How to Calculate Macros for Alcohol

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If you’re currently following a macro tracking diet (aka “iifym”) then you’ve probably run into the issue of how to accurately track alcohol. We all know that alcohol isn’t the healthiest beverage, but I think it’s extremely important to know how to properly include it in your healthy lifestyle. I’m not going to lecture you on the empty calories in alcohol, that’s not what you’re here for. I’m a realistic person and I understand that there are going to be times where you just want a damn drink. And instead of talking you out of it, I’m going to show you how to accurately track it!

Step #1 – Total Calories

The first step is figuring out the total calories in your alcoholic beverage. This is super easy is your consuming something out of a can or a bottle. But if you’re having a mixed drink, you’ll have to look at the amount of calories from the alcoholic portion of your drink. For example, if you’re having a mimosa (cough cough…one of my favorite drinks!) that is 3oz of orange juice and 3oz of champagne, you’ll need to find out the calories in just the 3oz of champagne. The reason we ignore the orange juice in this example, is because you can log this like you normally would (0g fat, 10g carbs, 1g protein).

Now back to that champagne. 3oz of champagne has about 75 calories.

Step #2 – Choose between Carbs & Fats

The second step is that you need to decide which macronutrient to log these 75 calories as, either fat or carbs. I typically log my alcohol as carbs, because this is typically the macronutrient that we consume the most of. Plus I prefer to save my fats for other things (like peanut butter and chocolate!).

If you decide to log your champagne as carbs, you need to take the total calories and divide by 4 (since carbs have 4 calories per gram).

75 calories / 4 = 18.75g carbs (round up to 19g) carbs)

If you decide to log your champagne as fat, you need to take the total calories and divide by 9 (since fat has 9 calories per gram)

75 calories / 9 = 8.3g fat (round up to 9g fat)

Or you can make it a combination of the two!

Step #3 – Track it!

The final step is easy…log your drink into whatever app you’re using and then sip happily knowing you can enjoy this drink and still reach your goals! Great job!

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