Keto Macros MyFitnessPal Guide

You can’t control what you can’t measure.

Before we get into figuring out your keto macros MyFitnessPal numbers, let’s quickly define what a ketogenic diet (keto diet for short) is, first and foremost. And this might be a quick review for you as well.

A keto diet is a very low carb, moderate protein, and high fat diet. You have to severely limit your carb intake and you have to be getting most of your calories from fat or it’s not a keto diet.

Now, you might be asking yourself right now. Isn’t fat bad for you? And the short answer is, no. Eating fat won’t make you fat. That’s one of the biggest nutrition myths of all time. The problem is, a lot of people are still under the assumption that it’s true.

How fat became demonized

If you want a quick history lesson about how fat became demonized, back in the 1960’s, there was an uptick in Americans dying from heart disease.

Scientists back then, led by a guy named Ancel Keys, who was very biased against fat, had two choices to blame. It was either fat or sugar. And we all know who won that debate and it’s led to unintended consequences. Americans were told that fat was bad and carbs and sugar were okay and now we have an obesity epidemic.

Keto Macros MyFitnessPal Guide

If we’re talking strictly about a keto macros MyFitnessPal guideline, you wanna go around at least 65-70% fat, 25% protein, and around 5% carbs.

But I want you to treat those percentages more as a baseline. Those percentages might result in completely different numbers for some people especially if you have a lot of weight to lose.

The most important number here is the amount of carbs in your diet. Because you don’t have a lot of room for error. You wanna be below 50 grams in total daily when you’re starting out. Because there’s gonna be an adaptation period where your body is in the process of switching fuel sources. You have to give it some time.

Once your body becomes adapted to eating less carbs, then you wanna lower it even more to 20 grams or less.

Now, that sounds pretty easy to follow in theory. Right? But how do you know if you’re on point with your percentages or if you’ve exceeded them? That’s the hard part because 50 grams isn’t a lot. There are so many foods out there with hidden carbs and what you can’t do is you can’t just freestyle this part. I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. 

This video explain how to figure out your keto macros MyFitnessPal numbers.

It takes fat to burn fat

So, what happens with the keto diet is, when you give your body mainly fat to burn, it adapts to become very good at using fat for energy. Your brain which was previously running entirely on glucose from sugar and starch in your diet, begins to run on a new fuel called ketones which is produced in your liver by breaking down fat.

As long as you don’t give your body any carbs, in two to six weeks you become fat adapted. Then you’re running mostly on fat for energy and now your body enters a state called ketosis.

Now, a pretty common mistake that people do is they incorrectly assume that if they just lower their carbs, then they can do a ketogenic diet, or that they can get most of the benefits that come from it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. You can’t just half try this diet.

The best tip I can give you is you have to track your food and macros when you’re on a keto diet and I use a free app called MyFitnessPal for this. The app takes away any calculations or complicated math that you’d have to do when it comes to figuring out your keto diet macros ratio and tracking your food.

Now, if you’ve never heard of the app before, I have a separate video on how to use MyFitnessPal and I’m gonna put the link for it in the description box.

The dreaded keto flu

Now I mentioned earlier about an adaptation period so let’s talk about that real quick because this can hold back a lot of people.

For some people, when they switch to a keto diet they kinda start to feel like crap, and this is commonly referred to as the keto flu. Thankfully, it’s perfectly normal and temporary. Think of your body going through “carb withdrawal,” much like withdrawal associated with addictive substances. In fact, recent studies have compared the effect of carbs, particularly sugar on the brain to that of addictive drugs like cocaine!

If you’re somebody with a sweet tooth and you can’t seem to help yourself around sugar, you know exactly what I’m talking about here. Again, the keto flu is just a period where your body is adjusting to a new way of fueling. Think of a vintage car that hasn’t been used in a while. At first, it might be a little rough as you wait for the engine to warm up. But once you give it some time and it’s up and running , it starts to run smoothly.

The benefits of a keto diet

Now, one of the best benefits of a keto diet is that it allows your insulin levels to become very low, and fat burning increases dramatically because of it. Again, when your insulin levels are high, you can’t access your own body fat for energy. You just can’t. Insulin blocks fat burning. And when you allow it to get low, It becomes easy to access your fat stores to burn them off. This is great if you’re trying to lose weight.

The keto diet also controls blood sugar levels, and is excellent for reversing type 2 diabetes and this has been proven in a lot of studies.

It makes perfect sense since the keto diet lowers blood-sugar levels and reduces the negative impact of high insulin levels mentioned earlier.

Keto diet transformation

So let’s go back to our case study and see how the ketogenic diet has affected his life. Over many years of eating carbs, he developed high blood sugar levels. And this is common for a lot of people who eat a lot of refined carbs and sugar. If he continued down this path, it was only a matter of time until he developed Type 2 Diabetes. And a lot of people experience this. In fact, 1 in 10 Americans suffer from Type 2 Diabetes.

After 7 months of being on the ketogenic diet, again, controlling blood sugar levels being one of its biggest benefits, he’s all but lowered his blood sugar to normal levels.

He’s lost 5 inches off his waist, going from a size 33 to a size 28. He dropped a whopping 20 lbs in 7 months.

To put that into perspective, he hasn’t been that lean in about 30 years. It’s like turning back time!

But here’s the thing. Health isn’t about the weight you lose but about the life you gain. How did all these awesome changes translate to his every day life?

Well, he feels healthier than ever, he’s got more energy, and he’s just more confident about himself. He can finally wear the clothes that he wants without feeling the need to hide his belly. And this change has just opened up so many more opportunities in his life. You simply can’t put a price tag on that.

Who knew that you could basically have a brand new lease on life in your 50’s?

Just like a lot of people, he was a little apprehensive at first to try the keto diet. He thought it was just a fad. Actually, it was almost a forced trial because my mom started packing him keto lunch for work every day and I used her in another case study in a different video if you wanna see her amazing keto diet before and after pics.

Long story short, he was inspired by my Mom’s results. Once he stepped on the scale after a few weeks, he saw the numbers drop. He was hooked from that point forward. You can’t argue with results, right?

He’s a man of few words but I asked him what his biggest takeaway is from this experience. He said four simple words that should resonate with everyone.

“It’s never too late”.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!