If It Fits Your Macro’s (IIFYM) - eat pizza and lose weight!?

If it fits your macros or IIFYM basically means that you can eat whatever you want as long as if it fits your daily caloric intake. This is called flexible dieting, if you want know more about this and how this can be a nice feature for your diet, please keep on reading to learn more.

How do you know how much calories you should eat? You can find out by knowing your maintenance level first. On this level you won't lose or gain weight. With this link you can calculate your maintenance level.

When you eat below your maintenance level you lose weight and when you eat above your calorie maintenance level you gain weight. So by tracking your calories you can get the results you want. You should start by eating 400-500 calories below or above your maintenance level to get the results you want. But there is also another important factor in your diet, these are the micro nutrients which make up the calorie. These are the carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

Each micro nutrient consists of certain calories:

- Carbohydrates 4 calories each gram
- Protein 4 calories each gram
- Fat 9 calories each gram

If you go to the gym and do strength training then you should eat at around 1.0g of protein per pound of bodyweight. At around 20-30% of the calories should come from healthy fats and the rest of the calories should come from carbohydrates (around 40-50%). I recommend to use a tracking app to track your calories, personally I really like the myfitnesspall app.

Eat all you want?

A new trend started among the web called IIFYM or If It Fits Your Macros. This basically means that you can still lose weight even when eating delicious unhealthy meals like pizza’s or donuts, as long as you still hit your daily caloric goal.

Does this mean you can eat whatever you want? As long as I hit my calorie goal I’m safe right? Yes and no. While you can certainly eat whatever you want, this will not be the most optimal for you.

You can eat a candy instead of a apple or you can eat a snicker bar instead of a bowl of oats. They may have the same calories as well. You will still lose weight because you will eat the same amount of calories. Be careful tough because you won’t be as fulfilled when choosing the unhealthier option. When for example you replace a bowl of oats for a snicker bar you miss out on a lot fiber, which is very important in any diet and makes you feel less hungry.
When choosing for a high calorie snicker bar over a bowl of oats you won’t have the same amount of energy throughout the day as well.

If you eat a lot unhealthy meals with a lot of trans fats, you won’t get enough of the essential healthy fats in your diet as well (healthy fats from avocado’s, almonds, peanuts etc.). Healthy fats will give a much better hormonal response to your body, which also is much more beneficial for weight loss and has much more benefits. If you eat a lot of unhealthy meals with IIFYM you will also be missing out on essential vitamins and minerals which are important for your overall health, body and muscle recovery.

When eating a lot of unhealthy stuff you should ask yourself: are my macros in order? Am I eating enough protein? This will be much more difficult because if you are really only choosing for the unhealthy stuff like pizza and donuts it will be much harder to consume the right amount of macro's, for example protein which stimulate muscle growth and contains essential amino acids.

Be careful!

With IIFYM you should be really careful, a 1600 calorie diet full of junk food might not cause weight gain, but there’s no telling what’s happening inside the body. For example, extra-virgin olive oil has been proven to be heart protective while on the other hand trans-fat has been proven to give heats attacks!

As you can see eating only unhealthy meals with If It Fits Your Macro's is something you don’t want to do. When choosing for IIFYM make sure that your diet mostly consists of healthy and lean meals. When choosing for this approach you can incorporate some unhealthy meals in your diet as well.

How to use If it fits your macros?

ALWAYS make sure your diet mostly consists of healthy meals. I would say at least 80% of your diet should consist with healthy food choices. For example brown rice/potatoes, vegetables, fruit and lean sources of protein. I personally like to choose for 90% healthy and 10% unhealthy calories when I am cutting. When I’m going to a party or eating at a restaurant this ratio will be a bit higher. On special days I like to adjust my macros and cut out some more healthy fats and carbs in order to make up for the extra calories.

I really like IIFYM because you get a lot more flexibility in your diet. If you’re eating outdoors or eating at a friend’s house you can still eat unhealthy meals and get away with it. You can adjust the ratios to fit your caloric needs. This way you won’t feel restricted with your diet and it will be much more enjoyable to lose weight as wel.

Conclusion

IIFYM is a great way to have some flexibility in your diet. With IIFYM you can still have some delicious unhealthy stuff (pizza’s, hamburgers, etc..) and still lose weight! Just make sure that for the most part your diet is healthy and consists of vegetables, fruits, fiber, and high-quality protein. As long as the macros fit your total daily calorie intake it’s perfectly fine to also have some more unhealthy options. IIFYM allows you the flexibility to eat your favorite foods while still seeing results!