Hey Chicks!
Today I write about how to track alcohol in your macros!
If you are unsure about what tracking macros is, essentially you have a caloric goal and a set amount of protein, carbs, and fat to hit each day. Alcohol does have calories, but it doesn’t have any macro nutrients, so what are you supposed to do if you choose to indulge occasionally?
While I don’t recommend drinking much, especially on a fat loss plan, we have to face the reality that we will drink alcohol sometimes, so I want to give you the tools to succeed. And if you are tracking macros, you will notice that alcohol can take up a bunch of them without leaving you feeling satisfied, so plan your bevies ahead of time to fit them into your macro budget.
The trick is to calculate your alcohol calories as either carbs or fats or a combo of fats and carbs. Carbs have 4 calories per gram and fats have 9 – so depending on your macros you can choose either or a combination.
For example, if a drink has 100 calories, you can:
- Divide 100/4 (4 calories per gram of carbs) = 25 grams of carbs
- Divide 100/9 (9 calories per gram of alcohol) = 11 grams of fats
- Use a combination – ie 5.5 grams of fat and 12.5 grams of carbs
Now remember, this trick only works for alcohol – ie spirits, wine, beer etc. If you are adding non-alcoholic mixers like juice or pop, you will have to add in the macros for those separately!
If you are unsure about the calories of a particular alcoholic drink, do a web search first. Get the total amount of calories for your drink and calculate the macro split that way. And be sure to stick with single portion drinks and if you can’t, then be sure to weigh out your alcohol in ounces or track the ounces in the drink you order from a restaurant (4 ounce, 5 ounce, etc..). Either way, you will still need to know the total calories in that drink so that you can calculate the macros in order to track it!
Comment below if you have any questions 🙂
