Do you ACTUALLY have to track your food to lose weight?

If tracking has ever felt obsessive, restrictive, or just one more thing on your already full plate, this episode will completely change how you think about it. 

Spoiler: it's less about perfection or obsession and more about awareness  (like checking your bank account instead of just hoping the math works out).

In this episode, I'm breaking down:

✔️ Why tracking gets a bad rap (and why that mindset is keeping you stuck)

✔️ The benefits to counting macros as a mom

✔️ The 3 biggest tracking mistakes that are sabotaging your progress

✔️ 3 simple tips to make tracking faster and easier starting today (we need simplicity as moms)

✔️ Whether tracking is something you'll have to do for the rest of your life or not

Once you build the awareness to see what is holding you back, your entire weight loss journey can (and will) shift but the way you approach tracking matters.

Want to connect with Christie?

Make sure to follow Stronger Within so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop weekly with practical tools for sustainable fat loss, mindset shifts, and habits that fit your life.

If you want to learn how to make consistent fat loss progress while balancing mom life (or you identified your struggles in this episode and want help) join my 3 day LIVE event Ditch The Diet: Mom Edition for free on June 9th-11th! Register for free here!

Ready to go ALL in on your goals with high touch, personalized coaching and strategy so you can lose fat consistently without restricting yourself or spending hours in the gym? Apply for 1:1 Coaching!

Looking for a low commitment way to get direct access to me and my expertise? Join my group coaching program, Strong as a Mother!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:22

In today's episode, I am going to be breaking down a question that I don't necessarily get all the time, but I think that a lot of people wonder this, and that is do I actually have to track my food to lose fat as a mom, Christy? You always talk about macros, you talk about losing fat without restriction, you talk about all these things, but do I actually have to track my food? So we're gonna be breaking down in today's episode whether tracking your food is actually necessary, some of the common mistakes I see in ways to make tracking your food take no more than like five to ten minutes of your day. Now keep in mind, with any new skill, in the beginning it's gonna feel difficult. It's not gonna feel really comfortable, but we're gonna walk through how to make this process easier. And I want to give you that little bit of tough love before we even get into today's episode because I'm gonna give you my answer right here. And that is that, in my opinion, yes, you do need to be tracking your food to lose fat as a mom. Now you are going to get so many varying opinions on this across the board. However, I personally believe that it is the most effective strategy for fat loss that gives you the most flexibility. I will have people ask me, Christy, do you do meal plans? No, I do not because I don't believe in them. What happens when your family wants to get pizza or you're out to dinner with friends and it's not on your meal plan? You need to learn how to eat for your life that works in a way where you're never having to restrict anything, but you also have structure. And it can be very difficult to create that structure in a way that doesn't feel rigid without tracking your food and having that flexibility. I also want to give you this little bit of tough love because I wouldn't be a good coach if I didn't. But you claim that you don't have the time to track your food, you claim you don't have the time to meal plan, you claim you don't have the time for all these things. If you are to look at your screen time on your phone, would that tell me otherwise? Because I think we also need to take a second to think about our priorities, right? We say it's important for us to lose the weight, we say we want to feel more confident in our skin, we say we want to feel better in our clothes, but do your actions align with that desire? And if not, that's okay. You can change your path going forward. That is the coolest part of this journey is that you can decide at any moment, hey, I'm leaving all that old baggage in the past and I'm changing everything going forward. So, especially as moms, we we make sure everything is taken care of, right? We track our toddler's nap schedule, their pediatrician appointments, their snack times, we make sure everything is set to go for them. You need to start giving yourself that same energy. You have to take the time for your own goals to be that happy and healthy mom that you want so badly to be. So I want to first of all start by breaking down why tracking gets a bad rap. And I actually had to search in Google when I was typing up my notes for this episode. Is it bad rep or rap? Um, and I found something interesting on that, which I wish I pulled up and wrote down. But if you're interested in that, that it's actually rap. Um, and if you want to know why, don't ask me because I actually totally forgot. Something about like it goes back to some old part of the English language. Actually, let me search it right now. What is is it bad rep or rap? I want to give you guys this answer real time. Okay, the correct phrase is bad rap. It means to have a bad reputation or to receive unfair criticism stemming from the 20th century slang where rap meant a criminal charge or blame. So fun fact of the day, not fitness related, but anyways, can you relate to any of the following words when it comes to tracking your food? Obsessive, restrictive, guilt, stress, perfection. If any of these words come to mind when you think about tracking your food, it's no wonder why it doesn't feel great to track your food. And let's also think about mom gill here for a second, because if you are anything like I am, you're probably already measuring up your own parenting, maybe your body image postpartum, your productivity. So adding tracking onto your already very full plate can totally feel like adding just another way to judge yourself or to measure yourself and your ability. You have a bad day and you're you're tearing yourself apart for it. So I want you to think about this, and I want us to really shift the perspective of what this means. And this really does also come down to giving yourself grace and being kind to yourself because I will tell you, and I tell every single one of my clients this when they start with me, you do not have to be perfect in this journey to make progress. Yes, you have to be consistent, but we are we do not have to be perfect here, and I also say this all the time. Maybe you've heard me say this before, but we are humans, not robots. So if we place this pressure on ourself to be perfect all the time, we're gonna do so much worse because we're not gonna be able to live up to uh live up to that um measure of expectation that we put on ourselves, and then we're gonna do so much worse rather than if we just said, hey, I know it's okay not to be perfect, I know it's okay to have off days or off weeks, but I'm gonna keep going as best as I can. I have not been perfect in this journey, and I have lost over a hundred pounds combined after having both my kids. That right there is proof that you do not have to be perfect, but I want you to think about this and put it into perspective, maybe in a way that makes sense. So tracking your food is kind of like checking your bank account, right? So by not checking your bank account, it doesn't mean that you're not spending money, it just means that you're kind of in the dark with what's happening. And that is the same exact thing with tracking your food, it gives us that awareness. I am 100% someone that is a stickler for tracking my bank account and where our spending is going. I have like three different spreadsheets that I track our expenses and I budget out our paychecks and everything. Um, and I'll but I'll be honest, sometimes I have months where I'm not on top of it. Like we just went to North Carolina the other week and it didn't even feel like like we spent that much because we went to the beach, which is free. Um, we did spend a good chunk on gas, but it didn't feel like we spent that much. And I got home and I added everything up because I needed to know how much to transfer over from our savings account, and I'm like, we spent what? So, same exact thing with tracking your food. When you start to put those things in your food tracking app, you're like, that added up to what by 12 p.m. It's honestly crazy. So, especially if you are someone who is doing quote unquote everything right, or you feel like you're doing everything under the sun to lose weight, tracking your food really allows us to see the data because if you say that you're eating healthy or doing the right things, you may not actually be in a calorie deficit. I could say I'm spending less money or it doesn't feel like I'm spending a ton of money, but what does the data say? The data said I spent a lot more money than I thought in North Carolina. Same thing, calories add up really quickly, and unless you have that very solid data, it'll be really hard for you to know if you're actually doing the right things. So, like I just said, similar to checking your bank account and saving for something, or another really random example I thought of was like the baby monitor. When I used to use a baby monitor with my kids, I don't anymore, but you could you could just assume that your baby is sleeping, right? But you check anyways because assuming is not the same as actually knowing and having that peace of mind. And it's not that the monitor stresses you out. Maybe you have moments where it does when it's an hour before your kid is supposed to wake up and you see them rolling around, but it really just gives you that peace of mind, and that's what tracking does as well. So I know your goal is important to you, I know that you would do whatever it takes to get there, so let's please just save you the headache, the time, the energy, and identify what really works. And again, in my professional humble opinion, that is tracking your food. So, again, let's shift our perspective because we could easily say tracking is restrict restrictive and obsessive to instead we can say tracking is a really useful tool and skill set. I can learn to create predictable fat loss results as a mom. Because what food tracking is gonna do is it's gonna open your eyes to portion sizes, gaps like getting not enough protein, not enough fiber, hidden calories you'd never guess. And I think one common fear that comes up for a lot of moms is oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to track my food for the rest of my life. That is not true, so get that out of your head. You do not have to track your food for the rest of your life. You may have different seasons where maybe going into summer you want to shed body fat. And so you go into a deficit, right? And you you have to dial it in so you start weighing your food and logging your food. You may have a season where you're simply maintaining through the holidays, you're being mindful, you have built the skill set where you can eat like a what I like to quote call quote unquote normal human. Or maybe you're pregnant or postpartum and you don't have to have it so dialed in, so you can eat intuitively, but you have to build that base of knowledge, you have to earn the right to be able to eat intuitively without gaining weight or backpedaling, right? So you know what that normal diet looks like with enough protein, with enough fiber, etc. And when I think about normal, it's funny because the average American diet is quote unquote normal, but our normal, our version of normal is not good. I think we all know that, and I don't think I need to explain that. Um, but building the skill set of what that healthy diet looks like is almost like using training wheels on your kid's bike. And I have a lot of analogies in this episode because I want to explain tracking your food in ways that really make sense to you. But when your kid uses training wheels, you don't keep them on forever, right? They're there to help them with balance and confidence and learning how to use a bike, right? And nobody is embarrassed they're using training wheels, like they're just part of learning, it's just what you do. And eventually you take them off, and your kid is riding their bike like a pro, but there is that initial learning curve. Another good example I was thinking of is of um is teaching your kid to read. So my son Carter is in kindergarten right now, and this year he's learning, he's learned to read. It's the cutest freaking thing in the world. I actually came out of the shower the other morning and I saw him sitting on the um, sitting on the floor in the living room reading a Dr. Seuss book, and it was just like such a cute moment as a mom. Um and he reads to Chloe, and it's just the sweetest thing ever. But when a kid starts learning to read, they start by sounding out every single letter, right? They're really slow, they're deliberate, they're effort, uh they really put a lot of effort into it. But they don't keep sounding out those letters forever like that, right? The whole point of the that phase is to build that pattern recognition so eventually they can just pick up a book and read in their head. Tracking builds the same pattern recognition for food. Because at some point you just know. You're like, I know this is roughly 30 grams of protein. I know I ate probably like 1800 calories a day. And it's actually really interesting, in my opinion, to watch kids learn new skills like riding a bike or reading because you watch them try again and again and again, and they mess up and they make mistakes. But the second you try and it doesn't feel great, you quit. We have to change that if you want to be successful. So let's dive right into three of the biggest tracking mistakes I see as a coach, and they are so common, so no shame, but let's fix it because these may be reasons why maybe you've tracked in the past and it didn't work out for you or you didn't lose weight despite tracking. So let's dive right into these. Number one, not weighing out and or measuring your food. When you are tracking your food, you need to make sure that you are also weighing it on a food scale. Now I know there are certain situations, maybe you're out to eat or whatever, and you can't weigh something out. If something is in a pre-packaged um package, so think like a protein bar, you don't need to weigh that out. You know what the serving size is. But something like chicken, right? You need to actually put that on a food scale and weigh it to see how much you're actually eating. Because if you're eating four ounces of chicken, that's supposed to be 20 grams of protein, but you and you're logging four ounces at tw as 20 grams of protein, but you're actually only eating 10, well, you're only getting 10 grams of protein right there. Or peanut butter is my favorite example to use because one serving of peanut butter, which by the way is only two tablespoons, is nearly 200 calories, 190 calories to be exact. If you are actually having four tablespoons of peanut butter, which is really easy to have, you're actually eating 400 calories worth of peanut butter instead of 200. And don't even get me started on coffee creamer. If you want to be humbled, if you've never actually weighed out your food or your drinks or anything like that, weigh out your weigh out your coffee creamer, you're gonna be like, holy crap. So you have to be using a food scale, you have to have that level of accuracy, otherwise, again, the data is gonna be off, it's not gonna be correct. Second biggest mistake I see kind of goes along with the first one, but that's not logging things like cooking oils, drinks, your coffee creamer, salad dressings, the bites, licks, tastes of your kids' food that you're eating throughout the day. Those things can really add up to hundreds of extra calories. So you need to make sure every single thing that goes in your mouth, you're tracking, except for like zero calorie things like seasonings, um, what else? Like zero calorie drinks, things like that. You don't have to track. All right, mistake number three is inconsistency. This is a big one. This is a big one. You maybe you're logging all week, but then you're taking the weekend as a free-for-all. You are working so hard Monday through Friday, but then by the time the weekend comes, you're like, oh, I've worked so hard. Like, I deserve to just like kick back and not be super on top of things and track every single thing. And what do you know it by Monday you've fallen off and the scale's back up? And so please do not work so hard all week only to find yourself starting over again every Monday because you're letting your weekend be your weekend. A perfect week followed by an untracked weekend literally tells you nothing. I see this very often. What I do with my clients in their weekly check-ins actually is I look through their nutrition graphs and I always look at the data. I say, what does the data tell me? And I will look at their average calories for the week, and if they have even just one day untracked, I'm like, well, we don't actually know your average calories for the week because you didn't track this entire day. You started off, you tracked your breakfast on month on Saturday morning, and then the rest of the day you were just like, F it, I don't want to track. We cannot treat our goals like that. And also remember with that, like I said, you do not have to track forever. It's not gonna be this strict forever, it's not gonna be this rigid forever. But do you want to reach your goal? You have to continue to ask yourself that because if you do want to reach your goal, then you're gonna do what it requires to get there. Alright, so now let's talk about three of my favorite tracking tips to make tracking easier, quicker, and more second nature. This is the good part of the podcast where we're gonna make this easier on you. So, number one is logging your food before you go into the day. This is my favorite tip of all time. Every single client I've ever worked with, every single person that probably follows me on Instagram or whoever knows that I suggest this. And this does require that you have a strong meal planning process in place first. This requires you to know your macros, to have everything in place, right? I actually have another episode all around meal planning, so you can go listen to that one. But you're gonna have to log the food anyways, right? Whether it's throughout the day, whether it's at the end of the day, please don't do it like that. Just do it before you go into the day. Because this way you can take that proactive approach to tracking rather than a reactive approach, aka getting to the end of the day and saying, crap, I only have 200 calories left for dinner, or oh no, I was short 50 grams of protein today. Well, there's nothing we can do at that point, right? But if we're proactive about it and we log everything before we go into the day, we know that we're gonna hit that number. We literally have that plan right there, knowing exactly what we need to eat to hit it. And it's okay if you adjust or pivot, but at least having some kind of outline and idea is better than nothing. It will also be really nice when you don't have to constantly log everything all day long, pulling your phone out to do that, especially if you work full-time or if you want to be present with your kids when you're with them. Um, personally, I like to do this right in the morning before I have even I've even had my first meal. I find that that's what works best for me. Tip number two is to create recipes for your go-to meals. Now, when we think of recipes, you may think of like a lunch meal prep recipe or a dinner recipe, but it doesn't even need to be any kind of like elaborate meal that has like five to ten ingredients. Something, anything that you have frequently that requires you to log more than one thing. So for example, if you know me, you probably know that for like two and a half years postpartum with Chloe, I had a peanut butter and jelly English muffin every single morning with a protein shake for breakfast. Every single morning. And so what I did was I went to the recipe section in my fitness pal and I added in all of those ingredients as a recipe. So I added in the English muffin, the peanut butter, the jelly, the protein shake. And then instead of going in and having to click five different things, all I had to do was click one thing or one button. So it just makes your life so much easier. And you can actually always go in and adjust the portions, like if the portions happen to be different one day, but this just makes your life so much easier when it comes to really quick logging. Um, and then tip number three is to plan ahead for your problem times. So instead of looking at problem times, so like for example, nighttime snacking, instead, what if we view them as planning opportunities? So if you know that you're a late night snacker, for example, you can plan. This comes back to the pre-logging, right? Saying, hey, I want to fit something in at nighttime. So you can make sure you're saving calories and planning ahead for a snack you know will satisfy you and be beneficial for your goals. Or if you're craving a donut with your kids on a Saturday morning, maybe you guys have a tradition where you like to get donuts from the local bakery or wherever, um, plan ahead for it and work your way around it so you can still hit your macros that day. Or if you want to do a Friday family pizza movie night, that's one of like our favorite things to do, you can do the same thing. You can plan ahead for it. So for example, if it was a Friday and I knew that we wanted to order pizza for our movie night, I would open up my fitness pal and that is the first thing I would log. I would decide right then, right there, what kind of structure am I creating with myself? How much, how many slices of pizza am I gonna have, what is that gonna look like, what is my option? And then I'm gonna plan the rest of my day around there to make sure that I still hit my macros that day. A lot of times I think the biggest mistake with macro tracking is we have situations like that with like ordering pizza where we just kind of throw up our hands and we're like, uh, high calories, like I don't know how to navigate that. But in reality, it it's not that you can't, it's just that you haven't learned how. That's a skill set that you have to build. But I knew for me that I wanted to be able to live a life where I never had to say no to the pizza night with my kids, but I also wanted to feel comfortable, confident, and happy in my skin. I wanted the best of both worlds, and you can absolutely have that too. So if you feel like tracking macros feels hard or tracking your food feels hard, it's either that number one, you're being way too restrictive and strict. As a mom, you need flexibility, and macros are the number one most flexible way to reach your fat loss goals. Now, don't confuse this with just filling your macros with a bunch of junk and eating like an a-hole. We don't do that. You have to fuel your body, but you can have that 80-20 balance where you can enjoy the random donut, the ice cream, the pizza, whatever it is, while still reaching your goals. It is so important to have that flexibility. The other reason why tracking can feel hard is that you haven't taken the time to learn the skill set of how to make tracking easier in your life. Like I said, I know you're a mom and you have a lot on your plate, whether you have babies, toddlers, um, older kids, teenage kids, whatever, you probably have a lot on your plate regardless. I know you don't have a ton of extra mental energy or bandwidth, but you have to be willing to embrace the suck, as I like to call it, for a little bit of time because it gets easier. Tracking my food literally takes me like five to ten minutes of my day. It might take you 15 to 20 minutes when you're first starting and getting used to the um used to the act of tracking. But reaching my goals and feeling good in my body is worth that time to me. So the question you have to ask yourself is, is it worth it to me? So do you have to track your food to lose fat as a mom? The honest answer is not forever, but probably right now, yes, for long enough to actually understand what you're eating. Once you've built that intuition, you can really just use other alternatives like the plate method, your hunger cue. Is um prioritizing protein first, but these require a foundation. And let's be real, us as moms are masters of squeezing tasks into small windows. Um, you know, doing whatever in the pickup line when you're picking your kids up at school, cleaning up the house when the baby naps, trying to do things as quick as possible, getting all the kids out of the house for school in the morning. The barrier isn't time, in my opinion. It's prioritizing yourself, which is the deeper issue. Because again, if we wanted to, we would. But if we decided we were gonna make time, we would. And if you say this is a priority to you, you have to start acting like it. And always remember making yourself a priority is actually caring for your family and taking care of them too, because they get the happiest, healthiest version of you now in five years, in ten years. Heck, I think about my life in 30 years when my kids are starting to have kids, and I am the grandparent that has taken care of myself for the last 30 years, who now can keep up with their grandkids because they're still in great shape. That is greater than any vacation, any toy, any birthday or Christmas gift that you could ever give them. So if you're a mom who's done with the guessing, done with the googling, done with feeling overwhelmed, feeling like a stranger in your body, I created something specifically for you because I know where you are right now, where you're Googling the best ways to lose weight, you're following the different fitness accounts, you're saving all the tips, you're avoiding the photos with your family, you're wearing the same five baggy outfits that you feel just okay in. You are someone who shows up for everyone else without hesitation because that's just what we do as moms. But I know you are ready to start giving yourself that same energy without another strict approach, without something that feels like it's draining draining you of your energy and your time. To be honest, fitness should add to your life. And so if you feel like it's making your quality of life worse, typically a sign that your approach needs some adjustment. And that is what I am there to help you with. This is exactly who I built strong as a mother for. This is my signature group coaching program for moms who want to learn how to lose fat and fit in their clothes again without strict diets or feeling miserable in the process. Enrollment is officially open. We kick off May 11th. This is the program I wish I had postpartum when I just felt so alone and my attempts to lose fat and it just felt so all-consuming. I wish that I had that person to hold me through that process, and that is what I am here to help you do. This could be the perfect Mother's Day gift to yourself so you can finally become the happy and healthy mom you've always wanted to be. In this 12-week group program, you are going to get the full roadmap on how to break the diet mentality for good, how to build habits that run on autopilot, how to master your mindset, enjoy your favorite foods while losing fat, simplifying nutrition, and locking in results that stick forever because the goal is not just to lose the weight now, but to never have to lose it again. So you will receive custom macros that teach you how to eat your favorite foods while losing fat, a workout plan specifically designed for your life as a busy mom so you can get stronger, build confidence, keep up with your kids, and see progress without spending hours a week working out. You will get direct live support and coaching from me. So you have me in your back pocket, literally a text away for anything that comes up, and a supportive supportive community full of moms who are walking the same exact path as you are. This is the program for the mom who's ready to change her freaking life.