EP6, Macro Tracking

In this episode of Unstoppable By Design, host Matt Terry and Juggernaut Fitness' head Nutrition coach, Emily Hyde, demystify macro tracking and its crucial role in achieving fitness results. Emily explains why macros are essential, how to easily visualize them on your plate, and provides a three-step starter plan to begin tracking without overwhelm. They discuss common pitfalls, debunk myths, offer practical tips for dining out, and highlight the transformative power of macro tracking through client success stories. Listeners are challenged to implement one aspect of the plan to take their fitness journey to the next level.

00:00 Introduction to Unstoppable By Design

01:22 Why Macros Matter

03:13 Simple Steps to Start Tracking Macros

06:13 Choosing the Right Tracking App

07:01 Tips for Tracking Without Overwhelm

08:44 Common Challenges and Solutions

10:29 Dining Out and Staying on Track

12:24 Debunking Macro Myths

14:01 Client Success Stories

16:08 Rapid Fire Questions

20:40 Final Thoughts and Unstoppable Challenge

Transcript

Matt: Let's Goooo! Welcome to Unstoppable By Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today we're cracking the code on something that could make or break your results- macro tracking. But before your eyes glaze over at the thought of weighing chicken breast, hear this, macro tracking is way simpler than you think. And with a three-step starter plan, you can start tomorrow without a spreadsheet in sight. Guiding us is Juggernaut Fitness' own Emily Hyde, head Nutrition coach and functional Nutrition Wizard. Emily, how are you? 

Emily: I'm fantastic. 

Matt: She's helped everyone from busy parents to competitive athletes dial in protein, carbs, and fats for breakthrough performance. And she is here to show you how to do the same. By the end of this episode, you'll have a foolproof framework, the biggest myth busting tips, and a clear next step to turn data into daily wins. Grab your coffee, open your tracking app of choice- or don't yet, we'll get there, and let's dive in. So, Emily, in one sentence, why should the average gym goer even care about macros?

Emily: Because your macros are basically the fuel mix your body runs on. So if the balance is off. Your energy, your recovery, and the results you're expecting to get from working so hard will be off too. 

Matt: Yeah, and you're talking like primarily those three, the protein, carbs, and fats, or are you talking even more?

Emily: Protein, carbs, and fats, but I always throw in fiber. It’s super important, it's not a macro, but I would make it one if I could.

Matt: For the listener who just heard protein, carbs, fats, and panicked, what's the simplest way to picture macros without whipping out a calculator? 

Emily: So the simplest thing you can do is picture your plate. If you don't wanna- if you are a hard “no, I'm not gonna track” yet- because we will convince you.

You can picture your plate and I would fill half of your plate with non starchy veggies, and then we're gonna split the other half in half. So we're gonna do a Quarter or a fourth of the plate will be protein, and then a fourth of the plate will be carbs. And then you're gonna use fat primarily as your flavor.

So we're talking about a drizzle of olive oil or maybe a small amount of butter on a baked potato, something like that. And then the carbs and the protein, the amounts will shift depending on goals and your activity. So some people need a little more than a fourth. Some people need slightly less, but that's a good way, if you were just taking your dinner plate, it's a good way to break it up.

Matt: That's a pretty, that's a pretty easy way to look at it. I like that. Alright, so let's lay it out. What are three steps someone can take this week to start tracking without overwhelm? 

Emily: I think that the first thing that people should do is just start inputting food. Don't worry about, you know, if you're setting up an, uh, calorie tracking app for the first time, it’s going to take your height and your weight and it’s gonna shoot out some numbers that most likely will not be the right ones for you anyway. So I think the first step is ignoring all those numbers that are given to you and just get used to putting in your food. And then from there we can pick one meal, sometimes I'll have people just start with just track breakfast every day this week. A lot of people tend to over the course of a week, we kind of rotate through the same meals, at least breakfast tends to be very similar. Sometimes lunch tends to be similar, so once we've inputted the food, they're already there. So, it, it gets easier once we start putting in the things we like to track. So I would say just pick a meal to start tracking. And then from there maybe we just focus on a small goal like, just trying to a protein target. And if we don't track anything else, maybe we're just putting in the protein that we're eating that day.

Matt: I like that, so that way you're not trying to do all three at once. You're just looking at one thing at a time. Cool, So, I mean, looking at that, how long should step one take before moving on to step two roughly? Like if you were working with somebody, how long would you ask them to track stuff? 

Emily: So the way that I do it, in the beginning I ask people to do that first step of just start inputting food. So that I can get a gauge of how many calories are you eating in a day, because I can do a lot of calculations to figure out where a person should be, but if they are, if I calculate that someone should be at 1500 calories and they're eating 2500 calories, they would be pretty miserable if I asked them to just start implementing the 1500 calories. So, I think a week of just taking time to input what they're doing without trying to hit any goals is a good, it helps them kind of get used to the habit of it. By the end of the week, it's gonna be a little more routine. And then we can look together at how far off or how close they are to what the target should be and then we can adjust. 

Matt: I like that it sets up like a full week sets a baseline. Maybe you’re looking at some patterns, maybe you’re like hey, Tuesday and Thursday its really dipped down, what’s going on with those days? That’s cool. Alright, you coach with both MyFitnessPal and Cronometer, and when you onboard a client, how do you decide which one they're going to use, or does it even matter in the end? 

Emily: It doesn't matter. They're both great. I, if someone isused to using one over another then we’ll just stick with that. Me, because I like to nerd on all of the other things like vitamins, minerals, and fiber and all of that, I tend to go with cronometer because I think it gives just a little bit more data. But they're both pretty easy to use. And there's no right or wrong. 

Matt: So if you're somebody out there who's already tracking and they work with you, it’s not like they’re forced into a switch for the app or anything like that.

Emily: No, they can use whichever.

Matt: Now opposite that for the listeners out there who hate logging every ingredient, what minimum effective dose of tracking still gets results? 

Emily: Yeah. So this is a big one. Um, for people who cook a lot of delicious, fancy recipes. It can be daunting to log every ingredient and try to put the serving sizes in. So there's a couple different tricks.

First, if it truly is a meal that you’re cooking, you know, at least once a week and you really want to be serious about your tracking, then I would say. Let's just work through it together, you could bring the recipe to the session with me, and we can input it together, because once it's in there, it's in there and it would be worth it if it's something you have quite often. Another thing I like to do, is taking recipes online that already have the nutrition facts. And then either you can bypass entering in all the ingredients and you can just like label it “chili” and put the, the carbs and the protein and the fat per serving in your tracking app. That's a way to bypass it. Or if we're really being loose with how we're tracking just finding something close, because if you put in Shepherd's Pie, there's gonna be a whole bunch of results that come up. So, picking one that is, seems close to what your making, that can work to. But of course the caveat of that is the more we're guessing, the more room for error there is, the slower the process can be. 

Matt: It gives more variance in that data. Now, from your work with people, what's the number one sticking that derails macro newbies?

Emily: Feeling like they need to track everything perfectly. Which then just becomes really discouraging and they, um, just jump ship with the whole process. Sometimes I think tracking food can feel really judgmental, kind of like most people feel about the scale. But you know, both the scale and tracking, they're just data points. It’s there to help us notice patterns. Just like you mentioned earlier, like maybeTuesday / Thursday are crazy and we are noticing a pattern that we just have to make a new routine. Um, it's there to help see like ok, on stressful days, do you eat the whole tub of Ben and Jerry's. Okay, so what could we do earlier in the stressful day to help you not have that habit. It’s not there to shame anyone. It's there to give us the points so that we know what to fix. So I think when people stop aiming for perfection and rather start aiming for consistency, that's when it really works.

And I know in the question before I just said, the more variance we have, the longer it takes, but sometimes, you know, that's okay because our nutrition and our health is supposed to be a long game and, just learning the consistency and getting the habits down and the patterns down is way more important than hating everything and getting to your goal in one week versus a month.

Matt: Yea, and it's much healthier taking the time, learning the right things. Alright, so dining out seems to break everybody’s streak. What's your go-to strategy to stay accurate without being that person with a scale at the restaurant? 

Emily: Would you ever be that person with the scale at the restaurant? 

Matt: You know, I kind of was at one point. 

Emily: Um, you know, I would approach this in a couple different ways. So if someone rarely eats out, then I would tell 'em not to track, just enjoy it. You know, if you’re rarely doing it or it's a special occassion, your birthday or something. Then we can just take the night off and not track. If eating out is a regular occurrence, then we wanna treat it like part of the plan, not a break from the plan. So in that case I would encourage people to, you know, when you're choosing a meal, kind of build your plate like we mentioned before, with a clear I have my protein a carb you can kind of eyeball the serving sizes similar to what you might have at home. Try to get some veggies in the meal and then we really wanna skip the extra calories, the extras that really add up to extra calories, like the bread basket. Um, the, the chips and salsa at the Mexican restaurant.

You know, those things just add a lot of unnecessary calories that are also hard to control and then hard to track. And so, you know, same thing. We're aiming for close enough. Not perfection. Another thing, another tip that I like do is, you know, restaurant food notoriously adds a lot more oil and fat to things than what we would do at home. So even just adding like an extra, if you're tracking, trying to loosely track that meal, adding like a tablespoon of butter, or something extra kind accounts for some of the fat that may have been in the meal.

Matt: Yea it kind of gives it like a bubble, that’s great. Alright, big moment. What is the biggest macro myth you'd love to retire once and for all?

Emily: I would really love to retire the, “If it fits my macros, it's totally fine, I can have it”. While that may be true in some instances, you can still reach your body composition goals, for the most part, eating in that way. It does not take into account what's going on under the hood, and I do not believe that we should be separating body composition and health. I think they go hand in hand. And if we only focus on strictly body composition in whatever means necessary, it is definitely gonna make our health take a hit if not right now, in the future. 

Matt: Yeah. And so what you're saying is people can be super jacked, following macros. Not eating the best, like fast food stuff, but maybe underneath the hood some bigger issues are happening.

Emily: Yes, absolutely. 

Matt: I think I pulled that on you the other day actually when I had a Blizzard from Dairy Queen and I was like, but it's in my macros.

Emily: But it fits. That's okay every now and then that's, you know, macro tracking on one hand, it does give us freedom. And that's another cool thing about it that I think people often overlook is it's not judgmental. We can fit a blizzard in sometimes, but if we're seeing that every week we might have a problem.

Matt: Yeah. To- to be fair. It was only one time. Alright, so, can you share a client story where macro tracking turned confusion into a breakthrough? What was the starting challenge, maybe the key adjustment, and the outcome?

Emily: So, not really one specific client because I see this often. People will be very adamant about not wanting to track because it is some work in the beginning. It does take some thought. We do have to take the time to do it, so, okay, if someone really doesn't want to do that, we can work around that, we don't have to go that route.

But sometimes what I see is. We will make, in a nutrition session, we will make tweaks to what they’re, what they're doing on a day-to-day basis, and then a week will go by, two weeks will go by, and they're not seeing any of the changes they want. They're not seeing themselves move closer to their goal. And so then, when I can finally convince them to track their food a little bit. Then it's a, it's a real eyeopener for people to see, wow, when I thought, you know, I thought I wasn't eating a lot all day because I was just having little snacks and then we track, and they're virtually getting no protein in their day. And their carb and sugar intake is really high. Even if their, their calorie count might not be crazy, but the distribution of the macros is such that its not gonna help them reach their goals and so it can be very eye-opening for people to see that what they thought they were doing right, needs to be tweaked.

Matt: Yeah. And thinking about that. I like how, you know, you turned it all back into data. If somebody is really really against tracking but then they hit a plateau, and be like I don’t- I don’t know what’s happening, we need to maybe give some help, maybe give some effort here and then make shifts, that’s good. Alright. Rapid fire questions. Here we go. What's a macro that you see under eaten the most often? 

Emily: Protein! 

Matt: Protein. 

Emily: Protein is very much under eaten. And then fiber, but again, that's not a macro, but 

Matt: Protein with the dash of fiber. 

Emily: Yes. 

Matt: What is your favorite high protein snack? Under five minutes. 

Emily: So full fat Greek yogurt is a great one. I personally love chomp sticks, hard-boiled eggs. 

Matt: What’s a chomp stick?

Emily: You don’t know chomp sticks?

Matt: No, what is that? 

Emily: I'm gonna bring you one. It's a meat stick, basically. So. Okay. You know, we both share love for beef jerky, but sometimes that's not available. So chomps sticks are, yeah, they're just like a, a form of beef jerky. 

Matt: I think that's cleverly named. 

Emily: Isn't it?

Matt: I like that name. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Matt: That's great. 

Emily: I also really love making like, adult Lunchables. 

Matt: You have to elaborate, what is an adult lunchable?

Emily: You know, like where you have a whole bunch of little snack options. Then-that, that makes me, that makes my heart happy. To make it high protein I would add, you know, we could add some lunch meat to it, or the hard boiled eggs, or making some kind of dip out of the Greek yogurt but then having some crackers and cheese and carrots.

Matt: Fair enough. Yeah, some small snacks. Alright, scale weight spikes. Should people panic or is it a data point?

Emily: Oh, it’s just a data point. There are so many reasons that the scale can fluctuate. So many, and so what I love is where people track their weight every day. If they can, if that works for them to be able to see those data points and then people, what happens when they eat certain foods or what happens when they go out to eat?

I think it's important because we all can fluctuate, you know, one to eight pounds is not abnormal. And sometimes people will come in and they'll say. I gained four pounds in the week. No, scientifically we're not, we can't do that unless we very, very, very much went off the rails, which is really hard to do. So then it's like, no, that's just, let's look back at the patterns and your week and see why that might have happened. So it's just a data point. 

Matt: Awesome, hopefully that provides some relief out there. Next question. Best resource for learning more about macro tracking after this episode?

Emily: I am the best resource. No, not really, but come see me and I will help you with it. 

Matt: Yeah. In fact, you help a lot of people with macro tracking. Kind of demystify and make sure that everybody sees how simple it actually is, because it sounds pretty daunting and it is a little bit of work, but its not.

Emily: It is daunting in the beginning, but for people who really stick with it it just becomes second nature. 

Matt: All right, so let's say I wanna learn more after this episode. I wanna work with you, Emily. What is my first step when I go to juggernaut-fitness.com? 

Emily: You'll click the button to schedule a free consult with me and we will sit down and we will go over that. You know, I thought of something else that I, we should add real quick. 

Matt: What do you got?

Emily: Macro tracking does not need to be forever. So just because you start tracking it doesn't mean you're bound to tracking for life. It really helps you learn your body's calorie needs and what that looks like on a plate. And what, you know, what does a serving of peanut butter actually look like? Because it's probably a little less than what most people think. So don't get freaked out. It's not forever. 

Matt: Yeah. It's just a piece of education that we can take with us. I like that. Alright, so they go and they book a consult with you. They sit down, they talk to you. Does this have to be in person? 

Emily: No, it doesn't have to be in person. We can do virtual, um, which is just as great. 

Matt: Yeah. And it’s only what, 30 minutes? Not a big time commitment. Let’s say you’ve got a busy schedule. You’re a very busy parent got the kid’s sports or whatever it is, or you work really strange hours, you can still book that consult around some time, maybe hop on a meeting with Emily virtually, and you don't actually have to come in. 

Alright, so time for our unstoppable challenge. So this week pick one piece of Emily's three step plan whatever that may be and try to put it into action. So think about one small step, massive ripple of benefits. Remember, you were built to handle hard things. You're unstoppable by design. 

If you've got questions for Emily, me, or any of our future guests. Send them the info@juggernaut-fitness.com with the subject line “Unstoppable by design.” We’ll feature them in an upcoming listener Q&A. If today's breakdown made macros feel doable, imagine what personalized coaching can do for you. Head to juggernaut-fitness.com to book your discovery call and get Emily in your corner.

Hit follow, enable some notifications, and drop a quick review if this episode moved the needle. We've got new shows dropping every Tuesday, and next week's gonna be a short but crucial solo episode for respecting your body. We're gonna talk about recovery, listening to your body's signals and why rest days are part of the grind, not a break from it.

So until then, be well, be unstoppable.