Calories vs. Macros

[Amsterdamned]

Bro's and garls,

We all know:

Carbs 4
Protein 4
Fat 9

Lately I have been tracking all my calories in MyFitnessPal and I noticed that when I hit my macros exactly, the calories are way off. This is because MFP doesn't do the math of 4-4-9 but simply makes a sum of the calories per entry, and does the same for carbs, protein and fat.
So, if your tracker bar shows you ate 100 gram of carbs, that doesn't necessarily translates to 400kcal, but can be 410kcal. Why?

Because if you (or someone else) creates food in MFP, you have to specify calorie and macros separately. This means you can create food with 10.000 calories and only 1 gram of carbs/fat/pr - makes absolutely no sense. Instead you should only be asked to specify the macros from which the calories are calculated IMO.

Now I already never trusted the MFP database, so I always manually create my food/meals myself according to the Nutrition Facts label on the product. But what's funny is that even many nutrition labels are wrong themselves! For example, I have a bag of lentils here and it says:

Kcal: 305
Fat: 1.5 g
Carbs: 43 g
Fiber: 18 g
Protein: 21

See label here


If I'd do the math, that's 269.5 kcal - NOT 305 kcal

How is that 305kcal calculated?

So it's not just an issue of MFP, because if people simply copy/paste this (wrong) information from the label to MFP - no wonder calories are totally off.

Now, what should I do? Forgetting about calories and just making sure I hit my macros?

I also read this:
https://www.ontheregimen.com/2015/11...-myfitnesspal/

Do food manufactures adjust for thermic effect of food and are we the only ones who use the 4-4-9 rule?

thnx

[WolfRose7]

There's a 20% leeway either way on calorie accuracy of labels.

I would suggest not majoring in the minors, meet minimums, fill the rest as you like. Realize that tdee and tracking is a good estimate but is just an estimatation tool to use and not exact.

The scale and your progress towards your goals will be the most useful measures

[Heisman2]

This type of thread comes up once every few months.

Quick version: use the total calorie count on the nutrition label for your total calories, and use the listed grams of protein/fat if calculating macros.

Long version: there are several factors at play:

- fiber is generally thought to yield anywhere from 0-2 kcals/gram depending on the fermentability and one's own microbiome
- sugar alcohols, if present, are <4 kcal/gram
- the Atwater factors better describe calories per macro per food; on average it comes out to 4/4/9 but these are just averages. Most foods are close, some are considerably off (ie, cocoa)
- some food macros total calories are not properly described even by the Atwater factors (ie, nuts, which likely due to the thick shell preventing full absorption yields fewer calories than would be assumed based on the nutrition label)

So, for your nutrition label:
Fat = 1.5 grams = ~14 kcal
Carbs = 43 grams = ~172 kcal
Protein = 21 grams = ~84 kcal
Fiber = 18 grams = ~ 0-36 kcal

14 + 172 + 84 = 270. Assuming 36 kcal from the fiber and that gets you to the ~305 kcal.

As stated above in the US nutrition labels can be off legally by 20%; most are not but this always allows the possibility of some leeway.

[AdamWW]

This type of thread comes up once every few months.

Quick version: use the total calorie count on the nutrition label for your total calories, and use the listed grams of protein/fat if calculating macros.

Long version: there are several factors at play:

- fiber is generally thought to yield anywhere from 0-2 kcals/gram depending on the fermentability and one's own microbiome
- sugar alcohols, if present, are <4 kcal/gram
- the Atwater factors better describe calories per macro per food; on average it comes out to 4/4/9 but these are just averages. Most foods are close, some are considerably off (ie, cocoa)
- some food macros total calories are not properly described even by the Atwater factors (ie, nuts, which likely due to the thick shell preventing full absorption yields fewer calories than would be assumed based on the nutrition label)

So, for your nutrition label:
Fat = 1.5 grams = ~14 kcal
Carbs = 43 grams = ~172 kcal
Protein = 21 grams = ~84 kcal
Fiber = 18 grams = ~ 0-36 kcal

14 + 172 + 84 = 270. Assuming 36 kcal from the fiber and that gets you to the ~305 kcal.

As stated above in the US nutrition labels can be off legally by 20%; most are not but this always allows the possibility of some leeway.

I think what he was saying is that the label seemed to overreport calories and not under report them.

Even still, I’ve had labels be off simply based on error before, but for something like plain lentils you can just use a common food database since it’s not a processed food.

[Heisman2]

I think what he was saying is that the label seemed to overreport calories and not under report them.

Even still, I’ve had labels be off simply based on error before, but for something like plain lentils you can just use a common food database since it’s not a processed food.

Right, but I think the label reports it correctly. He asked how the 305 kcal is calculated and assuming 2 kcal/g fiber it makes sense.

[AdamWW]

Right, but I think the label reports it correctly. He asked how the 305 kcal is calculated and assuming 2 kcal/g fiber it makes sense.

Oh so you’re thinking they don’t include fiber in the total carb count like they do in the US?

[Heisman2]

Oh so you’re thinking they don’t include fiber in the total carb count like they do in the US?

Yeah, that is my guess.

[AdamWW]

Yeah, that is my guess.

Yea if so that would make sense