The Win On Purpose Podcast
The Win On Purpose Podcast focuses primarily on health and fitness tips and discussions, but we love to celebrate ALL THINGS in regard to being the best you can possibly be in business, relationships, and personal development. Win on purpose means just that, purposefully taking action to become your best self, and following your purpose to develop the passion needed to excel at anything in life!
The Win On Purpose Podcast
Tracking Your Food: Help or Hindrance?
Ever stared at your food wondering if you should be counting those calories? Coach Adam Kelley dives deep into one of the most common nutrition questions: should you track your food intake, or is intuitive eating the better approach?
This thoughtful exploration begins by acknowledging there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Whether tracking works depends entirely on your individual goals, lifestyle, and personality. Adam breaks down the significant drawbacks that make many people hesitant to start tracking - the time commitment, learning curve, social awkwardness, and potential for developing an unhealthy relationship with food. He speaks candidly about how tracking can lead some people toward orthorexia or create rigid eating patterns that aren't sustainable.
But the episode doesn't stop at the negatives. Adam reveals the transformative benefits that proper food tracking can provide - from drastically improved nutritional awareness to accountability that drives results. The most compelling argument centers on education: tracking serves as a powerful teacher that shows you what's actually in your food, helps you understand proper portion sizes, and reveals nutritional blind spots you might never have noticed otherwise.
By the end, you'll understand why Adam recommends everyone (except youth under 18) try tracking for at least a month as an educational tool. This episode provides a balanced perspective that respects both the power of data and the importance of building a sustainable relationship with food. You'll walk away with clear guidance on determining whether tracking is right for your specific situation and how to use it effectively without letting it control your life.
Subscribe, share with a friend struggling with nutrition decisions, and implement these insights to transform your relationship with food and move closer to your health goals today!
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What's up everybody. Thank you for tuning back to the Win On Purpose podcast with Adam Kelly. Today's episode, guys, is a super good one. You do not want to miss this. We are talking about tracking your food, your macros, your calories. Should you do it or should you not? What are the cons, what are the pros? And then what is my expert recommendation to all of my clients or to anybody that I talk to on the street? So we're going to break down a lot of different points on if this is best for you or not, because it always depends on the individual. There's no cookie cutter answer. There's no right or wrong way. It's what works best for you and your goals and your life and your lifestyle. So, guys, tune in, share this with a friend, because I know somebody else has questions about this. I know somebody else is trying to figure out what they should do and how they should take care of their nutrition and, guys, I believe this episode is going to give you those answers. So, as always, we will catch you on the flip side.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Win On Purpose podcast From health and fitness, business, personal development, relationships and more. We promise you will find inspiration to help you win on purpose in all areas of your life journey. Now for your host, adam Kelly.
Speaker 1:What's up everybody, welcome back to the Win On Purpose podcast with Coach Adam Kelly. Thank you guys for tuning back in to another episode this week. This is episode number 21, and, man, we got a really good one here for you guys. I'm excited about this one because this is definitely an area of discussion that I have on a regular basis with clients. To you know people on social media, to people I meet at the grocery store you know all these different places.
Speaker 1:I typically wear my train with AK clothing, rather, rather if it's my hoodie or t-shirt or Transform Health Initiative merch, which is our private personal training facility here in Moore, oklahoma, but I'm always wearing this stuff out and it gets a lot of attention, creates a lot of conversations, and this is one. Whenever someone asks me about nutrition and fitness and everything that comes with this world, this is one of the main conversations I have, and so I really want to share this one with you guys, because I know that there's people listening to this that have the a couple of perspectives on this topic and then following up by my recommendations on what I tell all my clients or anybody that I meet, and what I would tell you if you were sitting here in my office right now I am going to be looking down at my little sheet of notes here instead of looking at my computer screen like normal, so forgive me, for you know consistently looking down all that good stuff. So before we get this kicked off, I want to say, as I do in every episode guys, please, if you will share this episode, share the podcast, however. You're listening to it, whatever streaming platform you are. You're listening to it whatever streaming platform you are. Share with somebody you know. Share with someone who's trying to get into the, you know, a health and fitness world, if you will, or just trying to better their health in general, and they're not really sure what really matters, what they need to worry about, what is just hearsay, what is extra information, what's misinformation, and they're just trying to, you know, dig through the rubble to figure out what actually matters when it comes to bettering themselves and transforming their health and their life. So if you guys will, like I said, tell somebody about the podcast, give it some stars, drop some comments, guys, it helps a lot. It helps, you know, with the algorithm basically getting to the forefront of what they show people when it comes to the topic of health and fitness, and it would help us greatly to spread sound information that's actually geared towards helping people, not getting anything back.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't make money off of this. I don't make money off of YouTube. I don't make money off of any of that. I again own a private personal training fitness facility, and so this is just my way of giving back to society. This is just my way of giving back to society. This is my way of helping support my clients even more, as I recommend that they listen to the podcast, because you know, when you're with somebody, you know in an hour session or appointment, you don't have a lot of time to really dig into the weeds and discuss some of these bigger topics in more detail because there's just not enough time, and so you drop as much information as you can. I provide lots of print offs and things with information, but you know, it's just something different when you actually have time to sit with me and just allow me to open up and share with you all the things that I've learned over time and experienced, you know, myself or through my clients. So that's what this is all about Just trying to help people, trying to get sound information out there. So I really appreciate your guys' help on that. So let me not delay any longer.
Speaker 1:Let's get right into the episode. So this episode is about tracking your food intake. Okay, should you be tracking your food intake? Should you be tracking your macros, as people said, you know? Should you be? You know measuring your food out, things like that. That's what the question is here for today, and so, like I said, I'm going to actually start with the cons. You know, some of the things that you know may make tracking food intake or tracking macros or calories problematic, and then I'm going to go through the pros and why I feel like it could be beneficial for people and what you can get out of it, and then I'm going to give you my actual recommendation at the end of what I would recommend if you were standing here or if we were talking and passing, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, starting off with the cons of tracking your food intake, now this would be, you know, like measuring things out. Rather, if you're using you, you know a software program like my fitness pal or lose it, or one of these other dozens of programs out there that work fantastic to help with this, or if you're old school and you're using a pen and pad or a spreadsheet or something to log all of your intake. Um, this is what that's geared towards. So here is a list of cons that I've thought up, or you know, as I'm just kind of digging into my brain on the topic of why, maybe for some people, tracking isn't the best option, or at least not the best option right out of the gate and lets you decide for yourself. So number one would be tracking your food intake.
Speaker 1:Tracking your macros can be very time consuming Okay, especially in the beginning, which kind of ties into bullet point number two. But just on the time consuming part, you know it takes time to weigh things out and measure things out. It takes time to write it down and do the math or even enter into your software program, which you know there's lots of programs out there that have some really cool features. That makes this situation a lot faster, but still it's going to take you time to do this, especially when we're talking about tracking all of your intake, even like your liquid calories. So you know, each time that you eat, each time you have a snack, each time you have a calorie drink, you're logging all this. So it can be very time consuming and for people that are super busy, people that you know have a thousand places, they have to be every day and they're just basically trying to squeeze in food. In general, this could be problematic, especially in the beginning, if you don't have what you feel like, you don't have the time to, you know, actually track and record and keep up with all that, all right. So bullet point number two like I said, number one leads into number two and that's.
Speaker 1:There's a big learning curve when it comes to tracking your food. Like I said, with using these softwares, with writing things down. This is a point where a lot of people get frustrated and they get overwhelmed and they give up because they start out motivated and they're like, okay, I'm going to track everything, yeah, it's going to be easy. And then they get to doing it and it's like, oh wow, I don't know what foods have protein, I don't know what foods have carbs, what foods have fats, what macro, micronutrients are in foods like your nutrients and vitamins and minerals, you know. So they're spending a lot of extra time doing it, they're getting frustrated, they're getting things wrong and this can be very discouraging when someone is trying to make a health transformation or trying to better their health or reach a certain goal, when they're having to devote so much time and energy and stress to learning how to actually track accurately. Okay, so something else to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:Number three it can definitely impede on social gatherings. All right, so you know you're going out to maybe you're going on a date night, or you're going out with a group of friends, or you're going to a family reunion or a holiday party or whatever it may be. It can get really problematic to try to track what's there when you're not provided the calories or the macros, you're not provided any information on the food. You don't know what they're cooking it in, how much oil they're using which can add hundreds of extra calories. You know, even if they tell you what they're cooking it in, you don't know how much they're using because, let's be honest, there's probably not a lot of restaurants that literally measure out by the gram every single thing that they're putting in each meal. There wouldn't be time to do that, so they're probably eyeballing. You know it's about a tablespoon as their standard, so maybe they're getting two tablespoons, maybe they're getting one and a half tablespoons, maybe they're getting a teaspoon. How could you track that accurately? So this can be a problem, especially for people who eat out a lot. Rather if they travel on the road all the time for work or they're traveling to different sporting events for their kids and just there's not enough time. So they feel to track things and prepare ahead of time and you know you have to eat on the go a lot. Or maybe you know you live somewhere where you don't have access to fresh you know food and produce, or you don't have grocery stores around you and the easiest way to get food is to order it in from somewhere. This is something to keep in mind on these social gatherings and events like that.
Speaker 1:All right, so next up, not all companies report accurately. Okay, so if you're tracking and you're using prepackaged foods, there's legally they have like a 10% inaccuracy rate. That still has them reporting what's considered as accurate. So they can be up to 10% off on the macros, the calories that they're reporting, and not actually get in trouble for it. So that's just the legal side of things. You can also have smaller companies that are less regulated and maybe they're not being anywhere close to accurate. They're just kind of guessing or they're not portioning things out perfectly with each serving size or with each product. And this can be a big problem because you know if a food says that it has a hundred calories and you've allotted for that hundred calories in your diet but really it has 200 calories, that can easily knock you out of a calorie deficit, that can stall your results. And then you feel because you are on your end, you feel like you're tracking properly, like you're doing everything right, but yet you're not getting closer to your goals or you're going backwards, and this can actually this can definitely add into that situation and that issue. So keep that in mind as well.
Speaker 1:Next up bulletproof, bulletproof. I always say that. Bullet point number five just general tracking anduracy overall. Okay, so you know a lot of people, when they start tracking their food, the idea of a food scale can be overwhelming and numbers and all that, which I totally get, I went through that myself. So a lot of people will opt to the quicker route, which would be like using cups you know tablespoons, teaspoons, you know quarts, liters, those type of things as their tracking measure, rather than actually by the gram or by the ounce. And so this can become very problematic because when you take something that's super calorie dense, that people usually think is a health food, like peanut butter, for example.
Speaker 1:People think peanut butter is high in protein, which it's not. It's mainly carbs and fats, especially the fats which we know. Fats have nine calories per gram versus carbs and protein, which have four calories per gram. So you're getting double the amount of calories per gram of fat than you are from carbs and protein. So if you're measuring out a tablespoon of peanut butter, when you actually measure that out in grams, you may be surprised at how small a teaspoon or sorry, a tablespoon of peanut butter truly is. So you know people could be doubling up on their measurements without even realizing it. Or you know they're getting a cup of rice but they pile and pack that rice down as much as they can to get as much food as they can. Or it's a heaping scoop, or, like with their protein powder, instead of a level scoop they're doing a big heaping scoop. Well, this now changes how many calories you're consuming and how many macros you're consuming, and that can add up really fast. You do that 100 calories here, 200 calories there, 100 calories here. Now you're 500 calories over what you should be, which most likely you're not in a deficit anymore. Maybe you're in maintenance or, even worse, maybe you're in a surplus now and now you're going to start gaining weight, while your goal is to be losing weight. So we can see how this can be an issue and be very discouraging for a lot of people. Bulletproof my apologies guys.
Speaker 1:Bullet point number six we have tracking can lead to over focusing on food and different eating disorders. So one of those eating disorders which you may have never heard of, because for a lot of us who are trying to get used to eating healthy and doing the right thing and taking care of ourselves, this almost sounds like a good thing. But when you look at some of the cases, especially the extreme cases of this disorder, it can be super problematic to people and lead to a lot of health issues. And that is orthorexia nervosa, which basically is an over obsession on eating healthy foods and over-restricting your food intake. And we can see this happen in a lot of studies out there of groups of people who have attempted tracking. But they're so rigid with their tracking they allow no slip-ups, no extra, no different foods, anything that they end up becoming over-obsessed with eating healthy to where they act like they're going to die if they overeat a little bit or if they eat something that's not on their plan or whatever.
Speaker 1:So you can see this with like and what I've seen and, as far as research and talking to people, you typically see this more with people who follow very rigid meal plans, where a coach or a trainer or whoever gives them a specific meal plan of eat this meal at this time, this meal at this time, this meal at this time and just keep doing this every single day. You typically see a little bit more with that. But you can definitely also see this with people who just track their intake in general, definitely also see this with people who just track their intake in general. So we want to keep in mind, you know, that 80-20 rule or I would like to say 90-10, because 80-20 can definitely be abused, but that kind of 90-10 rule where, like, hey, I want to be as accurate as I can be, I want to kind of stick to what I've already pre-planned as much as I can.
Speaker 1:But life happens. Sometimes I have to make alterations, sometimes I have to change things up and that's okay. Like it's going to be okay If you overeat a little bit. You're going to be fine If you eat some foods that aren't your normal foods and they cause some bloating or some, you know the scale to go up, you're going to be fine from that one instance, I promise. So we want to try to avoid that and we can see this. Like I said, when people try to track their food can see this. Like I said, when people try to track their food, especially when they go about it in probably the less optimal way, all right. So next bullet point Got it.
Speaker 1:People can become too rigid and not know how to eat right without tracking. So kind of is a break off of the point before with the eating disorders, but this doesn't even necessarily mean an eating disorder or anything of that extremity. You know, this is just if you've, if you've only worried about tracking and you've never tried to eyeball food. You've never tried to to make educated. You know choices on the go or anything like that, and maybe you're like a stay at home, mom, or your schedule is so you know, seven days a week, so crisp that you can just like plan out every meal. You know pre prep every meal, know exactly what you're eating. All that it can become too rigid for a lot of people. And even if you don't develop an eating disorder which is probably not likely with just tracking in general, this can lead to you not knowing how to eat when you're on those social gatherings, because now, if you can't enter it into your app, you don't know what foods to pick.
Speaker 1:But if you're more accustomed with tracking, you've spent some time doing it, you're learning different foods, things like that. Now when you're out you can say, okay, well, maybe I can't track this, maybe it's going to be a little bit over my calories or what I would think would be the calories. But I know if I eat a chicken breast and some steamed vegetables and some sort of healthy carb like a rice or a potato of some sort, skipping all the extra toppings and all that extra stuff, I know I'm going to be somewhat on point because these are similar foods that I normally eat and I know I'm getting my protein. I know I'm getting my protein, I know I'm getting my healthy fats and I know I'm getting my carbohydrates and my fiber and all that. So you know that's important to be able to do when we're actually living life.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're in like a bodybuilding competition prep or you're training for a sport where you have to be a certain weight or whatever it may be, or a certain level of conditioning, then you know that kind of changes the game. But when we're talking about people who are trying to live a healthy lifestyle, we need to be able to have some flexibility and we need to learn how to, you know, judge things on the go and not always have to have our tracking app open, because that can be kind of awkward. You know, this is kind of like a side note it can be kind of awkward when you're out and about and you have to stop and try to track everything and spend 20 minutes looking at the menu before you can order because you're trying to calculate all these numbers and stuff. It's just not always the most productive thing outside of super immediate goals, like you compete in a bodybuilding show in three weeks, two weeks, like yeah, we got to be a little bit more rigid, super rigid, to make sure that we come in on point. But if that's not the case, even if you're weeks and weeks out and you're in competition prep, it's not going to kill you. If you are a little bit inaccurate here and there or you have a little bit more than you should. Okay, we have ways to troubleshoot that and it's not that big of a deal, I promise. Okay.
Speaker 1:So that's all the cons that I jotted down as far as tracking your food intake. So, definitely lots of things to consider, because, again, this is about finding what works for you, not just what works in general, and that's what I want for each and every person. Nutrition is super individualized. There is no cookie cutter regimen. There's no meal plan that fits everybody. There's no food choices that fit everybody. Everybody reacts to different foods. Everybody has different experiences, different tastes, different cultural you know traditions. All of these things have to be considered when forming the proper nutrition plan, and if we're not doing that, you know, as coaches, we're doing our clients a disservice. And if you're not doing this, as you know someone as a health enthusiast or someone just trying to better themselves, you're really doing yourself an injustice and you're probably going to make your journey a lot harder as time goes on. Okay, so, now that we've got through the cons, let's get to some positive things, guys, and we're going to look at some of the pros of tracking your food intake.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, bullet point number one improved awareness. Okay, so this, this is probably what I feel is the most beneficial and important aspect of tracking and result of tracking, and why you know it's going to make sense when I give what my recommendations would be, even just based on this one bullet point. Like I said, improved awareness. This includes food knowledge knowing what's in different foods, the macros in each food, about how much protein is in a chicken breast, about how much carbs is in a whole potato, about how many calories are in a cup of rice, things like that, about how much fiber is in a serving of broccoli. A lot of these things you're going to learn as you go along tracking and this is so beneficial for your journey, especially if you ever want to work away from tracking and do more of intuitive eating style.
Speaker 1:How can you intuitively eat if you don't have any knowledge about food and the foods you're consuming? You're going to have a lot of trouble there. It's a lot of guessing at that point, but if you increase your food knowledge, then you can get to the point, like I said, where you're at that social gathering and you're like okay, you know, there's probably about 30, 40 grams of protein in this chicken breast. There's probably about, you know, 40, 50 calories in this serving of steamed vegetables, and then you can kind of guesstimate and keep things more in control rather than just eating whatever because you don't know what's in it. All right.
Speaker 1:So that also goes with knowing portion sizes. This is a big one because, like I said, with peanut butter and this is all things, a bowl of cereal, a bowl of ice cream, so many different things that we self-serve out of it. You know, we have so many people have no idea how small portion sizes are on a lot of things and you know like you can get certain bags of chips and stuff that are like single person serving, like it's a small bag, it's not like the big family bag, and yet it says there's two servings in it. Well, you're not going to break that down into two. Most likely You're going to eat the whole bag. Or like a honey bun or something like that that says there's two servings. It's one little pastry, like you're not going to eat half of it and be like, okay, that was my serving for now, I'll eat the other half tomorrow. You're going to smash the whole thing because it looks like one serving size but that's not the case in a lot of situations with prepackaged food.
Speaker 1:So knowing portion sizes, that goes into being able to eyeball food you know and not overdo certain macronutrients based on what you see on your plate. And then you know diet related goals. Diet related goals. So if your goal is to lose body fat, you're doing a lot of guessing if you never track your food on if you're eating in a calorie deficit, if you're eating less calories and your body's burning for you actually to burn body fat. So you may feel like you're not eating very much. You may feel like you're not eating much food volume, which may be true, but you could be eating foods that are so calorie dense that you're starving all the time because there's nothing sitting on your stomach, but yet you're getting in tons and tons of calories.
Speaker 1:Okay, even you know this is super important as well with calorie drinks. So a lot of people, you know, drink a ton of milk and don't really consider the amount of calories there. You know juices, soda, you know alcohol, all of these different things. People a lot of times have no idea how many calories that they're getting just from liquid source, which does not help with hunger. So you're still going to eat a full meal, but, yeah, you've got several hundred to several thousand extra calories in just from all these drinks that you're drinking. I mean, go to Brahms and get you a large milkshake and see how many calories are in that, you know. Go to the movie and get a, get a large drink with a large popcorn and see how many calories are guzzling down just for you to go eat dinner afterwards because it didn't actually satisfy you. So those are all those awarenesses that we're improving during our time of tracking and this really pays off so much in the long run as you continue your journey.
Speaker 1:All right, that was a long bullet point but, like I said, in my opinion that's probably the most important pro of tracking. So I really wanted to nail that one down. All right. Bullet point number two nutrient balance. So balancing a healthy amount of protein, carbs, fats and micronutrients.
Speaker 1:So the biggest issue I see with this is the protein consumption, because the majority of people who have never tracked their food have no idea how much protein they're eating and most people are eating way less protein than they should be because they feel like, because their meal had a protein source in it, like it had some meat, it had some dairy, it had an egg they feel like they consumed protein, which they did but it can still be a super small amount of protein which is going to cause potentially a lot of health defects, a lot of health issues in the long run or even short run. Same thing with fats. A lot of people are way over consuming fats, boosting their calorie intake up super high. Same thing with fats. You know, a lot of people are way over consuming fats, boosting their calorie intake up super high. Same thing with carbs. Or they're under eating fats too much because they're trying to eat super lean and there's health issues that can come from eating too low of dietary fat, like hormone disruption, energy disruption so many different things that can happen from under consuming fats and proteins, carbs we don't really see that Our body's able to convert proteins and some fats into carbohydrate, into glucose and our bloodstream to keep us alive. So technically, you don't have to eat carbohydrates, although I highly recommend everybody does eat healthy carbs, but it's not something that we have to have because our body can create them from other sources, other macros, but protein and fats. We don't have that luxury. If you have a lot of body fat, yeah, you can probably eat really low fat for quite some time because your body can release triglycerides that are stored and use that as a fat source for hormone production, hormone transportation, nutrient transportation, all that stuff. But outside of that, it's pretty easy to get into some issues over time. It's not like you eat low fat for a couple of days or super low fat for a couple of days and all of a sudden you're going to be deficient, like it's a process. It takes several weeks for at least for most, even the leanest of people, but can definitely be an issue and we need to know that we're eating the right portions to really optimize our health. And same thing with micronutrients Knowing how many vitamins and minerals are in different food sources can really help make us educated, help us make educated choices when it comes to our eating. And so we're putting the good things in our body and we're making sure that we're covering all of our nutrient needs so our body performs and feels and looks its absolute best.
Speaker 1:All right, so bullet point number three performance optimization. So this is more for the people that are athletes or, you know, fitness enthusiasts. You know you work out on a regular basis, you do cardio, you do, you know some sort of fitness and it's part of your regular regimen. This is where tracking can really become beneficial as well, especially with carbohydrate intake, because we know, with most physical activity situations rather for again, you're training, you know lifting weights, you're doing a lot of cardio, you're doing a sport, whatever Carbohyd carbohydrates are a fantastic energy source to fuel those power movements, those quick movements, those long duration movements, things like that.
Speaker 1:Our body uses body fat or dietary fat more for just our day-to-day energy needs, just getting through the day walking around, moving, stuff like that. But carbohydrates really are the most optimal fuel for performance in general. So knowing that you're getting adequate carbohydrate intake for your goal. If you're trying to build as much muscle as possible, you want to make sure you're getting in adequate carbohydrates, because that's going to fuel your performance in the gym, to allow you to get more out of your training and so you can grow better, plus providing the nutrients your body needs, the energy your body needs for recovery, you know, and everything that comes with that. So pretty important thing there for people who are into training or lifting or exercise in general.
Speaker 1:All right, number four increased accountability. So this is a huge one as well. It's probably should have been number two. If I literally number these in order, I'd probably put this one at number two because the biggest people, the biggest problem that people have is typically not knowledge, at least general knowledge. Okay, so most people know that we shouldn't eat junk food if we want to be healthy. There's not much health promoting anything in junk food. Now you know, understanding what's in junk food and having a better understanding of food can help you navigate that, because it's not like junk food is inherently evil, but most people know it's at least is not going to benefit your health or help you reach an actual health goal.
Speaker 1:Most people know that. You know they need to be getting some sort of protein in at this point. You know most people know that they should be drinking water and not drinking regular soda and stuff like that. So a lot of people have a general knowledge of nutrition and health. That's enough to sustain them, that's enough to help them get in really good shape or a really good health place. But it's the accountability factor. It's of knowing how much you're eating and restricting when you need to and not restricting when you shouldn't be, and making sure you're getting in adequate protein and adequate fats and adequate micronutrients and adequate carbohydrates. That is the accountability factor that this helps. Plus, again, it's being responsible.
Speaker 1:You know a lot of people feel like that tracking is overwhelming and that it's very restrictive and it's just too much and it's not practical, it's not sustainable. But the fact is is it is Once you go through that learning curve, once you spend the time learning how to do it better, learning what foods work for you, really you can save a lot of time in the end. It helps you be more accountable to the goals that you've set for yourself. It's easy just to wing it when it comes to food and be like oh well, I guess this isn't for me, because I'm not losing weight, I'm not getting better, but you have no idea what you're eating. I'm not losing weight, I'm not getting better, but you have no idea what you're eating and that's a huge part of body composition is how much intake you are intaking on a daily basis. So knowing this lets you know that you're on track for your goals and it's holding yourself accountable to a standard that you're creating for yourself, which is eating in the best way to fuel your life and your training and everything else you have going on. So super important.
Speaker 1:On that one, we all could use more accountability, and there's no better source of accountability than ourselves. Okay, you can have all the best coaches in the world. You can have friends and family that supports you. You can have doctors and dieticians and personal trainers and everybody else in your corner rooting you on and giving you all the answers, but if you are not accountable to your goals and your plan, it doesn't matter who you work with or how great they are what they do you're going to waste their time and you're going to waste your time and your money. So we need accountability and this is a great way to build that accountability.
Speaker 1:Next would be personalizing your diet, so comparing this basically to like a rigid meal plan. So you know, this is super important for longevity because if your diet's too rigid, super easy to reach burnout, you can get into some of those nutrient deficiencies because you're not eating a variety of foods. You're eating just these, this list of foods, in this certain amount that somebody gave you, and it's not sustainable. Like I said, how do you follow a meal plan year by year and still go out to eat and still create new recipes and still learn more about food? You're not really learning anything other than how to follow a meal plan. So this is a big reason why I don't give. In certain states it's actually illegal for personal trainers or health coaches or anybody that's not a registered dietitian to give out meal plans. But you have certain states like Oklahoma and other states where they're more lenient when it comes to things like that. A lot of people give out meal plans all the time and they never get in trouble for it, and so it's very common to see that here, with a lot of coaches who just give out a meal plan.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not against helping somebody build a meal plan. I've done this multiple times where it's like, okay, let's figure out the foods that you like, we figure out your tendencies, we figure out you know what's your favorite stuff, what's the stuff you just don't like, what stuff messes up your digestion versus helps things move along, and then let's build a meal plan around that. And we're also building that meal plan around your goals. You know, if it's fat loss, if it's building muscle, if it's performance, you know we're building that around the amount of macros, protein, carbs and fats and calories that your body needs to achieve this goal in the healthiest way possible. So that, I feel, is totally fine, because a lot of people could really use that as they're getting started but just the cookie cutter meal plans where everybody gets the same meal plan. Maybe I adjust some of the amounts of food per meal based on their calorie needs, but everybody's getting the same thing.
Speaker 1:This can be very problematic, and so tracking your own food and again improving your food knowledge and how much is in what and how to track that and how to weigh it out, and all that, you're personalizing your diet to where it can become more sustainable, and that is the key. There's so many different diets out there that work. Basically, all of the diets within a calorie restriction okay, that when you equate calories and you equate protein meaning they're getting adequate protein and they're in a calorie deficit in order to lose a certain amount of weight per week all the diets out there have the exact same results the same blood marker benefits, the same weight loss, the same muscle building all that. The biggest difference between what's successful and what's not is what you're able to sustain over a long period of time, because dieting, building muscle, all of this is not a short-term process. It takes time and it's going to take you a while, and so if you're doing something that maybe you can only uphold for a week, a few days, a few weeks, but then you can't keep sustaining that. You cannot continue to fit that into your lifestyle.
Speaker 1:This is something that you need to reconsider and change, because you're just going to keep staying in that rabbit wheel or, sorry, that mouse wheel, rat wheel, whatever you want to call it. You're just going to keep going around in circles and you're never going to progress because you're constantly going back and forth instead of figuring out what works best for you, what's most enjoyable. Again, there's always going to be a level of restriction. If you're trying to lose body fat, you're going to have to restrict somewhere, whether if it's calories, whether if it's cutting out food groups, whether if it's lowering your eating window, like intermittent fasting, there's going to be some level of restriction you're going to have to do. But when you can personalize your diet, that, even if you're eating lower calories, you're choosing foods that you actually enjoy, the taste of this is going to make it a lot easier to stick with it over time, to be even more accurate, less slip ups, less backsliding and just really help you get where you want to be, but, most importantly, sustain that, and now you can pick different goals, now that you've reached your goal, and continue progressing, because you have now built a lifestyle, you've built a standard.
Speaker 1:This is the way you eat, regardless if you're gaining weight, losing weight or maintaining weight. This is the style of eating, this is the way you keep yourself accountable and that's going to help carry you on for years and years of improved and high quality health during your journey. All right, so personalizing your diet the last one I have here is it can help prevent under or overeating. Okay, because again, this ties into all these points so far that it's very a lot of people out there, when they report their calories, how much they're consuming, way under report, how much they're consuming, they're eating way more than they think that they are, because they're not tracking and they're not keeping up with them and they're not weighing things out and monitoring and knowing what's in their food and things like that.
Speaker 1:So you have a lot of people who think they've been in a calorie deficit based on some arbitrary number that a website gave them or what their friends said they do, or they're just going off of. Well, it says that it's based on a 2000 calorie diet. I guess I need to be on a 2000 calorie diet, whatever that may look like they think that they're doing. They think that they're in a calorie deficit, but they're really not. And so now their, their perception is skewed about dieting and about, you know, counting calories and counting macros and things like that, because they think, well, it just doesn't work for me Like I did it. I underate, I was in a calorie deficit. It didn't work.
Speaker 1:Well, this may sound kind of blunt and maybe even hard for some people to take, but, to be honest, if you have been in an extended calorie deficit, I'm not talking about like a day or two or even a week, but we're talking about weeks of a calorie deficit and you have not lost body fat, you are not in a calorie deficit. Okay, this is not to knock anybody to say that you don't know what you're doing or you're a screw-up or anything like that. Okay, this is the simple fact of. This is biology. This is physiology 101. All right, our bodies cannot create energy. We have to consume it or we have to store it and use it later on.
Speaker 1:So if you're truly in a calorie deficit, you're truly eating less calories than your body is burning. Your body has to lose weight. It could be from muscle, it may not be body fat, but your body has to lose weight. It could be from muscle, it may not be body fat, but your body has to lose weight. Okay, so you know the whole starvation idea that if you just under eat for so long, your body goes into starvation mode and you stop losing weight. Tell that to somebody who's been in a concentration camp. Tell it to somebody who you know has been in a calorie deficit for a long time. Maybe they're poor and they can't afford food and now they're starving. You know we wouldn't have so much starvation happening in the world if our bodies can go into starvation mode and just hold body weight and not lose it. You know there's some nuance there about, you know metabolism, down regulation, things like that that we could get into. But overall, if you're truly in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. If you're not truly in a calorie deficit, you will not lose weight.
Speaker 1:Okay, so tracking helps to prevent that under eating or overeating, because some people think, you know, let's reverse this. You have people that are trying to gain weight. Rather, if it's to get to a healthy body fat level, maybe they're way undernourished. You know, their body fat percentage is way too low, or they're trying to build adequate muscle tissue and they struggle with gaining weight. Well, they may feel like they're eating so much because they're stuffed, because they don't really like to eat all that much, but when you actually calculate their macros and their calories, they're eating way less than they think that they are. Like I said, you mainly see this with protein intake but, like I said, all the macros and calories in general. It is a thing for some people. I don't know anything about that. I'm always on the opposite end of trying not to over consume, but there's plenty of people that struggle with consuming enough.
Speaker 1:So if you're tracking, you may have to space it out better. You may have to rearrange food groups. You may have to choose some of those more calorie dense fun foods rather than like the healthier, low calorie foods in order to get your calories up high enough on a consistent basis to gain weight. But it's really hard to do that if you're not tracking, because you're just guessing and you're going to have days where you're not hungry, where you don't want to eat that much, or you're too busy and you're going to be under eating a lot of those days and then wonder why you can't gain weight. A lot of people just chuck that up to well, I'm a hard gainer, you know. I just don't gain weight Like it's my genetics. But again, if, but again, if you're in a true calorie depth or a true calorie surplus for long enough, you are going to gain body weight.
Speaker 1:Now again, there's nuance there, because how many calories does somebody need to consume? Can they do that on a regular basis to gain weight? Is this something they can force themselves to do? You know, are they? Is their neat increasing? That's non-exercise thermogenesis, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Sorry, n-e-a-t. That's basically how many calories your body burns unintentionally. So, like with me using my hands to talk, like I am right now tapping your foot, walking you know, not intentionally walking around, but maybe you're just like pacing or whatever or you're tapping your pen or clicking your pen or what, all those little you know subconscious movements. That's what is considered as neat, the calories that we're burning from that.
Speaker 1:And so for a lot of people, when they're trying to gain weight, when they start increasing their calories due to their genetics, their body will actually start increasing their NEAT activity without them even realizing it. So now they're pacing more, they're moving, more they're twiddling, more they're you know they're expending a lot more of this extra energy they're consuming without even realizing it. So, again, they think because they're eating so much that they're in a calorie surplus, but their body's basically troubleshooting that and burning through all of this extra intake. So they kind of just level out at the end of the day. So, like I said, there's nuance there. But in general, if you're truly eating in a calorie surplus for more than just a few days, even more than maybe just a few weeks, because gaining can take a lot longer than losing you're going to gain weight. Okay, and and again, tracking helps us determine what's actually happening. So let me wrap this up.
Speaker 1:This ended up turned out to be a pretty long episode, but lots of good information here. So I'm going to wrap this up with my recommendations. What do I recommend? So I recommend that everybody out there, regardless of their goal, regardless of their goal, regardless of their background, regardless of their experience, spend a decent amount of time tracking their intake, at least once, at least in the beginning of their journey, if not periodically, to kind of see where they're still at, or maybe when things slow up and they're not getting the results they want anymore. They reevaluate, retract to see where they're at. This can be so beneficial for all of these pros that I mentioned. This can really be a game changer for a lot of people that are just guessing and winging it. That's what I recommend across the board. I don't care who you are, I don't care what your goals are.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're a youth, if you're a young person you're under 18, that would be a different recommendation. I wouldn't recommend you track at this point. Maybe to have a basic understanding of the foods that you're eating. That can be beneficial. But when it comes to body composition for youth, that that's not a place you want to go Because, again, a lot of these cons can be developed early on If you're. If you're not, if you don't know how to balance these things, you can become over obsessed with all of this and then start restricting your calories too much when you're growing still like you're just your natural puberty growth and now you start limiting your growth and things like that and nothing good comes from that. So if you're an adult, I suggest that everybody track for at least a period of time. Now that may look different for people. I would say at least a period of time Now that may look different for people. I would say at least a month. You know at least four weeks, because that's going to give you a lot of information based on all the things that you do within that month, all the different places you eat at, all the foods that you buy. You're going to get a lot of information there. But even if you did it for a week, even if you did it for two weeks, you're still going to learn a lot about the foods that you consume and then when you go from there, you know you can decide is this something I want to keep up Like I personally, I enjoy tracking.
Speaker 1:Not that it's not tedious and time consuming and sometimes annoying, but I like the fact of knowing what I'm doing. I like the fact of I'm not guessing. Like I know if I'm in a calorie deficit based on my calories and my activity level. I don't have to waste weeks of wondering if I'm getting closer to my goal because I'm just eating whatever. I like the structure, I like the accountability aspect. So I have been tracking for a long time and will probably track for almost ever. You know there's days and times and meals where I don't. I kind of eyeball, you know pick on the go, pick the healthier options. But for the most part I'm a tracker and I enjoy it for all of those pros that we had mentioned before. But I've also gone through a lot of those cons as well and I had to learn these things myself and that's why I can present it to you, because I've been on both sides of this.
Speaker 1:So if you've done it for a while, you get a basic understanding of food and macronutrients and micronutrients and calorie consumption and portion sizes and all these other things we talked about how to eat based on your goals. Then hey, if you want to stop tracking and just kind of stick to what you know and what you've learned, you're going to have phenomenal results and good things can definitely happen. But without that basis of understanding, that foundation of nutritional knowledge, this is where a lot of people struggle the most and it's very unfortunate because, even though it can be time consuming and tedious and all that, it's really not as hard as you think it is. If you're willing to put in the effort, if you truly want to see the results, you truly want to get better, develop a better lifestyle, better habits, better standards, then it's totally worth that little bit of time to track. And, like I said, if you want to do something different from there, or you want to go more to like a meal plan and build a meal plan out based on your knowledge of food and your knowledge of you, totally fine, guys. Like that's fantastic. Or if you want to intuitively eat and never track anything else, but you have again this basis of knowledge. Or if you want to intuitively eat and never track anything else, but you have again this basis of knowledge, totally fine. So that's what I recommend to everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, I totally understand why people don't want to track Again. That's why I started with the cons, and the cons actually had more points than I did on the pros. And I get why people only want to track and never want to not track. Like I said, I kind of that middle ground of yeah, the majority of the time I track, but also, like you know, if I'm eating the same breakfast every day for convenience sake and I know exactly how much to measure out, I know exactly how many macros and calories are in it Do I really need to enter it into my log that day? Well, that's for me to decide based on what I plan on doing the rest of the day, but you shouldn't have to do that every single time that you eat. You know what I mean. So that's all I got on that, guys.
Speaker 1:Hopefully this was helpful to you. Please share this information with somebody. Help somebody simplify this decision on if they should track, how long they should track, what they should track. All that because it's going to be a total game changer to any physique or health goal anybody has out there. The more we know, the more data that we have, the more we can see what we're doing, the less guessing and the less time we have to waste. So if you don't want to waste months and months and months of trying to figure out how to eat without any data, then never tracking. Hey, you may figure it out eventually, but if you want to shortcut that system, then I suggest at least tracking for a little bit of time and then figuring out where you should go from there once you've increased your food knowledge. All right. So whatever you guys do with this information, please do something good for yourself, do something good for your health, do something good for those you care about and, whatever you do, make sure you win on purpose. Talk at you next time.