How Short Term Macro Tracking Can Improve Your Life
When it comes to counting calories, what is the first thing that pops into your mind?
I bet the first words you think of are “pain in the ass”, “annoying”, “obsessive” or anything along those lines.
And you know what? I agree; it definitely can be.
However, here’s is the thing, you should count your calories, at least for a few months. It is the best way to retake control of your eating, and ultimately help you build a solid nutritional foundation for the rest of your life.
Now before going any future, I want to set the record straight.
I DO NOT believe that actively tracking and counting every single calorie is a LONG TERM SOLUTION.
This is a short-term solution that will provide you your greatest asset: awareness, and knowledge.
The ultimate goal by tracking your nutrition is to build awareness and a solid nutritional foundation for the rest of your life!!
When it comes to dieting, it can be absolutely difficult, stressful, overwhelming, time-consuming, boring, and a pain in the ass. It’s no wonder dieting pushing people away from trying or causing them to quit prematurely.
As a coach, this frustrates me beyond belief. How can I get my clients to adhere to a long-term diet plan??
The best way to adhere to a long term plan is to create a sustainable diet structure that fits your lifestyle.
Tracking macros actually gives you freedom while building a solid nutritional foundation.
→ Freedom from the pain of never feeling confident within your body. As mentioned above, if you’re not following a clear nutritional structure, then creating the body you want will be very difficult.
→ Freedom from the guilt associated with eating certain foods (i.e pizza, burgers) By tracking your macros, I can teach you how to eat your favorite foods while still making progress. Once you realize that you can stay lean while enjoying the occasional happy hours and burgers, that guilt is replaced with happiness and more flexibility in social situations.
---> Freedom from worrying that you overate or underate. Tracking your macros allows you to make up for overdoing it, with no harm done to your progress.
This makes tracking macros the perfect fit for creating your own flexible, sustainable lifestyle.
You don’t have to count calories for the rest of your life, but doing it for at least a few months can provide you with enough awareness and knowledge that could add up to big results while improving 99% of your life.
A bold claim? Allow me to explain.
Unfortunately, the average human lifespan is 79 years. If you want to live well into your 80’s and 90’s, you’ll need to start making smarter decisions NOW to ensure you’re quality of living remains high.
So, how can you make smarter decisions?
You’ll need to spend some time learning proper nutrition which I mean controlling your calorie, knowing what foods are ideal sources of protein, fats, carbs, AND eating the foods you enjoy while staying consistent with your nutritional approach!
Learning proper nutrition takes time and depends on how much you commit to learning.
During my coaching career, I’ve found that most people need around 6 months to fully integrate and consistently apply what they learn.
So if you spend 6 months committing to your nutrition, that means you’ll spend 1% of your life to improve 99% of it.
Six months seems scary to a lot of people because it’s such a big commitment. However, here’s the deal - You’ll get 10x more from committing to a longer timeframe than you would be running 4-8 week fat loss challenges throughout that time.
That’s the main issue why short-term (4-8 week) fat loss challenges don’t work. Sure you can white knuckle your way through the weeks.
However, what’s going to happen after the challenge? You’re going to start eating the foods you've been depriving yourself and overdo it on the portion sizes.
The end result? You regain that same weight you just lost.
Therefore, you must LEARN in order for a nutritional plan to truly work for you.
When you gain insight into what you’re really eating during the day, you’ll be able to have more control over your habits. It’s taking ownership of your actions and behaviors so you can learn from them in order to better yourself for the other 99% of your life.
Remember that what and how much you eat has a big effect on your health.
Keeping a detailed journal of what you eat goes far beyond just recording your food choices. It also allows you to track how you FEEL after you eat certain foods, so you can start to tune in to your body and your digestive system.
Only accurate lists will be helpful, so no cheating! This is a judgment-free zone.
While tracking your macros may seem daunting at first, the benefits (as I mentioned) far exceed the small learning curve.
1) Knowing Exactly What you’re eating
Tracking your macros is the only way to know exactly what’s going into your body. You’ll be able to see exactly where your calories are coming from and how different foods affect you.
This is seriously empowering, not only from the perspective of building a solid nutritional foundation for the rest of your life but how different foods affect you.
By tracking your macros, you’ll be able to know:
What foods cause you to feel bloated
What foods give you the most energy for your workouts
How you can still have that slice of pizza while still losing body fat.
In addition, tracking macros also helps you learn which foods are a combination of macronutrients and which foods are entirely one macro.
By tracking your macros, you’ll learn about the contents of the foods you’re eating and how your body responds, which empowers you to feel and perform your best. Over time, you’ll slowly begin to discover what your ideal diet will look like.
2) Finding Holes in your Diet
When tracking your macros, you’ll discover any missing gaps via vitamins/minerals, or food groups in your diet.
Is your diet balanced with different types of fats? Do you get plenty of protein and fiber to keep you full? Are you in a calorie deficit?
Overall, hitting your daily macronutrient targets will lead you to make more balanced food choices. This will also allow you to fit in that occasional slice of pizza or burger completely guilty-free.
3) Flexibility
One of the biggest obstacles for a lot of dieters is still going out and enjoying their life by going to new restaurants or happy hour with friends. With macro counting, this can be sustainable because it is so flexible.
It allows you to fit in that occasional slice of pizza or burger completely guilty-free as long as your total calorie and macros are in check. You’ll be able to have a drink while making progress at the same time.
Tracking macros is not only flexible in terms of what you can eat, but also with how strict you want to be. This is how IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) generally works.
However, this does NOT mean you should eat shit all day. You need to stay conscious of what you’re consuming and how it impacts your body.
How to Get Started:
Hopefully, after reading everything you’re tempted to dip your toes into macro counting.
Here’s a breakdown on how to get started tracking your macros to get you one step closer to your goals while improving the rest of your life.
Download the MyFitnessPal App on your smartphone
Grab a food scale:
You can either order one from using one from amazon, or from a local store ( I use this one)
Without making any changes to your current eating habits, record what you eat and drink every day for at least five days.
If unsure of the serving size, use your best guess.
Pro tip: use the barcode scanning feature on the MFP app to save time and make your life easier.
Patience
Be patient and get into the groove of measuring your foods and logging into your app every day.
After you have a solid week of dietary data:
Take a look at your nutritional summary and make adjustments to your protein first
Are you eating enough protein?
The general rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
Are you getting a mixture of dietary fats from healthy sources?
Saturated Fats: Animal fats, eggs, dairy, cheese
Monounsaturated: macadamia nuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, olive oil, avocado
Polyunsaturated: fish oil, hemp seeds, algae oils, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds
Carbs: Are you a high or low-carb person?
If you’re doing high-intensity workouts (i.e. CrossFit), then go high carb
Do you have some insulin sensitivity or prefer fats over carbs? Go for a lower carb approach.
5 Macro Tracking “Hacks” for optimizing your Performance
1) Meal Prep on Sunday.
Roast some veggies. Cook a bag of potatoes and steam some rice as you are grilling or baking 2-5 pounds of meat. This give you the necessary ingredients to make dozens of different meals with ease. In exchange for a few hours on a lazy Sunday, this will make eating and staying on track much easier.
2) Eat mostly the same foods:
They’ll store in MyFitnessPal and allow you to implement them easily. My girlfriend and I routinely make our own homemade pizza from Trader Joe ingredients. This makes it easier to make “healthier” by knowing and controlling the amount of calories we use. With a little planning, you can eat the foods you enjoy while making progress.
3) Using Measuring Cups and Spoons.
Taking the time to learn actual portion sizes is an important lesson, particularly in America, where everything is supersized.
4) Do it right away.
You should always track and enter your calories right around mealtime. If you wait until the evening or afterward, you’ll forget.
5) Write down how you feel when eating.
This is a bonus tip, but this is a great tip for improving your relationship with food. By writing down how you’re feeling, I mean taking a moment to know if you’re feeling at that moment. Are you stressed? Anxious? Relaxed? If you noticed you’re devouring Doritos, or mindless eating when stressed, you found something you need to address: stress management.
There you have it!
You can take the necessary time to build a solid nutritional foundation to improve the rest of your life or have your excuses. You decide your own faith as there is no knight in shining armor to save you
Even, if tracking your macros for months seems too daunting of a task, then track once for 30 days. If you never want to do it again, that’s cool. You don’t have to. However, if you stay with it you’ll definitely get into better shape than 99% of people while improving your life.
Regardless if you are trying to transform your body, improving your relationship with food, changing your habits, or just building your nutritional foundation, please heed this message:
“ When it comes to transforming your body and /or changing your habits, you can only optimize the actions you’re aware of. This is where calorie counting comes into play. It will give you the ultimate insight into developing the best diet that you can enjoy while making long-term objectively based progress.”
The ten minutes it takes you each day to track will give you the awareness and discipline to improve your eating for the rest of your life.
And that, my friend, is priceless.