What Are The Most Common Macro Tracking Errors?
These are the most common macro tracking errors I see as a nutrition coach. Learn what they are and how to avoid these common pitfalls!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… macro tracking is a SKILL! And when you learn any new skill, it’s going to take a little while to overcome common mistakes.
These mistakes have varying degrees of severity depending on what phase of dieting you’re in (i.e. you need to be much more accurate in a fat loss phase vs in a maintenance phase to see results).
Ultimately these tracking errors usually come down to one thing: not tracking accurately. Some of these accuracy errors are:
Using generic entries
Let’s say you eat an apple. In any of the tracking apps you can adjust your portion sizes; so you could log 1 medium apple or you could log 160g. Logging generic entries like a medium apple or large cesar salad are a much less accurate estimation tool than using grams (or even cups if you can’t easily weight the item)
Using cups instead of weights
While cups are more accurate than using generic entries, weights are always going to be the most accurate tool. Use a food scale whenever possible; it’s so easy to over-fill or under-fill measuring cups and depending on what you’re preparing, this can add an extra 50-100 calories, which, over the course of the day will add up especially if you’re in a deficit!
Eyeballing quantities
Remember how I said macro tracking is a skill? And when you do it for a long time, eyeballing does become easier (because you know what 100g of chicken breast looks like from weighing it out dozens of times). But eyeballing is basically as much of an estimation as using generic entries. Weights and cups are the first choice! When eyeballing, most of us drastically under-estimate how much food we actually eat and in the case of generic entries we don’t even know how much the app is estimating in the first place.
Not tracking bites, licks, and tastes
Did you track that extra handful of chips you ate after you finished weighing your portion? Or that bite of your husband’s cookie? Or the extra chicken nugget off your kid’s dinner plate? 50 calories here, 100 calories there… these things add up and can easily throw you out of a calorie deficit if not accounted for!
Not tracking cooking oil
This is a very commonly forgotten one! Anything you cook on the stove with butter or oil… you gotta track what goes in the pan! Your food is absorbing the oil that you cook with. When I’m cooking at home, I usually add 0.5tbsp of cooking oil to my entires and when going out to eat I add 1-2tbsp depending on the food and its preparation.
Weighing cooked food but tracking raw
This is most common with things like rice, pasta, and meat. Everything changes weight when it cooks (rice and pasta nearly double in weight and meats loses weight). Most tracking app entries are given in RAW quantities so if you are weighing your food after it’s cooked you are drastically under or over-estimating quantities. Here’s a video that shows the best practice for this!
Winging it every day
Last but certainly not least, if you are just reactively tracking what you’re eating without planning ahead of time it is going to be damn near impossible to hit your macros every day. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND taking 5 minutes either the night before or morning of to input any meals that you know you’ll be eating that day. Have lunch meal prepped, great add that in! Dinner out with friends; look at the menu ahead of time and input your estimate! This will help you create guardrails for the rest of the day so you know how to structure the rest of your meals based on your goals. This will help you avoid ending up at the end of the day with 30g of carbs but no protein or fat (for example). But if you do find yourself in that pinch, you can check out my leftover macro guide!
If you find yourself making any of these common errors, practice really does make perfect! Yes tracking accurately does take a little more time in the beginning as you’re learning the ropes but I promise it really does get easier and faster!
If you want to up your macro tracking game, download my FREE macro tracking guide!
Featured Posts
