# How to count macros: UK labels and portions Canonical URL: https://www.hemed.com/blog/how-to-count-macros Plain-text URL: https://www.hemed.com/blog/how-to-count-macros/llms.txt Published: 2026-10-29 Modified: 2026-10-29 Author: The HeMed clinical team Topic: Living well Topic URL: https://www.hemed.com/blog/topic/living-well Tags: Macros, Nutrition Reading time: 15 min Publisher: HeMed (https://www.hemed.com/) ## Summary To count macros, add up the protein, carbohydrate and fat on UK labels, per 100 g or per portion, and weigh anything unlabelled. Plus when to stop. ## Article To count macros you add up the protein, carbohydrate and fat in what you eat. Most packaged food carries the figures by law, per 100 g and sometimes per portion. Anything without a label you weigh and look up in the UK food composition dataset. Studies link self-monitoring of food and weight with more weight loss. The evidence comes mostly from women and does not show that counting macros in particular is needed. Macros, short for macronutrients, are the three nutrients that supply most of your energy. This guide shows where the numbers are on a UK label and how to estimate food without one. It also covers how accurate the figures really are and when tracking stops being worth it. For your own daily figures, see the macro calculator. ### Where are macros on a UK food label? On the back or side of the pack, in the nutrition declaration. UK law requires prepacked food to declare energy plus fat, saturates, carbohydrate, sugars, protein and salt, with a few exemptions. Fibre, starch and the types of unsaturated fat are optional extras. The figures always appear per 100 g or per 100 ml. A per-portion column may be added, as long as the portion is quantified on the label and the pack states how many portions it holds. The NHS warns that the manufacturer's idea of a portion may differ from yours. The order is fixed: energy in kJ and kcal, fat, of which saturates, carbohydrate, of which sugars, fibre, protein, salt. Kcal is kilocalories, the calories people talk about. The values describe the food as sold, unless the label says it refers to the food as prepared and gives the instructions. #### How is the energy figure worked out? From the macros, using fixed factors. The law assigns 4 kcal per gram to carbohydrate and protein, 9 kcal to fat, 7 kcal to alcohol and 2 kcal to fibre. So if you know the macros, you know the calories, and counting macros covers calories too. Drinks above 1.2% alcohol by volume are exempt from the declaration. The alcohol still counts: at 7 kcal per gram it carries energy that no macro column shows. ### What do the reference intakes on a label mean? Reference intakes show how much of an average adult's day one serving uses up. Where a label gives percentages, it must state the basis: "Reference intake of an average adult (8 400 kJ/2 000 kcal)". The NHS describes reference intakes as guidelines about the approximate amount of nutrients and energy required for a healthy diet. Energy or nutrient | Reference intake on UK labels Energy | 8,400 kJ / 2,000 kcal Total fat | 70 g Saturates | 20 g Carbohydrate | 260 g Sugars | 90 g Protein | 50 g Salt | 6 g The figures come from the labelling regulation. They are not targets for you. The British Nutrition Foundation describes 2,000 kcal as the amount estimated for an average adult woman. It says a taller or more active person may need more. A man's own figures usually differ; the government's figures for men are in what are macros. ### What do the traffic light colours mean? Red means high, amber medium and green low, for fat, saturates, sugars and salt only. Energy is never colour-coded. The front-of-pack scheme is voluntary, and when a business uses it the full back-of-pack declaration must still be there. Per 100 g of food | Green (low) | Amber (medium) | Red (high) | Red per portion Fat | 3.0 g or less | Over 3.0 g to 17.5 g | Over 17.5 g | Over 21 g Saturates | 1.5 g or less | Over 1.5 g to 5.0 g | Over 5.0 g | Over 6.0 g Total sugars | 5.0 g or less | Over 5.0 g to 22.5 g | Over 22.5 g | Over 27 g Salt | 0.3 g or less | Over 0.3 g to 1.5 g | Over 1.5 g | Over 1.8 g Thresholds from the government guide, November 2016 edition. The per-portion red rule applies when a portion is over 100 g. A nutrient above its per-portion cut-off is labelled red whatever the per-100 g figure says. Drinks use different thresholds per 100 ml. #### What do the colours leave out? The colours do not show protein, carbohydrate or fibre, so they cannot count macros for you. They are a quick filter. The NHS advice is to limit foods with any red and to choose more greens and ambers when comparing similar products. ### How do you count foods without a label? Weigh the food and look it up in CoFID, the UK Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset. Public Health England published it as the record of the nutrient content of the UK food supply, with values per 100 g of food. Government guidance names it as the accepted data from which label values themselves may be calculated. Entries that include bones, skins or peel carry "weighed with" in the name and an edible conversion factor. An app's reliability depends on the food database behind it. #### What if you cannot weigh it? Use your hands. The British Nutrition Foundation says weighing is the most accurate way to measure a portion, and offers hand measures as a practical second best. Bigger hands give bigger portions, which roughly scales with the person. - Two handfuls of dried pasta or rice: about 75 g. - Cooked pasta or rice that fits in two cupped hands: about 180 g. - A chicken breast the size of your whole hand: about 120 g cooked. - A piece of cheddar the size of two thumbs: about 30 g. - A baked potato the size of your fist: about 220 g. The foundation notes that its portions are suggestions, not government recommendations. The British Dietetic Association gives similar cues. Cooked meat at 90 g is a deck of cards, and cooked fish at 140 g is the palm of your hand. Hard cheese at 30 g is a small matchbox. ### Do you weigh food raw or cooked? Either, as long as you use the matching entry. Cooking changes the weight of food, mainly through water, so the figures per 100 g change with it. The table shows CoFID's paired entries. Food (CoFID entry) | Protein per 100 g | Carbohydrate per 100 g | Energy per 100 g Pasta, white, dried, raw | 11.3 g | 75.6 g | 343 kcal Pasta, white, dried, boiled | 5.5 g | 37.2 g | 169 kcal Rice, white, basmati, raw | 8.1 g | 83.7 g | 351 kcal Rice, white, basmati, boiled | 2.8 g | 26.5 g | 117 kcal Chicken, light meat, raw (the closest raw entry) | 24.0 g | 0 g | 106 kcal Chicken breast, grilled without skin | 32.0 g | 0 g | 148 kcal Potatoes, old, raw, flesh only | 1.9 g | 19.6 g | 82 kcal Potatoes, old, boiled, flesh only | 1.8 g | 17.5 g | 74 kcal Values from CoFID 2021. Pasta and rice soak up water, so 100 g cooked carries far less carbohydrate than 100 g dry. For pasta it is about half (37.2 g against 75.6 g) and for rice about a third (26.5 g against 83.7 g). Meat loses water, so 100 g grilled carries more protein than 100 g raw. #### What do the pairs look like in portions? The portion guides give the pairs in everyday terms. Dried pasta at 75 g becomes about 180 g cooked, and dried rice at 65 g about 180 g cooked. A 160 g raw chicken breast becomes about 120 g grilled. The dietetic association puts cooked pasta at 150 g for 75 g dry. Weighing raw is usually simpler, because the raw figures do not depend on how long you cooked it. ### How accurate are labels and apps? Less than the decimal points suggest. By law the declared figures are average values, based on analysis, on the ingredients, or on reference data. Government guidance says foods cannot always contain the exact amounts labelled, because of natural variation, production and storage. #### How far can a label be out? UK guidance points businesses to the European Commission's tolerance document, written for enforcement authorities. The document says it has no formal legal status. For carbohydrate, sugars, protein and fibre the tolerance depends on the declared value per 100 g. - Under 10 g: plus or minus 2 g. - Between 10 and 40 g: plus or minus 20%. - Above 40 g: plus or minus 8 g. Fat follows the same pattern, except that below 10 g per 100 g the band is plus or minus 1.5 g. The document's own example: a label declaring 8.5 g of sugars per 100 g is within tolerance anywhere from 6.5 g to 11 g. Businesses are expected to declare values close to the batch average rather than at the edge of the band. Treat any label as accurate to within about a fifth, or a couple of grams for small amounts. #### How accurate are tracking apps? Good for macros when used carefully, and inconsistent between apps. In one validation study, 50 people kept four-day records in a consumer app after careful instruction. Against the Belgian national food database, the app's totals correlated strongly for energy, carbohydrate, fat and protein. The reported correlations are for cleaned data, after 2.8% of entries were removed as likely errors. The researchers noted that the app's database contained many entries with considerable differences in nutritional information for the same food. A separate comparison in Japan entered the same one-day food diary into five apps and found that intake calculations differed between them. An app is as good as the entry you pick. ### Do you have to count macros to lose weight? No. What the research supports is self-monitoring in some form. Protein is the one macro we suggest tracking on its own. A systematic review of 22 US studies found a consistent, significant association between self-monitoring of diet, exercise or weight and weight loss. The authors rated the evidence as weak, because of methodological limits and samples that were mostly white women. More frequent and more complete recording went with more weight loss. The review could not say how often or for how long a person needs to record. Weighing yourself daily to weekly was linked with more weight loss than weighing less often. None of the studies tested macro counting as such, and the authors named men as an under-studied group. #### What does NICE say? NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, asks weight management programmes for adults to use self-monitoring. That means self-monitoring of weight and of the behaviours that affect it, alongside goal setting, problem solving and support. NICE frames self-monitoring as one component of a structured, multicomponent programme, not as a solo exercise in arithmetic. NICE places self-monitoring inside a programme with feedback and support. A lighter version: weigh yourself weekly, set protein by body weight and hit it at each meal. Keep an eye on the foods that carry the most fat and sugar. For how much protein, see how much protein you need to lose weight. Macro calculator Enter your age, height, weight and activity level for an estimated daily energy figure and the macros that go with it. Work out your macros. ### What is flexible dieting? Flexible dieting, sometimes sold as the "macro diet" or "if it fits your macros", means hitting daily macro targets while eating whatever foods you like. None of the research here tested it as a named diet, in men or anyone else, so there is no result to report for it. What the research does compare is rigid against flexible control of eating. Researchers compared rigid and flexible control in a German population sample of 1,838 people and a cohort of 54,517 people on a weight programme. Rigid control went with a higher BMI (body mass index, weight set against height) and more frequent binge eating. Flexible control went with lower BMI, less binge eating and a higher chance of successful weight loss over a year. In 188 non-obese women, rigid strategies were associated with eating disorder symptoms and flexible strategies were not. Both studies are observational, so they show association, not cause. The practical reading is that targets you can bend appear safer and easier to keep than rules you cannot. Counting macros flexibly is one way to do that. It is not the only one. ### What should you look for in a tracking app? A database you can trust and tools that make honest entries easy. The validation study above recommended instructions on proper food item selection, portion size recording and barcode scanning. It also recommended tagging generic entries so users can tell them from user-added ones. Those are the features to look for. - Verified or generic entries you can tell apart from crowd-sourced ones. - A barcode scanner, ideally one that pulls the UK label rather than an overseas version of the product. - Portion entry in grams, with the per-100 g figures visible. - UK reference data behind the unbranded foods, which means CoFID. - A protein total you can see at a glance, since that is the figure most worth hitting. Remember that different apps give different totals for the same food diary. Pick one and stay with it, so your numbers are at least consistent with themselves. ### When should you stop tracking? When it starts to run you rather than inform you. In a survey of 493 US college students, people who used calorie trackers reported higher eating concern and dietary restraint, independent of BMI. The authors called the findings preliminary and said that for some people these devices might do more harm than good. Among 105 people diagnosed with an eating disorder, about three quarters had used a calorie-tracking app. Of those users, 73% felt it had contributed to their illness. Both studies show association, not cause, but they are reason enough to watch how tracking makes you behave. The NHS lists these among the symptoms of an eating disorder. - Spending a lot of time worrying about weight and body shape. - Avoiding socialising when food will be involved. - Very strict habits or routines around food. - Exercising too much. If you recognise them, stop tracking. The NHS advice is to see a GP as soon as you can. The eating disorders charity Beat runs a helpline on 0808 801 0677. ### Frequently asked questions **Do I count fibre as carbohydrate?** On a UK label, no. Fibre has its own line below carbohydrate and its own energy factor. The energy calculation gives fibre 2 kcal per gram against 4 kcal for carbohydrate. Track fibre as its own number if you track it at all. If an app entry comes from an overseas label, check which line its carbohydrate figure follows. **Does alcohol count towards my macros?** Alcohol counts towards your energy at 7 kcal per gram, but it is not a macro and no label column shows it. Drinks over 1.2% alcohol by volume do not have to carry a nutrition declaration at all. If you track, add the drink's calories to the day's total. They bring energy with nothing to show for it in protein. **Is counting macros better than counting calories?** Counting macros includes counting calories, because each gram has a fixed energy value. The extra information is where the energy comes from, and the useful part of that is the protein total. The self-monitoring studies did not compare the two methods. Whichever you can keep up is the better one. **How long should I track for?** The research does not say. The systematic review could not identify the frequency or duration of self-monitoring that made the difference. A practical approach is to track closely for a few weeks, until you know what your usual meals contain. Then move to weekly weighing and a protein target per meal. Go back to tracking if your weight stalls. **Why does my app total differ from the label?** Often because the app entry is a different version of the product, a user-added entry, or an overseas label. App databases hold many entries for the same food with considerable differences between them. When they disagree, the UK pack in your hand wins. Even that is a legal average value. Enforcement guidance allows it to be out by around 20% for most amounts, or 2 g under 10 g per 100 g. **Should men track differently from women?** The method is the same, but the targets differ. Label reference intakes and the common portion guides are built around 2,000 kcal, the British Nutrition Foundation's estimate for an average adult woman. The government's figures for men are in the what are macros article. 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