After understanding how much you should be eating during a cut, this post is going to talk about how to count the calories practically. So, what is calories? Calories refers to the energy that a food could provide to a human being. Only 3 nutrients – Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat are contributing energy from the food and we call them Macronutrients (Macros). It is always best to prepare your own meals so that the Macros are well calculated; yet, it might not be practical for everyone especially if you are living in a hustle. For those who are striving to do the calories counting on your own, please continue reading.

**People who are preparing their own meals, please jump to A.
**People who are eating out frequently during a cut, please jump to B.

Meal Preps
In order to keep track of your Macros, food scale plays an important role. Weigh all of your food before cooking – weigh it raw. It is best to be assisted with an app called MyFitnessPal, which you don't need to Google for the nutrients on your own. At the end of the day, you got your calories calculated and recorded nicely.

Eating Out
If you have a lot of Eat-outs during a cut due to some reasons, maybe clients' lunch and dinner. GOOD NEWS to you guys, there's a quick fix and handy ground rules to follow. This is a calorie control guideline suggested by Precision Nutrition, which works well with most of our clients. For men, we build our meals in this way while we are on a cutting diet:
- 2 palms of protein dense food (Steak/Chicken breast/Turkey/White Fish)
- 2 fists sized vegetables (Lefy greens/broccoli/cauliflower)
- 2 cupped handfuls of carb dense food (Rice/Sweet potatoes)
- 2 entire thumbs of fat dense food (Almonds/Avocado)
For women, the portion is halved from the guys' portions.

To sum up, counting calories properly is critical in weight loss and eating out does not mean you are taking a step back once you know how to count calories with your hands. Hope you guys found the information provided handy and stay tuned for more content!