needs a certain amount of each every day in order to function properly. Each nutrient performs differently within the body. Proteins, for example, promote muscle growth. Fats protect our organs and store energy, and carbs provide energy.

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How do you Count Your Macros?

As unpleasant as it sounds, let's take a quick trip back to math class. This will be fun math, I promise! In order to count exactly how many macros your specific body needs every day, you will need an equation that takes your body weight and daily activity into account.

Here's how it works:

1. Find Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

Your BMR will determine the amount of calories you body will burn if you were to do nothing in a day. It's a foundational tool to give you a base number of resting calories burned.

To find your BMR, use the Harris-Benedict equation:

BMR = 655 + (4.35 x your weight in pounds) + (4.7 x your height in inches) – (4.7 x age)

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For example, a 125-pound, 5'0", 27-year-old woman would input:

655 + (4.35 x 125) + (4.7 x 60) - (4.7 x 27) = 1,353.85 BMR

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2. Pick Your Activity Level

Now, multiply your BMR by your activity level below. This number determines the amount of calories you should eat in a day.

- Sedentary (little to no exercise throughout the week): 1.2

- Light exercise (1-2 times a week): 1.375

- Moderate exercise (3-5 times a week): 1.55

- Heavy exercise (6-7 times a week): 1.725

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For example, 1,353.85 x 1.55 = 2,098 kcals

3. Find Your Ratio

You have a little leeway when deciding how you want to split up the intake of your three macronutrients. A common way of dividing them in order to maintain hormonal equilibrium, energize your workouts, and repair and replenish your body is to eat 40% protein, 30% carbohydrates, and 30% fat.

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4. Calculate Your Macro Needs

Depending on your ratio above, the percentages may differ. I will use the above split of 40/30/30 in order to keep it as simple as possible.

Multiple your daily calorie count by 0.4 for protein (this is from the 40% above), 0.3 for carbs (from the 30% above), and 0.3 for fat (from the 30% above). Once you have all three numbers, divide the protein and carb numbers by 4 and the fat number by 9. This is because your body spends the amount of nutrients differently. For every gram of protein and carbohydrate, your body receives 4 calories. For ever gram of fat, your body receives 9 calories.

These final three numbers are how many grams of each macro to eat in a day.

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For example:

2,100 x 0.4 = 839 protein

2,100 x 0.3 = 629 carbs

2,100 x 0.3 = 629 fats

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839 / 4 = 209g protein

629 / 4 = 157g carbs

629 / 9 = 70g fat

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5. Personalize it

The great thing about macro counting is that it gives you some freedom to eat what you want to eat. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but if you think about it, you can pretty much eat whatever you want as long as it fits within your macro count. There is no over-restricting because you are hitting all the necessary numbers to fuel your body and still promote weight loss, gain, or whatever you are shooting for.

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Macro Calculator App

You can make it much easier on yourself with a macro counting app! Now that you know exactly what the equations are and how the app's algorithm works, you can feel better with the numbers it spits out at you.

You also may be wondering how to calculate how many grams of each macro are in your foods. This is where an app also swoops in to save the day!

Cron-o-meter allows you to scan the barcodes of the foods you eat and will automatically add a single serving size of the ingredient into your app. Your profile will display a bar chart of your daily macros so that you can quickly and easily see how many you have remaining for the day. The app syncs your data to all of your devices instantly as well.