What are macros?

When it comes to weight loss, some people have traded old-school calorie counting for counting macros. Macros — short for macronutrients — include carbs, proteins, and fats. Simply put, counting them involves tallying up how many grams of each you consume each day, aiming for specific targets.

Macronutrients are dietary components that give us energy. The body uses them in relatively large amounts, says Rahaf Al Bochi, RDN, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and founder of Olive Tree Nutrition. Macronutrients encompass three categories: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Despite claims made by low-carb diets, carbohydrates are the body’s preferred source of fuel, coming from grains and grain-based foods such as pasta and bread, as well as dairy, beans, fruit, and vegetables. Carbs are broken down into glucose, which powers everything from your brain to your muscles.

Proteins help form the tissues found in organs, muscles, and more. They also supply amino acids the body needs for growth, repair, and digestion. High-protein foods include meat, poultry, seafood, nuts, seeds, beans, peas, lentils, soy and soybean products like tofu, as well as dairy.

Learn more about how much protein you need during weight loss

Fats insulate the body and help with the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. Saturated fat is primarily found in animal-based sources such as red meat, but is also found in tropical oils such as coconut oil and palm oil; heart-healthy unsaturated fat is typically found in plant-based sources such as nuts, seeds, avocados, and vegetable oils, as well as some fish, including salmon.

Learn more about healthy vs. unhealthy fats

If you’re a person who’s accustomed to just looking at calories, counting macros and additional related nutrients like fiber and saturated fat may be helpful in nudging you toward more nutrient-dense options. For example, a bagel with jam and a bowl of overnight oats with chocolate, peanut butter, and banana have similar calorie counts, but the oat bowl packs more protein, fiber, and heart-healthy unsaturated fat — which you can see when tracking your macros and these additional nutrients.

Research shows that tracking what you eat can help you lose weight and keep it off long-term, and you need to log all your food accurately to track macros. Since you need to log food accurately for counting macros, it can help you be more aware of the portion sizes you’re actually eating, which can help you build healthier habits over time.

Focusing squarely on calories doesn’t give you the full picture of a food’s quality, and the same goes for macros. Not all macros are equal. The subtype matters.

Fiber is a type of carbohydrate, so you can consider it a subtype of a macro. Looking at both or even just fiber (and aiming for enough fiber) is going to be more helpful than looking at total carbohydrates alone.

Another type of carbohydrate is sugar. Sugar comes in two forms — added sugars and natural sugars. Natural sugars are going to be found intrinsically in fruit, dairy, and vegetables. These foods will have other nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals alongside the inherent sugar in them.

Added sugars by definition from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are sugars that are free-standing sugars and don’t have any other nutrients in meaningful amounts. Added sugars include table sugar, agave, honey, maple syrup, and high fructose corn syrup to name a few of the most common ones.

Same goes with fat. High amounts of saturated fat (which is a type of fat that is found in foods such as red meat and butter) are associated with an increased risk of developing health conditions like heart disease. When used to replace saturated fats, the unsaturated fats found in avocado, seafood, nuts, and plant-based oils may help reduce heart disease risk.

Bottom line? A gram of one isn’t the same healthwise as a gram of another. Don’t become too fixated on macro numbers or ratios instead of your overall health. Macronutrients are just one consideration when it comes to a healthy pattern of eating — vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients matter, too.

The Points system was designed with all this in mind. For example, a food high in carbohydrates where the carbohydrate is mainly coming from added sugars will have a lot more Points than a similar food with the same amount of total carbohydrates with little to no added sugars.

Fiber also influences the Points algorithm. A food with higher fiber compared to a food with the same carbohydrates and less fiber will have less Points, nudging you towards the higher-fiber food. Similarly, foods with higher amounts of saturated fats are higher in Points compared to foods with the same total fat but less saturated fat.

In addition to Points, the WW app gives you guidelines on what your ranges for protein, fats (and the subtype saturated fat), and carbs (and the subtypes fiber and added sugars) should be. It also automatically tracks your progress towards each when you track your meals.

If you find tracking macros helpful, than rest assured the app will calculate (and display) this for you. Not interested in the details nutrition science? Then just pay attention to Points, which roll all that complexity into one easy-to-follow number.