Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What Are Calories?
Calories are a unit of measurement for energy. When we consume food, we’re consuming potential energy. Our bodies convert this energy into mechanical energy to power everything we do—from thinking to breathing to exercising.
If we consume more energy (calories) than we expend, the surplus is stored in the body, primarily as fat. Conversely, if we expend more energy than we consume, the body turns to these stored reserves, leading to fat loss.
The principle of "calories in vs. calories out" is one of the most scientifically grounded truths in nutrition. When people say it “doesn’t work for them,” it’s often due to inaccuracies in tracking intake or estimating energy expenditure. Nutrition labels can legally be off by up to 20%(1), and calorie burn estimates are just that—estimates.
Our recommended approach to finding your ideal intake is to work backwards:
Eat as you normally would for a week and track everything using a food tracking app.
Weigh yourself daily. Look for an overall trend rather than day-to-day fluctuations (which are often due to water weight).
Calculate your average daily calorie intake. If your weight trends up, you're in a surplus; if it trends down, you're in a deficit. Adjust accordingly based on your goals.
2. What Are Macros (Macronutrients)?
While calories affect your weight, macros affect your body composition—how much of that weight is muscle or fat. The four macronutrients are:
Protein — Vital for muscle repair, growth, and maintenance. Whether your goal is to put on muscle or lose weight, we should never be trying to “lose” muscle. Protein is therefore important to not only put on muscle, but also maintain it when we are trying to lose weight, so it is always an essential part of the diet. (2)
Fat — Provides long-lasting energy, supports brain function, and aids hormone production. Fat has more than twice the calories per gram as protein or carbs (9 kcal vs. 4 kcal), so portion control is key when managing weight.
Carbohydrates — Carbohydrates are what our body uses as energy at high intensities. Carbohydrates are made up of, and ultimately broken down into glucose which is how they are used in the body. Any excess carbohydrates we consume are either stored as glycogen in the body, ready to be used by the muscle for energy in the future, or converted to fat. This is important to understand as we need energy to fuel the body when we need it, but anything in excess is what can result in putting on fat. A general rule of thumb is to have more at times where we need more energy, and have less at times that we need less energy
Alcohol — Technically a macronutrient, providing 7 kcal per gram, but it provides no essential nutrients.
At Macros, our meals are high in protein and lower in fat. We give you the ability to customize protein and carb levels in all of our meals to fit your specific needs and goals
What Is the Glycemic Response?
The glycemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrates based on how quickly they raise blood sugar (glucose). There are different types of carbohydrates, made with up of different types of sugars and come attached in different degrees of complexity. Certain properties can make some carbohydrates we consume break down into blood glucose very quickly, while some are broken down more slowly. This is what is known as the glycemic response. High-GI foods cause a rapid spike (think of the quick energy spike and then crash), while low-GI foods lead to a slower, steadier release (think about constant gradual supply of energy). In the past, they were interpreted as simple vs complex carbs, but more accurately now, we use the glycemic index.
That said, we rarely eat carbs in isolation. The glycemic load (GL) considers both the GI and the amount of carbohydrate in a meal (i.e. how an entire meal affects our blood sugar levels). Meals that include protein, fat, and fiber slow down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream—even if they contain high-GI foods. Something like white rice, for example, would have a high GI, but if we were to eat it with chicken and high fibrous vegetables, the glycemic load of that meal would be fairly low (3).
This is why we don’t put much consideration into the type of carbohydrates we use, as each of our items are made/consumed with high fibre ingredients and protein. While we do minimize the sugar in all of our items, this is mostly due to our aim of minimizing processed ingredients and decreasing the calorie density of foods
3. So why the obsession with macros?
As mentioned above, macronutrients influence body composition, not just weight. Whether for health, performance, or appearance—ultimately come down to improving body composition.
From a health perspective, the leading cause of lifestyle-related disease is being overweight or obese. While weight alone offers a rough measure, it's your body composition—the ratio of muscle to fat—that provides a much clearer picture of health risk.
From a lifestyle and functional standpoint, having a higher proportion of muscle mass and less fat mass supports better energy levels, mobility, and overall performance. For example, being more active throughout the day becomes easier when more of your weight comes from muscle—which helps your body move—rather than fat, which can make movement more difficult and physically taxing.
Improving your body composition isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about feeling stronger, performing better, and building a healthier foundation for life
4. Why Don’t You Use Organic Ingredients?
While we believe organic foods are good, in order for us to keep our prices low, it isn’t possible for us to use organic foods. Organic simply refers to the way that something was made, raised or produced. There is no clear clinical research that has shown any health benefits to eating organic vs eating inorganic. (4)
We do understand that studying nutrition is extremely difficult to do and to identify a cause and effect relationship, so we do believe that organic may have some slight benefits over inorganic, but our goal is to improve the weight status and body composition of our population. Based on the lack of evidence showing positive health benefits of organic and the amount that we would need to increase the cost of our meals by using these ingredients, we did not feel that it fit our values to use them.
4. Do You Use Artificial Sweeteners? Are They Safe?
We do use small amounts of artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners (like stevia or sucralose) in some items. Here’s why:
Decades of research have found no clear evidence of harm when used within safe limits. (5)
Sugar, on the other hand, is directly associated with weight gain, insulin resistance, and other metabolic conditions. (6)
While long-term data is still emerging, the consensus from the World Health Organization, EFSA, and FDA is that they are safe in small amounts.
We do understand that studying nutrition is extremely difficult to do and to identify a cause and effect relationship, and artificial sweeteners are too young to observe any long term impacts of our health, so we believe that the absolute best diet avoids it. Our goal however, is not to eliminate sweet tastes but to provide a healthier alternative to ultra-processed, high-sugar ingrediewnts. We minimize sweeteners whenever possible but will use them in moderation if it helps us create something delicious, satisfying, and low in calories so ultimately we can address the main problem body composition and obesity.
5. Can I eat Macros if I’m vegetarian
You can definitely get away with eating our meals if you are vegetarian as we have our customizable bowls where you can select options that don’t include meat. Since our nutrition values are to provide sufficient protein, we have chosen not to focus on vegetarian specific options as this very hard to accomplish through vegetarian options.
While we completely support people who choose to eat vegetarian and vegan foods, we know there are a lot of great restaurants out there that cater for them and do not want to for this extra piece of criteria to impact our operations.
6. Can I eat macros if I am keto?
Absolutely! While most of our items are low in fat, you can still satisfy your guidelines of consuming high protein and low carb, with the opportunity to increase your fats by adding avocado to your bowls.
7. Are there Gluten Free and dairy free options?
We have a huge selection of gluten free and dairy free options. Our goal is to have a menu that is inclusive to the majority of our population rather than the minority. We have chosen not to limit ourselves to gluten free or dairy free items, but in the same way that there is no direct research showing any negative health impacts of inorganic foods, there are also no negative health impacts shown to people who do not have intolerances in these things.
We do understand though that there is a significant part of the population that are intolerant to these things, and there is suggestive research that may result in future findings, so we have chosen to provide a large number of options that are gluten and dairy free.
8. How do I track the macros in your meals?
Each meal comes with full macronutrient information, both online and on-site. Once we open our first location, we will have a check out system that calculates your macronutrients in real time so that you can see the total macronutrients of each meal.
We will integrate with nutrition tracking apps so that you can enter your meals into these
9. What’s your position on “clean eating”?
We don’t believe in labeling food as “clean” or “dirty.” Subjective interpretations of nutrition has resulted in an extremely confusing landscape of food. What we can study, identify and create confident assumptions on is objective information. Words such as “clean” can mean different things to different people, so to provide advice around an undefined thing is impossible and not ethically appropriate.
While research is always ongoing and it is very difficult to say 100% that something results in something else, we choose to make food that nutritionally has the most likely chance of being good for you based on the information that we have. We do not want to make a stance on unproven theories or ideas, and we do not want to contribute to the extremely confusing and hard to navigate world of nutrition by incorporating these unproven things into our recipes,.