If you believe Mary Poppins when she sings about what a spoonful of sugar helps to do, you might croon a similar tune about how a smart phone helps dieting go down in a most delightful way.

Especially if you’re one of the thousands who have used it to add up your macros (social media speak for macronutrients) and lost weight.

Last week you read about my initial experience with the Macro Diet four years ago and that it gets my provisional approval because it incorporates a concept I have touted for 25 years: nutrient partitioning. But I didn’t share why my approval is provisional and not unconditional.

As a result, I’d be remiss if I didn’t write more.

I’ve been following a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet since August 31, 1979, my first day at college. Due in large part to that diet, my health has been excellent.

In fact, after getting a physical from my GP 34 years ago in order to get my teaching certificate, I’ve seen him two other times — and once for an oh-so dangerous disorder he called earwax buildup.

Despite the part it has played in nearly 39 years of exemplary health, I place the same provision upon the lacto-ovo diet as I do on the Macro Diet: The diet does no good if it’s used to camouflage the consumption of junk.

Consider, for instance, the first time a student told me that he had become a vegetarian because of our discussions about it in class. Particularly because he was pudgy and far more interested in video games than the ones that required physical exertion, I felt really good about his decision — until I escorted a small group of gifted students to The Times News, and he asked if we could stop at a convenience store because he forgot to pack a lunch.

He purchased two cans of soda, a candy bar, and a 16-ounce bag of pretzels.

He may have been gifted, but he didn’t understand the real benefit of vegetarianism. Or my form of sarcasm. Back in the van when I asked him if the convenience store had been out of pork rinds, he reminded me that he did not eat meat anymore.

The Macro Diet can be used — or rather misused — in the same way.

In “Behind the Macro Management Approach” an article that appears in the July issue of Environmental Nutrition, Densie Webb, PhD, RD, explains, “Pizza and doughnuts could fit in a Macro plan, but that defeats the purpose.” But being able to lose weight and still eat not only pizza and doughnuts, but also fried chicken, French fries, cheesecake, ice cream, candy bars, cookies, chicken wings, desserts and anything else “yummy” actually is the purpose of it, according to Anthony Collova, the creator of IIFYM.com.

IIFYM stands for If It Fits Your Macros, a frequently used abbreviation in social media circles in the selection of foods. The namesake website is frequently used, too, with Collova reporting that it receives over 30,000 visits daily — despite zero advertising.

And on that website, visitors are not only told that they can eat all those aforementioned “dirty foods,” but are also advised to avoid the “crap foods that only a rabbit or a bird would enjoy,” which Collova lists as chicken and turkey breasts, grilled whitefish, steamed vegetables, brown rice, oats, protein shakes, and egg whites.

Now the point of sharing this info is not to besmirch Collova and IIFYM.com. By creating a 15-to-20-percent reduction in calories through his patented “Macro Calculator,” Collova is undoubtedly helping thousands lose weight.

But shouldn’t a diet do more for you? On his website, Collova readily admits his doesn’t.

“IIFYM speaks specifically to fat loss from a macro nutrition and thus a caloric standpoint and is purely a means to improve body composition. IIFYM does not address health concerns of the heart, brain or other organs and does not put an emphasis on so-called ‘healthy eating.’”

But instead of solely stressing fat loss, many other advocates of the Macro Diet emphasize using a trial-and-error process to develop a diet that creates modest weight loss for the long term — along with long-term good health. About the only constant in these versions is the belief that just about all dieters need 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.

So if you weigh 160 pounds, first you make sure you’re consuming 640 total calories, or 160 grams, of protein per day. Then, based on your athletic goals, health history, and whether you tend to remain slim or easily store fat, you alter the grams of carbohydrates and fats consumed each day by using one of the many apps that offers a calorie/gram counters.

That’s the element of the diet that so closely aligns to the concept of nutrient partitioning: that you determine the ratio of carbs and fats that produces the best results for you.

So if you want to tabulate the composition of your foods in a similar manner as I do — without using a hand-held calculator and creating a handwritten journal — try one of the many apps that keeps tabs of your macros for you.