✨ How to Track Like a Pro with Cronometer
💪A Step-by-Step Guide to Hitting Your Macros and Mastering Metabolism
🌿 If you're ready to take your nutrition seriously—whether it's for weight loss, metabolic repair, gut healing, or simply getting your energy back—mastering Cronometer is non-negotiable. 🚀 Here's how to set yourself up for success and avoid the pitfalls that sabotage most people's progress.
📊 Set Your Targets
Before you track anything, you need a clear destination. That means setting your calories and macros with intention—not guessing.
Start with calories. ⏳
Use your current weight, estimated body fat %, and goals to determine your energy target. For many clients, we start with reverse dieting toward their minimum Energy Availability (EA), calculated as 45 kcal/kg of lean body mass.
Then set macros.
🍗 Protein: 1 gram per pound of lean body mass (LBM) is the standard. Higher if underweight or coming off long-term restriction.
🥑 Fat: Start with 12–25% of total calories. Go low (around 12–15%) if you're trying to lose fat or address gut issues.
🍓 Carbs: Fill in the remaining calories with high-quality, easy-to-digest carbs. For most people, this is a slow climb up.
📲 Set Up Cronometer Correctly
Go to Settings > Targets > Energy Target.
Use "Custom Energy Target" and set it to your daily calorie goal.
Go to Settings > Targets > Macronutrient Targets.
Enable "Fixed Values" so Cronometer doesn’t auto-adjust.
Choose "Custom" and input your exact targets (grams, not %).
🍽️ Build Custom Meals and Recipes
Make life easier by creating your go-to meals and snacks:
Under Foods > Custom Recipe, enter your breakfast smoothie, lunch salad, etc.
Weigh everything once, input it once, and reuse it daily.
Include common toppings and extras (e.g., butter on potatoes 🥔, honey in yogurt 🧁).
⚖️ Track Meals Strategically
Aim to hit at least 70% of your daily protein and carb targets by lunch or afternoon snack.
Save some fat for dinner and your bedtime snack—especially if you're on a low-fat protocol (e.g., <40g/day).
Use the "Consumed" button until lunch to see how your %s are building.
After lunch, switch to "Remaining" to visualize what macros you still need to hit with dinner and the bedtime snack.
✨ Hit Your Macros with Precision
Strive for 99–101% accuracy on all macros—protein, carbs, fat, and total calories.
If there’s a mismatch between your macro totals and calorie totals, it’s usually due to bad food database entries. Be sure to hit your calorie goal!
Any leftover calories at the end of the day should be assumed to come from carbohydrates. Don't try to "fix" it by adding protein or fat.
🌙 Nighttime Check-In: Finish Strong
Always check your totals by dinner.
Adjust final meals/snacks to meet macros exactly.
Prioritize a bedtime carb + protein + salt snack to stabilize cortisol and support deep sleep (e.g., milk + honey + pinch of salt). 🥛🍯=sleep magic.
✅ Final Priorities
🔥 Meet your calorie target. This is non-negotiable. Under-eating by even 100 kcal/day adds up fast.
🎯 Meet each macro within 1%. This ensures hormonal balance, recovery, and energy.
Done right, this makes tracking second nature—and turns your metabolism into a finely tuned engine. 🚀
Stay consistent. Stay meticulous. And stay metabolically strong.
