91. Real Talk: Understanding and Tracking Macros is Essential For Long Term Success

Just different things were on my mind and that I've been dealing with , you know , with my clients and working through and things like that . So I'm excited to talk about macros again .

I'm going to , as usual , go down a few different areas here of kind of talking about why I love macros , how they've helped me , what I do differently , I feel like , than other coaches , maybe other things you've heard , and why I firmly believe that you do have to track macros at least every once in a while .

Like you hear a lot of stuff about intermittent fasting and just kind of eating between a certain window or intuitive eating , and you know just all these things and when it comes down to it , I firmly believe that you have to know what you're putting inside your body and why . Otherwise it just doesn't work . So there's , I'm just I'm excited about this episode .

Who knows where we're going to go from here , but I think that's part of the mystery of each episode . Who knows what we're going to get into and what epiphanies I'm going to have in the midst of conversation .

I think this episode really stems from the fact that I have a lot of clients right now who are seeing the benefits of tracking their macros and not only tracking your macros and hitting your macros , you know , consistently . Consistently would be five , six days a week , by the way , not perfectly , but they're seeing changes and they're understanding their body better .

They're understanding the importance of fueling their body . They're understanding the importance of understanding this whole lifestyle , this whole journey . So it's really it . It's brought to my attention each time I have a client . That's like , wow , I'm really starting to grasp what you're teaching , christy .

And not only am I starting to grasp it , but I'm starting to feel better , I'm starting to get it , I'm starting to see how it's affecting my life in a good way . And when I like , honestly , just like anybody else , I compare myself with other coaches sometimes , or other personal trainers , other influencers .

However , right on social media , I will see coaches doing different things and I habitually or naturally look at that and wonder like why am I not doing that ? Why , why do I disagree ?

Or whatever the case may be , and time and time again I don't change what I'm doing , by the way , but I it always creeps into my mind of like , well , maybe that's what I should be doing , but anyway , what happens is every time I stick to , obviously , what I believe and what I do and just stick with what I'm doing and then teaching that to my clients .

I see it paying off for my clients and it's like proven time and time again from my clients to me that what I'm teaching them works and that it's helping them , and so I really just want to talk about this . But also I've gotten a couple of questions like what are my macros and what do I eat ? And can you share a day in the life ?

And can you share your macros and can you share exactly what you're doing ? Christy and I , for a long time I didn't share my macros , I didn't share my weight on social media .

I didn't share kind of a lot of what my own personal stuff which is weird , I know , because it's my Instagram like you want to see what I'm doing , but it's hard because I feel like a lot of people when they see how much I weigh , how much I eat , what workouts I'm doing .

They , you , whatever , want to do what I'm doing , because I've been there when you don't know enough . You see someone doing something like I just said and then you wonder , should I be doing that ? And I don't want anyone to ever think that you should be eating what I'm eating or how much I'm eating , or working out like I'm doing .

Yeah , I mean that's great , but you're a different person than me . And so actually today on my stories , I got on and talked about because I did have someone ask about if I could share my current macros and my first thought was I'm not going to share my current macros on my story because people will want to copy my macros .

And then I thought , well , why don't I just share my current macros , be honest about them and explain why , and then you guys can learn from that . And so it really just is all kind of coming together and I'm like I'm just going to talk about this and make an episode about it , because macros are tricky .

I also saw in my Facebook group yesterday , I think it was , but there was a new lady in there and she was asking how to calculate her macros . There's a lot of different macro calculators . How do you figure out how to calculate your macros , and a couple other of my ladies in there were like yeah , same , you know me too .

And then it just all of this is kind of coming together for me to realize that there's still a lot of questions around macros . And I'll be honest , macros are something that I did struggle with . If you've heard previous episodes about my macro journey , you know that it's take .

It took me about eight times to figure out how to calculate my macros , how to count my macros , how to eat my macros , how to track my macros , what works for me . So there's no one macro calculator on the internet or even me that's going to give you a perfect macro count . There is no such thing .

So if you get online and you search macro calculator and you put in all of your information , it's going to spit out a number that's very similar to every other macro calculator on the internet . What I suggest is doing what it says do it for six to eight weeks , because you have to do it consistently to know if it's going to work .

You can't just do it for a week and be like , oh , that's not working and quit . That's not how this works , but it's . There's no perfect number . This isn't something that you just plug in the numbers or you just automatically start putting you know , tracking what you're eating into an app and all of a sudden you lose weight .

It's not the act of tracking your macros or even hitting a random ass number that the internet spits out at you . You know , hitting those macro numbers and starting to eat the right amount of food Like that is a best guess from Google . That's maybe not going to work Like this is a little more complicated .

But once you figure it out and once you stop the all or nothing and once you realize that this is going to take a while , it is really flexible and it is so good in so many different ways that I've talked about in previous macro episodes Like it becomes something that you can really wrap your head around because it really will give you confidence .

It really will give you a better relationship with food and your body and this journey and life , and so all of those things are wins .

But I do want to say that I do have to be strong in my stance of believing that you do have to learn macros , you do have to understand macros , you do have to count them , you do have to track them , not all the time , not every single day , not for the rest of your life , but I'll be honest , I think it's irresponsible to not do that .

I think it's irresponsible for me to say you can just eat intuitively and not track your macros or not understand macros , because I just think that that's not . I think it's irresponsible , plain and simple . To me , tracking macros is the same as like budgeting your money , right ?

So if you get a certain amount of income each month and you spend more money than you're bringing in , you're broke . You don't have any money . You're borrowing from other people . You can't afford things . You know you whatever . That feels like you can't pay your bills or you're just living paycheck to paycheck and you're wondering where you might like .

It's stressful . It is so stressful and for me , that's irresponsible . I think it's irresponsible to not take care of what you have or to not just be a mature adult and plan your money like budget your money , and it's the same concept for me that it is with money for your macros .

I think it's irresponsible to not know that I Get a certain amount , like my body needs , the one physical vessel that I have control over , and responsibility of my body , the place that I live . It houses my brain and my soul and my organs , like it's pretty special , right ?

My body needs a certain amount of macronutrients , micronutrients , fuel , calories , macros to function optimally and it is irresponsible of me to not give it that Period . Like that's really deep down what I believe . If I'm starving myself , that's rude , like that's just not okay . If I'm overeating and not moving , and I'm just not .

You know , I'm just this version of myself that's out of control and lacks balance and lacks Discipline and that's not a good version of myself either . Right , like I need a , I get right , a certain amount of macros , calories , whatever , a day and I have to track it like I have to know what my body feels best on .

So , in my opinion , I'm just finally gonna be honest about this . For me , I feel like it's irresponsible to not treat my body well in that sense . But let me go on and say that I do this in a different way . Macros can be like tracking macros , counting macros .

If it fits your macros , however you want to look at it , it can seem Obsessive and I think it could be the macros themselves , like the people that are preaching it or whatever , that are like tracking everything perfectly and Nailing it and perfection . It could be that people are kind of preaching macros in a way that makes it feel obsessive .

Or it could be our all or nothing obsessive , perfectionist personalities , the way we are raised view . I don't know . It could be that we're turning macros into something obsessive and , and you know , perfect and restrictive .

But when I finally took it in a different direction and I thought like it's irresponsible of me to not Give my body what it needs and to give my body what it needs , I need to pay attention to my body and I need to track what's coming into my body , like I need to track my food .

I can guess all day like well , I think I hit my macros , I think I ate this and this and this and that should be right around my protein goal , right . It's not like when I put it into the app to track it , I'm like honey , I still need like 30 , 40 grams , like I'm off . We are not good at guesstimating .

Okay , we have to take , we have to keep track . You can think , like I did really good budgeting this week . I make a lot of money . I probably spent , you know , right around whatever . But then you're like I'm broke , like I'm not good at just winging it right , like we need Structure , we need to know it's , it's information , it's knowledge .

It's Responsible as far as I'm concerned . But another part of that responsibility is to actually understand your body , and so I Don't look at macros in a restrictive , in an obsessive way , and I don't teach my ladies to do that either .

I personally live in right about the 16 , I would say , 1500 calorie to 1800 calorie or maybe even like 1400 calorie to 1700 calorie range . That's kind of where my body is really happy .

That means that when I'm building muscle , I can go to the upper end of those calories , and when I'm like maintaining , or when I'm lifting lighter or if I'm cutting , I can go to the lower end of those calories . That also means on a daily basis I can kind of live anywhere between 14 to 1700 calories . That's so not restrictive .

Did you already just said like on a daily basis I live between 300 and 14 or 300 and 400 calorie difference . That's not restrictive .

That is gives me so much freedom and it also helps me to know like I'm staying on track , I'm doing what's good for my body and I have so much flexibility if I want to go out on a weekend , I hit the higher end of those calories .

If it's a Tuesday and I'm not feeling hungry and we're at Basketball games and I'm busy and I'm in the car and I don't have time to eat , I can eat at the lower end of those calories . It doesn't matter , as long as it averages out at the end of the week , I'm good . So that's how I approach it . It's not like everyone else .

I'm not like everyone else on the internet saying you need to hit a certain amount every single day or you need to reverse , dye it up to a certain amount and you need to increase your hit and you need to increase your steps and you need to increase your workouts to be able to manage those extra calories . No , like I .

Personally , right now I'm sitting at about 1,800 calories , which is not a lot , to be honest . It's not a lot , but I am Lifting a little bit lighter right now . I'm lifting about four days a week . I'm hardly walking At all , like once a week , maybe twice , I'll go for an actual walk .

I'm not doing any hit , I don't do cardio , so I'm not really moving a lot . An average , I would say I get about 7,000 steps a day and Could I walk more ? Absolutely , could I make time for that ? Absolutely , do I ? No ? So I'm just kind of being realistic about where I'm at and that's okay .

Like I've spent time being like I need to reverse up , I need to increase my walking , I need and that's good , and there are . In the spring I will definitely start going for walks again , but I live in Michigan and it's cold and honestly , I'm not just gonna , I'm not gonna bundle up and go outside and go for a walk . I don't .

I don't wanna say I don't have the time , but I don't , I'm not gonna make the time to do that Right now . There's just a lot of other things going on in my life and so my movement has decreased and so my calories also need to decrease . But I made that choice . It's that's on me and that's freedom , that's control .

Like I'm more than able to get up at you know , an hour earlier in the morning to get a workout and just walk on my treadmill , whatever right now . But I'm valuing sleep right now and I will do that until January . In January I'll probably up the game a little bit , but right now I'm not gonna do that .

So I lowered my movement and I lowered my amount of macros , calories , and I'm good , like that's so much control , but I'm also being very diligent about my macros . I'm not being perfect , but I did for this particular week . I planned out my macros in my fitness pal . I planned out my macros for every single day , monday through Friday this week .

I planned out my breakfast , I planned out all my snacks , I planned out lunches , I planned out like a second meal which was either honestly just a turkey sandwich or two scrambled eggs , and then my dinners . I just need to hit like 20 , 30 , 30 grams of protein with my dinner and I'm good .

But I took the time , mind you , maybe four minutes that it took to track my food and it's keeping me on track . So I hope that you don't hear that as being restrictive because for me I hear now I don't have to time , have to spend time thinking about what I'm gonna eat . If it's breakfast time , I have two options .

This week it's Kodiak cup or it's a Kodiak oatmeal and a protein shake after my workout . If I don't work out in the morning , then I'll save my protein shake for my post workout . But either way , I know that I'm getting that in and usually it's in the morning .

But for my snacks I'm having a protein bar , I'm having a protein shake , I'm having a cheese stick , I'm having tuna with hummus and salsa scooped with tortilla chips . There's different options that I'm having . Not gonna tell you all my foods , that's really boring .

But what I'm saying is I have everything logged in there so that I know that I'm gonna be on track For me . That was very freeing For me to get everything in the app and be like , okay , cool , if I stick to this , it's freaking so simple . I didn't even have to do any meal prep . We bought a rotisserie chicken this week . That was our meal prep .

Guys , it's not sexy , but it is what it is and it was great . Actually , it's gone for the weekend it's Thursday , but anyways , for me , when I put all that in there , that felt so freeing . And now , when I'm hungry , all I have to do is think okay , what did I log for snacks this week ? Go grab one of those items and eat it .

I don't have to think should I have this ? Should I have this ? Could I warm this up ? Oh , could I stray and do this If I stray off of the plan that I made for myself in my fitness pal , then I'm off plan , like it is what it is too . That's also in my control .

So if I do wanna have some Oreos on a day yesterday I did actually then today I just will maybe stay a little bit undercarved . So yesterday , oreos equal carbs , basically right , I went a little bit over my carbs . Today I'll try to stay a little bit under , which should be easy because I'm so busy today I don't really have time to eat .

We have basketball tonight , which means I'll be there for like five hours by the time we drive , sit for two games , drive back . So it should be fine for me to not eat carbs today . Honestly , not that many anyway . But what I'm trying to say is for me , tracking my macros , knowing what to feed my body , that equals flexibility .

And when I track my macros right , like I can log Oreos , I log oatmeal , I can log rice , pasta , chicken , fish , ground turkey , eggs , cheese stick , whatever , like . Whatever I log into the app , it turns into carbs , fats or protein .

It doesn't say don't eat this food , it doesn't say this food's bad , it just says whether it's a carb , protein or a fat , and for me that's so freeing . So if you look at this in a different way .

This becomes so freeing and it allows you this flexibility of just living your life without stressing over macros and stressing over what to eat and stressing over carbs and whether you're over calories and whether you ate too much , and all of that mentality .

It takes out all of the stress around food and even right now , in the midst of the holiday season , when I take four minutes to plan my food for the week , I'm not stressed about it , like I don't feel any stress about food right now .

Now , that being said , a couple of weeks ago , when I was not tracking , I was assuming that I was hitting my protein goal and I was eating whatever snacks and sugar , you know baked goods that were in the house .

Then I was off and , honestly , I've gained a few pounds , which is fine , but I'm like that's not okay , that's irresponsible , that's not fueling my body . I don't feel well . And when I got on the scale , not only had I gained a few pounds , which didn't bother me , but my fat percentage was up a little bit .

Yes , my muscle mass was up a little bit too , which gains right . So I am using my food for fuel and gaining muscle . But also my protein amount was down . So I have a smart scale and it tracks so many different things in my body different kinds of fats and different muscle and my metabolic age and all kinds of amazing stats .

But the one that pissed me off the most was that my protein amount in my body had gone down , so I hadn't been hitting my protein goal , and my body responded obviously by not containing as much protein , and protein is so important . Like , my body needs protein .

It's the building block of so many things in my body and I felt very irresponsible for not treating my body better . Like who am I to have this body and not give it what it needs ? I was pissed at myself . That's the number I was most pissed at . Like , christy , you know better . You know you need to track protein .

You know , no matter what , you need to drink your shake or eat your new ratio yogurt that I've dared snack , that I found that's 25 grams of protein . Like there's no fucking excuse for me to not drink a protein shake that has 40 grams of protein or eat a high protein yogurt or eat some eggs . Like there's no excuse for that .

I was you can hear my voice . I'm sure I was pissed . So I'm like what are you doing ? Like you're not treating your body well , it's irresponsible . And so to go back to tracking made me feel like I'm doing something good for my body again , and so that's why counting macros , tracking macros , having the knowledge of macros , that's what in my brain .

This is what it means to me . It means that I'm , that I have freedom , that I have a good relationship with my body , that I want to treat it well and , in response , it does what I want it to do . It's healthy , it lifts weights , it's strong . Right Me , my body , and me and my body are a team and I have to pull my weight .

And so if you take hopefully you take things away from this episode , but if you take anything away from this episode , I want you to hear how passionate I am about the fact that I do honestly think and I used to be so scared to say this because people just don't say it .

I remember doing Beachbody and it was like you know , only basically say what people want to hear and , like , say whatever kind of they're telling you to say or whatever . I firmly believe that this way of living changed my life . I've said that so many times . It's changed my body , my mentality , my life , and this is why I think county macros is responsible .

I think it's irresponsible to not give your body what it needs , plain and simple . I do think tracking macros is necessary on occasion , especially when you are learning how to track macros and you're learning how to have a good relationship with your body .

When women come to me , they're like I want to have a good relationship with my body , I want to love my body , I want to love myself , I want to understand what is going on . Why am I doing these diets ? What is wrong with me ?

Right , nothing's wrong , but you have to understand and this is what I believe helps you to understand , because it's worked for me and because I've done it in such a non restrictive , non obsessive way . And so this is why I love county macros Y'all . This is why I love it . So I hope that that was helpful .

I hope that this encourages you this holiday season especially to kind of fix , to make the goal next year to fix your relationship with food and yourself .

And right now , what you can do is not focus on losing weight or dieting or being obsessive or restrictive in all the things this year , the rest of this year , because this is a really bad time to do that .

But what you can do is just start tracking your food , gain awareness , start to understand macros , and not by Googling it , but by tracking what you're eating on a macro app and really just digging into it and being like , oh wow , I thought this food had protein . It doesn't .

I thought what are some food like nuts and peanut butter and like , yeah , those things are not bad . But I have clients all the time that track them and they're like , wow , I didn't realize how much fat was in cashews . Like I thought that was a super healthy food .

It is , but you'll go over your fats for the day if you eat too many of them and therefore you're eating too many calories . Therefore , you're gaining weight . Right , so it's just this awareness . But that's what I would encourage you to do this time of year is just gain awareness .

That way , in January , you have a better understanding of your body , macros , calories , workouts , all the things and you're ready to roll . So I hope that you enjoyed this episode . I love talking about macros . Obviously , if you ever have any questions or want to talk about these topics with me , I love chatting with you in the DMs on Instagram .

Come find me at Christy Castillo fit . Shoot me a message . I love hearing from you and I will talk to you next week .