How to Set Macro Minimums

How to set targets to make hitting your goals easy without macro Tetris

At EPN, we flip calorie tracking on its head and have clients track to minimums. No more berating yourself for being “over” a specific number or not hitting macros +/- 5g.

Our philosophy is: hit the calorie range, and eat above your minimums.

For example, if your maintenance range is 2,000-2,100 calories, we would have you set a calorie target of 2,000 as a minimum to be over 2,000 calories daily with a mental ceiling of 2,100 to stay in range.

But what about macros? Can you have minimums on those too? Absolutely!

Here is a step-by-step guide on helping you create minimums and freedom from macro tetris.

Step 1: Set your calorie & protein minimum

Calorie Range:

Firstly, set your calorie range and minimum

Protein Minimum:

Is your goal to hit roughly 1 gram/lb bodyweight in protein? then round down to the tenth place and set that as your minimum

Example Client:

Maintenance Range: 2,000 - 2,100 calories
Protein Minimum: 140g (145lb bodyweight)
Your daily goal is to fill the bars (with your mental ceiling on your calorie range).

Example of setting just protein and calorie minimums in Cronometer

[Optional] Step 2: Set your fat minimum

If you need to set a fat minimum to ensure you're meeting the requirements for hormonal health, please do so!

Example Client:

Maintenance Range: 2,000 - 2,100 calories
Protein Minimum: 140g (145lb bodyweight)
Fat Minimum: 55g (the avatar example here sleeps poorly with <55g of fat per day)
Your daily goal is to fill the bars (with your mental ceiling on your calorie range).

Example of setting protein, fat, and calorie minimums in Cronometer

[Optional] Step 3: Set your carb minimum

What if I eat out twice a week and skip tracking those meals?

You might notice you tend to undereat carbs / overdo fats based on your goals and want to ensure you're hitting a minimum carb intake (especially for those pursuing muscle-building or performance goals).

At this point how do we flexibly track but have a minimum for each macro? Well, we back into the remaining carbohydrate target to give ourselves some buffer so that we have calories left over to track flexibly.

We recommend giving yourself a 200-300 calorie buffer (more if your calorie range is higher).

So here’s how to do the math ▶️:

Example Avatar:
Maintenance Range: 2,000 - 2,100 calories
Protein Minimum: 140g (145lb bodyweight)
Fat Minimum: 55g

For our Example Avatar we know that if she wants a 200-calorie buffer to play with, her macros must add up to 1800 calories; therefore, when she fills all her macro bars for the day, she has plenty of room to be higher in fats on some and carbs on others, depending on what that day brings.

In this scenario, she set 185g of carbs as her minimum (Note: below chart uses the math of 4 cal/g of protein, 4 cal/g of carbs, and 9 cal/g of fat). Depending on where in the maintenance range she lands, this provides 205-305 calories to play with throughout the day.