How To Make Tracking Macros Easier

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body . Thank you for being here , as always . In the beginning I said I was going to give you some personal info , so here I am . Here I am after a weekend away .

I did a quick trip with my daughter and my mom to go see the stage version of Frozen . It was awesome , as a kid who grew up on theater , to watch my daughter experience that , and it is a love of hers . It's so fun , and it's so fun to like break the routine and have this special girls trip , as she called it . So that was really , really nice .

Got to go someplace different , got to be by the beach and the water , which is my favorite thing to do , and then one of my favorite things about trips is just the change in food . The change in food , like I don't know about you , but I am a person who I don't love to cook . Love to cook is such an exaggeration .

For me , it is prepare the foods that I know how to make . And I really do love eating out and I have been able to reach so many of my nutrition and aesthetic goals with eating out , which I think is a real . Hopefully it's a testament to the fact that that is a possibility for you . But we can kind of get into that .

But I so I get kind of like lulled into this place with sort of the food that I have access to where I go like , oh , I'm so over this food , I'm so over this restaurant . Because we go there a lot or because we can have it Because it's at our fingertips , I'm like over it .

So I think going on a trip always means , oh , I get to try new food , try new restaurants . That's like my favorite thing to do . Find like best ice cream spot . We did find a really good ice cream spot with these ice cream sandwiches and it was delicious . The whole time I was away I didn't put anything in a food tracker . It felt great .

I don't typically put much in a food tracker , and that is what we're going to talk about today . We're going to talk about how to make tracking your macros , or tracking food , easier for you , and I'm going to go through three really simple-to-use solutions that will take some of this stress away .

If you're unfamiliar using a food tracker , they're usually on websites or in apps where you can track what you're eating , and you can track both the calorie content and then the macronutrients .

So protein , how much protein , how many carbohydrates , how many fats For a lot of foods that they keep in the catalog , you have those micronutrients in there as well , and the amounts of those .

For many people , counting and tracking macronutrients is an incredible way to bring awareness to your nutrition , awareness to the way you eat and how you might like to change how you eat , make dietary changes and see visible progress In the same breath .

It can feel like a full-time job , it can feel like a lot of work , and for some people it can really trigger some stress , some anxiety , some perfectionist tendencies and then some deeper and more difficult and things that are out of my scope in terms of relationship with food , relationship with your body , things like that .

So I won't say that it's a perfect system , but I think for many people it really works and using some of the solutions that I have to make it a little easier or to make it fit your life better should help complement what it is that you're doing Now . I mentioned in the beginning that I do not track .

That is because for the most part now I don't really need to . I did it for a while when I wanted to increase my protein , when I really wanted to change my diet , which I did .

Probably around two years ago , I started making some more drastic changes , particularly to increasing my protein intake , because I was moving from a vegetarian diet to a meat-based diet for the sake of building muscle , and I'm not going to get into why I did those different diets because I have a real sense of I choose what I want to eat .

I never really even like loved the label vegetarian , but anyway , when I was reintroducing meat , I did a lot of tracking .

In that tracking I learned a lot about the foods I was taking in , a lot about what combinations worked best for me , and in that I became really aware of the foods I was eating and their protein and calorie content and for me and carbohydrate and fat content as well , but those ended up being sort of secondary and not all that important for my specific goals .

So now I'm at a place where I can pretty much eyeball and have a pretty good sense without having to track what the protein content of a food is and , most of the time , what the calorie content of a food is , though I am not all that focused on that specifically for my own goals .

I'm really focused on the protein content and the energy source and what I can use pre and post workout things like that . So I don't really track that often . If I track , it's sometimes like I'll take a week every so often and track all my foods and just see oh , am I being pretty consistent with what I thought I was taking in ?

Oh , great , then I'm going to stick with that . I think that's going to be perfect for me , and then I don't have to track again .

I also track if I'm going somewhere I don't know or I have a food that I have a question about and I really want to see oh , is this something that I think would work better in place of X , and I'll use the tracker to look at the macros , but I probably won't track it consistently and I'm pretty , you know , with my nutrition certification background and then

with my own experience of tracking . Already I can look at a nutrition label and have a pretty good understanding of what I'm taking in . But there was a time where I did really track all my foods and it was very helpful for me . And then it grows tiresome at least for me it does .

I like can't do it for all that long and I think for a lot of people that is what becomes overwhelming in terms of tracking .

So I've got three solutions to make tracking a little easier or to lower the barrier to using it to help you reach your muscle building goals , your fat loss goals , your physique goals , your strength goals , because we can use them for all . Sometimes we think about tracking only with cutting calories or only with restricting ourselves , and that isn't the case .

We can actually use it to look at how to add to our diet , how to add protein , how to have more energy for things . So while it kind of gets a bad rap sometimes , I think there's a really useful place for it in your health journey if you feel like you can manage it . So here are my solutions for you .

I recommend for everybody most people , mostly , everybody mostly to track for two weeks one to two weeks everything with no real focus on the changes . I mean , if you're changing things at the same time , that's fine , but really we're using those first two weeks of tracking everything to just bring awareness to what we're consuming .

For so many people who are struggling to reach their health and fitness goals , it is because they are unaware of what they're taking in . They're unaware of the calorie content of their foods , they're unaware of how low their protein intake is throughout the day . When we track for one to two weeks , we start to see patterns .

We give it enough time where we can sort of see regularly this is what I'm getting in . It's not an anomaly day , it's two full weeks and then we can make adjustments from that . It's really about bringing awareness . I don't believe that you have to track every single morsel that goes in your mouth every single day in order to be successful .

So that's one of the first things we can do . If we have really ambitious body change goals , you might need to track pretty meticulously for an extended period of time , but that is going to depend on your specific goal and whether or not that works for you .

If that is not necessarily the goal , then the things that we can do to make it easier are to track only calories and protein . So if you have a specific weight loss , fat loss goal , you'll want to look at the calories , because we're trying to probably be in a little bit of a deficit to create that fat loss .

If that is not specifically the goal , or if you're not interested in focusing on calories , I recommend for everybody that they track their protein , and that's simply . You can do it on the food tracker , and the food tracker is also like you know . I'm talking about Chronometer , I'm talking about MyFitnessPal . I'm talking about there's a LoseIt app .

You can use any of these apps and you can track , and I would focus only on the protein . Now , in those apps , you're going to see the other things . You're going to see calories , you're going to see fat content and carbohydrate content . If that puts you in a tailspin , then I would simply get a tiny notebook and just track the protein .

Either go Google something if you don't have a wrapper , or use the food label to tell you what the protein content is . Remember , we're trying to get above 100 grams , focusing on getting 0.75 to 1 gram per pound of body weight . That's one thing that we can do Simply just track the protein .

If you are focusing on hitting those protein numbers , a lot about your diet is going to change without you having to do much and you're going to feel better after workouts . You're going to see that muscle build . You're going to probably see better definition . You're going to recover faster . You'll .

You know , I've experienced that myself as well with so many of my clients . So that's one of the things you can do . You can just be focused on tracking protein . You can do what I like to call preload tracking . So preload tracking is for those who want to do more of the meticulous tracking , more of the . I want to track everything that's going in .

I would preload on a weekend day all the foods that you know you're definitely going to eat , if you have the same breakfast , if you meal prep the same lunch , if you know basically I'm going to have these things . I would go to the week ahead .

I'd put it all in so that all you're adding later during the week , when you're busy and when you've got a lot going on , the only thing that you're doing is just tossing in the things that are out of the ordinary or the things that you've added in .

This will take away a lot of that work in the days that you are kind of overwhelmed , and you can probably replicate your weeks pretty easily , based on the fact that for a lot of meals we just tend to repeat things .

It will also give you an idea if I eat this and this normally , then I know this is what I usually have left in terms of amount of protein I need to get or amount of total calories . And when we're talking about calories we're talking about the energy we need , how many calories I still need in the day .

If we preload it , then it takes some of that stress away and we just have it in front of us . Some of that stress away and we just have it in front of us with the ability to plan better , and we know that with nutrition , the better we plan , the better off we're going to be , the closer we are going to be to reaching those goals .

And then the other thing that you can do . So if you aren't going to do any of those , sometimes just tracking the foods that you don't know can be helpful . So let's say you have become pretty good at knowing what you're taking in . You've done that sort of preloaded tracking before , so you know what your breakfasts usually are .

You know that you're always hitting this number around lunch . You got that . You start to track when you know you're going to go to a restaurant for somebody's birthday , or you know you're going to go to a restaurant for somebody's birthday , or you know you're going to go on a vacation .

You look ahead , you look at some of the places that you're going to go , you put the information into your tracker and then you have a better idea of the kinds of options you have to make when you get there and listen , you have autonomy . You can choose anything off a menu , right , you have the ability to choose anything you want .

But if you want to be in line with your goals , you might have to choose from a certain amount of things . So if you have it planned ahead of time , it takes away the stress .

I know there's an element or a faction of people who would say that that's a little obsessive and that you're not living your life , and I would argue that anything we can do to take stress out of your life , the better we are . So if you can look at a menu ahead of time .

If you can have an idea of the kinds of foods on that menu that you feel like fit in with your goals and then you can choose them and it causes less stress great , then I would also encourage you .

If you get there and you change your mind and you really want X , y or Z and it doesn't fit in that perfect macro box for you , I would encourage you to ask yourself is this a moment where I really want to go for that and then go for it ? That's the difference .

If you are robbing yourself of experiences , that you actually want to stay in your little macro numbers or your calorie numbers , that's where we start to look at is this worth it ?

But if you go there and you say that sounds good , but I really do want to have something that tastes great but also fits into my macro nutrient ratio , then all you've done is help yourself not be stressed in that moment and feel like you're making a choice that is in line with your goals and your ambitions . You are allowed to do that .

Everybody again has autonomy and that's a way to make it easier for you , because if you want to reach your physique or strength goals , you have to plan and prepare . That's the only way to do it , all right . So let me just run through those one more time and remind you . I love a one to two week track everything , just to bring awareness .

Then if you want to work for a little bit another two weeks , another four weeks at still tracking everything and making the changes you want to make , that's a great option . The more meticulously you track , the more accurate you're going to be , the faster you're going to see results likely .

But if that is stressful or you don't want to do it or it's not interesting to you , I suggest only tracking protein . You can do that on one of those apps or you can do it in a notebook so that you don't see any of the other numbers . One of those apps , or you can do it in a notebook so that you don't see any of the other numbers .

You can do preload tracking . So load in the tracker all the meals that you already know you're having , take some of that stress out , take some of that work off your plate , track and lastly , track the foods that you don't know , and you can do them while you're having it or you can use it as sort of a preparation method .

I know that I'm going to this place . I don't know what their foods are . Let me track , put it in the tracker , see which one gives me the most bang for my buck , and then I know what I'll be able to choose there or what I would like to choose there , because , again , you can choose what's best for you .

All of this depends on your goals , your interests , and what we're doing is not intended to strip us of our joy . It is actually intended to help us feel less stress , to enjoy foods we love and , at the same time , reach our goals . All right , if you have questions about this , let me know . You can email me , betsy , at BeFosterStrongcom .

You can send me a DM at Foster underscore strength . If this was helpful , do me a favor and share it with somebody you think would like it as well . Or you can leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts . You just slide down to the bottom . As always , I am here to help and I'm grateful for your listening ears . Until next time , I want you to go .

Build your strongest body . Bye .