Ep 3: Macros 101 - What? How? Who?

If you have heard the buzz around macros, but you have no idea what macros even are or how you can "count them" to lose weight - this episode has everything you need! I break down what macros are, how to count them, and who macros counting is for and not for. I also talk about the benefits of macro counting and how even a short period of using this diet can lead to long-term sustainable results. If you're sick of fad diets and ready to lose weight in a flexible way, eating all of your favorite foods with NOTHING off limits, macro counting is for YOU! Hit play and let's dig in!!

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Transcript

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Hey guys really quick. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to let you know that we are running some awesome black Friday specials this year for our programs and our products. So I'm going to drop a link in side of the show notes to our website, where you can check those out. If you are not subscribed to our email list make sure that you do that we are going to send out those promos early to our email subscribers We'll also be sharing them on our website and on social media but if you're just wanting to make sure that you do not miss them and trust me you will not want to miss them then at click the link in the show notes make sure that you are a subscribed and let's get into today's episode If you are interested in macro counting, but you feel like it is insanely overwhelming. Like you could never learn this stuff. You look at it and it's like a foreign language. Then I just want to tell you, I have been in your shoes. I totally understand. But i want you to know this one thing you absolutely can do this anyone can learn how to count macros i promise you do not have to be science brained. you do not have to understand some magic secret macro counting is truly for everyone and everyone can learn it let's break it down let's simplify it and let's take the overwhelm out of macro counting so that you can learn how to lose weight eating the foods that you love Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the show. I am super excited to sit down and record this very important episode today. This is going to be like an introduction to macro counting. And I'll be honest. I get asked more than anything. What the heck is macro counting? Like I am going to be just so transparent. I forget because I started my macro counting journey nearly a decade ago. I have a degree in nutrition. I've been coaching macros for so long. I've been talking about it every day for so long that I kind of forget what it's like to be a beginner to have absolutely no idea what macros are. So if that is you, if you're like, I don't. Have any idea what macros are then this episode is definitely for you. I wanted to create a resource where I could point. Anyone who emailed me, messaged me. Back to this information where I really go. Not in depth, but I definitely give a comprehensive review of what macros even means. How do you count your macros? And then I also want to talk about who macro counting is not for and who it is for, because that is really important. So if you are interested in that, that is what we are going to talk about today. Even if you have some experience with macro counting this, episode's still going to be pretty valuable because I think oftentimes we tend to overcomplicate macros there's so much that could be said about this topic. There's a whole science to it, but I am only going to give the high notes, the parts that are truly important, especially from a body composition. Goals standpoint. If you're just feeling like you need to sort of simplify your idea of macros. We're going to kind of do that today. I do want to note that if you have not listened to my story with macro counting, I want you to go back and check out episode one of this podcast in that I talk about how I learned about macros, because again, I was at one point a beginner who. Got started with my macro counting journey. Not knowing anything about it. And went on to lose a hundred pounds. I went back to school, got my degree in nutrition and created this coaching business all about macros. So if you haven't had an opportunity to listen to that, it's just a really good one. If you're wanting a little more background on me and how I got started doing this. All right. So like I said, we're going to talk about what macros are, how to count them for weight loss results and who macro counting is for and not for, but before we do that, I want to make a quick couple of notes. The first one is that if you are not driving and you are listening to this and you can grab. Some type of food item that has a food label on it. It might be beneficial when I get into just sort of explaining like how to count macros, if you don't have one, that's totally okay. I will give you as much of a visual as I can, but for those of you who are really wanting to kind of dig in and learn a little bit here so that you can sort of take action on macro counting. It might be helpful if you've got a food label in front of you so pause this if you can grab something if not you can always listen to this and look at a food label after The other thing that I want to note before we get started is Macro counting is an extension of calorie counting. So. If you can count calories, then you can count macros. I always say this to ladies who were like, I don't know if I can do this. You know, I have experience with like logging my food and counting calories, but I don't know if I can do the whole macro thing. Trust me. If you can count calories, you can count macros. It does require some learning. You're learning a new skill. So of course there's going to be a learning curve, but just like anything else where you study and you have to learn how to do it, you can do that with macros. And it's truly not as complicated as you might think. It truly is just an extension of counting calories. The other thing that I want to note is that with this. You learn by doing so, for example, in our programs, we give tons of resources, all the resources that you need to learn to count macros, and you could read every single one of them. You could memorize every single one of them, but that would not be enough to see results. Okay. You truly have to take And start logging your food and counting your macros and the way that you're going to see results and have success is by doing that. So I always like to put that out there when it comes to macro counting, it's something that you're going to learn by doing. And to piggyback off of that, I get asked, oh my gosh, I get so many direct messages when it comes to my programs and just macro accounting in general, where people are like, I hate logging my food. Do I have to. Log my food. And I will just tell you, there are some programs out there that use this concept of paying attention to macros. But they don't require you to log your food. You're kind of using like a balanced plate method, which I am a super huge fan of, especially using that when you are. Out of a gold season, maybe you're kind of moved on to maintenance, but I will just tell you that when it comes to literally counting your macros, yes, you do have to log your food. It is a requirement in our programs. There's just no way to do it as you're going to learn in this episode. when we talk about how to count macros, you've got to log your food. That is literally step one in our proven framework. So if you're kind of asking yourself that question of Does this mean I have to log my food. If you do want to count your macros, the answer is yes. Now there is a lot that you could learn about macros. You guys. We're just going to keep it simple. In this episode today, my goal as your coach is to do all of the heavy lifting, right? Getting a degree in nutrition, reading research, understanding. How it all works when it comes to, you know, human physiology and anatomy and metabolism and all of those things. It's my job to do all of that and give that information back to you in easily digestible, actionable steps so that you can get the results that you want. Okay. So I'm not here to teach you as like a professor. I want to give you the information that you need in order to learn about macros and really what it's all about and how to count them. But. I'm not really going to come at you from like a hardcore teacher scientist approach. I want to kind of give you the information that you need. And that's why I created our three step proven framework that thousands of women have used to learn how to count macros so that they can lose weight, eating food. They love, you know, I want you to just get the results and not have to do. As much of the learning as I've had to do. Right. So that's always my job as a coach. So I do want to say, if you are interested in like the science part of this, and you really want to get really far into it, I am a big fan of Alan Aragon. He is one of the very first researchers that I came across when I started learning about macro counting and he recently put out a book. It is titled flexible dieting. Bye Alan Aragon. And if you are looking for a comprehensive resource where you can learn. The science side of all of this and really dig in. I cannot suggest that book enough. It is. Amazing. But again, today, we are just going to focus on the pieces that you need. If you are somebody who has tried macro counting before, and it felt super complicated and really overwhelming. I just want to encourage you to listen to this episode. I also want to encourage you to try our programs. If you're somebody who like liked the idea of macro counting, or you really wanted it to work, but it just, it felt. Too complicated or like there was just too much. We hear all the time about how our program is different. And we did that on purpose. We really did try and break it down step-by-step so you can always check out the link in the show notes to see the different programs. the things that we offer, we always have our monthly membership, our subscription program open and all of our resources to learn how to count macros are there for you inside. Of our membership. All right, you guys let's dig in and we are going to start with what macros even The heck. Our macros. So macros is short for macro nutrients and you probably don't realize it, but every single day, when you eat, you are consuming macros. Okay. We're going to, we're going to call them macros instead of macronutrients, shorten it up a little bit. So there are three macros. We have carbs. We have fats. And we have protein. Those are the three macros. I know you guys know what carbs are. I know, you know what protein is. And then fats refers to dietary fats, The fats that we consume as far as food goes. So those are your three macros carbs fats and protein. We also have micronutrients and those are extremely important. That's going to be your vitamins, your minerals, and also water. Extremely important, but they are not important for this conversation, not when we're talking about specifically counting macros, but I did want to just point out that we do have micronutrients as well, and micronutrients do not contain calories. Macro nutrients, however, do contain calories. They are energy yielding. Meaning when we consume macros, right carbs fats and protein, we are consuming calories. So when you eat carbs, Those carbs have calories. When you eat protein. Protein has calories. Same for fat, the macro nutrients. They are vital. You need these in order to carry out. Daily living activities, things like driving your car. Laughing running, smiling. You need macronutrients literally just to exist. They are what? Keep your organs running and give your body energy. Again, in the form of calories. So calories are just an measurement of energy. And so when we consume these macros and we consume these calories, that is what is giving our body the energy that it needs to exist, live and thrive. I did want to also note that. Alcohol is a non nutrient, but it does contain calories. I can do a whole separate episode on this topic. There's, a lot to say, and I don't want to get super into it in this episode just to keep things kind of simple, but I will just say it does contain calories. However, in our programs, we just put alcohol under the category of carbs and or fats. You can't really claim it as protein, but the calories that you get. I get, when you drink alcohol, we just have our clients, you know, log that as carbs or fats. And so I did want to point that out. I didn't want to skip over it completely, but definitely talking about alcohol might A good episode. If you guys want me to do that. All right. So to round this out, we understand that macros is short for macronutrients and that there's three macros, carbs, fat, and protein, and that these things contain calories and that we need them in order to live. All right. So let's move on to the part where we talk about how do you count them, right? Like how do you count them and lose a weight by counting them? This is the important kind of long part, right? Because we just did a basic understanding. We know that macros are carbs fats and proteins, but like, okay. So what, like what do we actually do with these things in order to lose weight and see the body composition results that we are looking for? So, This is where I want you guys to grab a food item that has a nutrition facts label on it, because we are going to talk about that really All right. So I'll just tell you guys, I have a Triscuits box in front of me. And that is what I am going to use in order to talk about. This food label and where the macros are, but you can already see them on your food label. If you are looking at the nutrition facts, you will see a couple of different things that are important when it comes to this. macro counting business. So all day long, you are eating throughout the day, right? You are consuming calories in the food that you are eating, and that's going to like total up throughout your day. You're also consuming these macros, whether you have noticed this or not. The calories that you're consuming are broken down by these macros. So on your food label, you'll see that there's a calorie section. So on mine. It says 120 calories. Underneath that you will see that there is a total fat. Total carbohydrate and protein section. It might look a little different depending on what your food label has. They're always kind of changing the food, labeling laws and things, but, fat carb and protein should be listed on your nutrition facts label. Another thing to note is that you'll see the serving size. And so the amount of calories and those three macros that you see listed that is for that serving size that you were saying. For this it's six crackers, right? Six Triscuit crackers. So as you're consuming these foods throughout the day, by the end of the day, you are totalling up to how many calories you have eaten, and you're also totalling up how many grams. I have carbs. Fats and protein you have consumed throughout the day. So there's some math that can be done for how many grams of carbs you've eaten and how many grams of protein and how many grams of fat that you've eaten that. Add it all up, multiply, do all the things. And it comes out to the total amount of calories you have eaten throughout the day. We're not going to get super into all that. but what you need to understand is that as you eat throughout the day, as you're consuming food, the amount of calories that you are eating is adding up, it's totaling to a number. And that is also true for those three macros. So you've got the macros that are in that one food that you're eating. But it's adding up throughout your day to get to the total amount of carbs and fat and protein that you've eaten throughout your day for a total number, as well as the total calories. So, if you've ever logged your food before then, you know, When you log your food, you can look at the total amount of calories that you have consumed, right. By logging everything you've eaten. But you also can see the breakdown of how many of those macros you have had. So very basically stated if you are counting your macros, what you're doing is you're logging the food that you're consuming throughout the day. And you are looking at the total of the fat carbs and protein that you have consumed, and you are trying to hit a specific target. So let's move into how we count our macros by logging I want to first say macro counting is not just for weight loss. I think because that is our program is really based around weight loss that sometimes people think. That this is only for weight loss. Our focus and our marketing is weight loss, but you can use macro counting to gain weight. You can use macro counting to maintain your weight, to build muscle. And so I do want to just say that I'm going to really be kind of referencing weight loss here, because again, that's what I have experience with and that's mostly what we've coached, but we have also coached women through maintaining their weight and also weight gain. It is not exclusive to just. Weight loss. All right. So we understand what macros are and a little bit about how we consume these macros all throughout our day, and that by logging our food, we can get a picture for how many of those three macros we are consuming. So let's talk really quick about how we lose weight and in order to lose weight, you must be in a calorie deficit. So simply put that just means that you must take in less food consume. Less food or less drink less calories than your body burns throughout the day. So your body burns calories, a variety of ways. Let's talk about this really quick because there's a lot of misunderstanding around this and again, not going to get super science-y, but I do want you guys to have this information for reference. So your body burns calories four different ways first through your BMR and your BMR is literally just your body existing. And living. Okay. So all of the things, digestion metabolism, keeping your heart beating all of that is your BMR. And that accounts for 70% of your calories burned throughout the day. Next is through your neat movement. So this is just your non-exercise activity. So think things like fidgeting, right? Like right now, as I'm recording this, I'm kind of bouncing my foot. That's your neat. That accounts for 15% of your calories burned throughout Next we burn calories through the thermic effect of food. So really this just means that the food that you consume your body has to break it down, metabolize it, absorb the nutrients, and that requires energy. So you burn calories whenever you do this. And this accounts for 10% of your calories burned. So, what is the last 5%? The last 5% of your calories burned is through exercise. Everyone is so shocked when they hear this. Oh, you tend to think that exercise is this huge component of weight loss or of calories burned. And the fact of the matter is it's really only 5%, the majority of the calories that you burn throughout your day. Has to do with your BMR, your body and keeping it alive, keeping it running as a machine. And then that non-exercise activity is 15%. Our digestion of our food is 10% and then exercise is just 5%. So the reason that I wanted to talk about that is just because when I get into talking about calorie deficits and how our bodies lose weight, it's just really important to understand that your body is going to burn calories based on all of those things that I just talked about. Your body is going to burn a certain amount of calories every And then you are going to consume. A certain amount of calories every day through your food. And in order to see. Fat loss results, weight loss results. You have to take in less food than your body burns. This is called a calorie deficit, and this is how we lose weight. This is crucial to sort of understand whenever you are trying to count your macros, because the very first thing that you're going to do is you are going to log your food. And in our proven framework, step one is not just logging your food. It's also staying within that calorie goal. And I am just a huge fan of educating our clients and making sure that they're not just doing what we say, like in an authoritative way. I really want them to have some autonomy, some understanding some education around why they are doing what they're doing. And the reason that we are first looking at our calories is so that we can ensure that we're staying within the calorie budget that is going to allow us to. To lose weight and see the results that we want. All right. So you might be thinking, well, if just staying within your calorie goal is all that matters for weight loss, then why would we take it a step further? Why would we even care about macros? And there is so much that I could say about this topic, but I want to say just a couple of things really quickly. Number one. It is so incredibly important to have muscle mass. Okay. Muscle mass is important for a lot of reasons, but when you're trying to see fat loss results and you are trying to maintain. Fat loss results. The more muscle mass you have, the better that is going to go for you. Okay. And if you are not eating adequate protein, then when you're losing weight, you're not just losing body fat. You're also going to be losing muscle mass. We really, really want to keep as much of that lean muscle as we can, because it is going to help us in the long run. It's also the best thing for your metabolism because muscle is metabolically active. So the more of it, you have the more calories you're going to burn overall. Okay. So strength training is really great for that, but it is crucial that you are eating adequate protein when you're in a calorie deficit, so that you're losing. Fat and you're minimizing how much muscle mass you're losing. So that's reason. Number one. The second reason is that the composition of your food and the balance of your diet is important for overall health. You know, we want to have a good variety in our diet, but I'm going to take that one step further and say that a lot of people struggle to achieve or stay in their calorie deficit. And it's because they are not choosing foods that allow them to feel full. Full. So for talking about being able to add here. And stay in your calorie deficit consistently. You want to make sure that you are eating the kinds of foods and that you have the balance in your diet to actually be able to do You know, if you're just filling up on all carbs and fats and you're not getting enough protein, you're probably going to be really hungry in that calorie deficit. You could be eating 1500 calories of all carbs and fats, and really struggling to stick to that number because the foods that you are eating, it's not balanced. You're not feeling that fullness from the protein. Versus if you were eating 1500 calories and you were eating that adequate protein, and then you had a nice balance between your carbs and fats. Then you're going to feel totally different at that 1500 calories. You're not going to feel as hangry. You're going to be able to really add here to that calorie deficit. So. The way that you make up your calories really does matter for multiple reasons, that things I just explained, but overall being able to adhere and stick to that calorie deficit is really important because if you can't do that, if you can't stick to it consistently, then you're not going to see the results that you Okay. So that's a lot of information. Let's move into walking through sort of a progression, like a timeline of how you would do this I know I'm a very visual person. I can hear, like, I hear what you're saying, but like, what do I actually do? So I'm going to paint the picture for you guys, and I'm going to use our program and how we walk through as an example, I just want to say every macro counting program is totally different. The general idea with macro counting is that you can fill up your calories. However you want to with whatever foods. You want to so long as you hit your targets or stay within your macro ranges. Now, this is where macros get a bad rap. People believe that that's an excuse to just fill up your. Day with a bunch of junk food and that's sort of an outdated way of looking at it. In my opinion, the truth of the matter is a good macro counting program will also have you focused on the nutrition side. So in our program, we learn about whole grains and fiber and. A good balanced, nutritious diet with lots of fruits and veggies. So again, I just want to paint a picture that when you're counting your macros, you really are making whatever food choices you want to make. There's no food list. There's no specific meal plan, nothing is off limits. You get to pick the foods that you like to eat in order to hit your macro targets. But you do want to make sure that you are still focusing on good nutrition and having a quality overall diet Diet. So the very first thing that you would do when you start counting macros is you would get your own personalized macro numbers. So we've. Explained here that when you are counting your macros, you're logging your food. You're looking at the specific amount of carbs fats and proteins that you're consuming. And when you get personalized, macros calculated for you, what's happening is you are getting a specific amount of fat protein and carbs. Target numbers that you are aiming for. And these are personalized to you. Now, there are many different ways to do this. There are online calculators, there's coaches as a trained professional. When I got my nutrition degree, we learned several different equations. We had to memorize how to do this multiple different ways. So the reason that oftentimes women get confused is that they'll use like three different online calculators or different coaches. And they'll be like, all my numbers are different and. And that is truly because there are so many ways to do it. And there's different things that different people or different calculators are going to take into account. But just in general, when you are getting a personalized macro count and calorie count, some of the things that are taken into account are things like your sex, your age, your height, your current weight, and definitely your activity level. So that's going to be again, that. daily activity. Are you someone who sits at a desk all day or are you. Maybe a server you're on your feet, moving around all day or somewhere in between. And then also your exercise activity, are you somebody who's training for an ultra marathon or are you somebody who, lifts weights three times a week? So those things are going to be taken into account when getting a personalized macro And that's kind of the basic, but a good coach or a good calculator will also take into account many other things, just as an example, things like, are you. Nursing. And for how long have you been nursing? Because you burn calories when you do that, have you been dieting? Do you know how many calories you've been consuming? So there's a lot of different factors at play. And the other thing that's really important when you're getting a macro calculation is what are your goals? You know, are you at trying to lose weight? Are you trying to gain weight, maintain your weight? So the first thing that you need in order to get started is a personalized macro number. Number tailored to you, your goals. It's going to be different than somebody else's. Okay. So I'm five 11. Somebody else who's five 11 might have totally different calorie and macro numbers than me based on how active they are or, you know, how long they've been dieting. There's just so many factors. So that's why you see all different types of calorie amounts and calculators. And I always encourage women, please. Don't like overwhelm yourself with that. Just having a good number to get started is good because you're going to want to adjust anyways. Right? These are just a Quaker. they're not perfect. You can't really know exactly how many calories somebody burns, like watches are not very accurate. So they really are just good equations to get you started and you will need to adjust based on how your progress is going. A good program will. I encourage that and help you to understand that. So there are definitely free online calculators out there. We offer personalized macro counts at balanced, by Hilary that come with some of our best resources. You can check that out on our website. And then of course, if you join our monthly membership, you get personalized calories and macros. When you join the membership, or if you join. One of our challenges. So definitely check that out, but there are free calculators out there. That will get you started. If you're just looking for something free to get you going. All right. So after you have your personalized macros, the next thing that you're going to do is download a food logging app. We are huge fans of the lose it app. You can download that in your app store. That is the app that I used. I started out with my fitness pal and I just personally did not love it. Now this is again, almost a decade So I'm sure things have changed. Although I know some of our clients have switched recently because apparently my fitness pal got, or I don't think they got rid of their barcode scanner, but they make you pay for it now. Okay. Lose. It does not, if you are like me and you like to quickly just. The scan, a food label really quickly and not have to like type everything in or search for it. I use this feature on, lose it all the time. Um, it's still free on lose it. So if you're upset with my fitness pal about that, no shade, I'm just letting you know you have options. again, just a huge fan of lose it. Mom also used to lose it in her 100 pound weight loss journey. That's when I used and in our programs, because that's what we used. We built all of our content around that. So we have tutorials for how to use, lose it, all of our tips and tricks. Download a food logging app. I know I'm promoting lose it pretty hard, but anything will work guys. Seriously, women in our programs use all different types of apps. Anything that will allow you to see your total calories and then also see your total macros each day. So step one of our program. Logging your food in your food logging app. And that's really just what you're going to do to get started. And this is where I see so many women make the mistake is they want to jump directly into, well, I've got to hit my protein. I've got to hit my carbs. I've got to hit my fats. Right. That target number that was given to that was personalized to many women get like. I want to do it all. I want to do it all. And let me tell you, our proven framework is don't even worry about the macros. We don't even worry about the macros in step one. Okay. And we're a macro counting program. All you need to do to get started is log your food and try and stay within that calorie amount that was given to you. Okay. So remember, I was talking about how the calorie deficit is truly the most important. You cannot lose weight without it. So that is good enough to get you started. From there. Then once you're comfortable with that, you're kind of getting used to the calorie amounts. You've created some awareness. You're learning about your food logging. Then you can get into the macros and then our proven framework, we start with protein because it is truly the most crucial macro, like I mentioned, for fat loss results. So we jump into, now that you've got the logging and the calories, now let's focus on hitting that protein target. And then step three is just learning about carbs and fats and how to balance them, how to make good choices with carbs and fats. But I do want to say that there is a simplified approach to macro counting. This is a little secret. Not a lot of people know. But you can truly just focus on staying at the calorie target that was given to you and reaching your protein target each day and kind of just letting the rest of your calories fill up with carbs and fats. However you want. You don't have to focus on hitting a specific number with carbs and fats. We give a full macro count because. A lot of women do like to focus on all four numbers. But you really can just focus on the calories and protein. A lot of women find that's a lot more simple. It's more flexible. It's less stressful. So you can absolutely take that approach. There are some caveats to that. You want to make sure that you're getting. Enough fat. It's really important as women, especially that your fat's not too low. We teach you how to check all of that in our programs. And then also with carbs, if you're lacking energy for your workouts and just throughout your day, you might not be getting enough carbs. So just consider those things. But otherwise you truly can just focus on those calories and that protein. So guys that's literally it. That is how you count. Your macros, you're logging the food that you consume. You're putting it in your food logging app, and you are looking at the amount that you're consuming in your calories. And then also with those macro targets each and every And one thing that I want to note really quickly is in our program, we work in ranges. It's a big, huge, huge, huge, huge red flag. To me, when someone tells me that they've joined a program or that they worked with a coach who. I told them that they had to hit 115 grams of Like on the dot. Okay, this is insanity. And please don't ever listen to anybody who tells you to do that for one that is a nutrition prescription that should only ever come from a registered dietician. If somebody is prescribing you a very specific macro amount. That they better be a dietician for one. And number two, that's just really unnecessary unless there is a medical reason. Y they're telling you to do that. Ranges work. You guys, this is a huge misconception about macros. That like, it's this really rigid. Like if you don't hit this number on the dot, then you fail. Oh, my gosh. I see so many women come into our programs and think that, and I'm like, guys, that's not how it works. We give our macros within a range because that's all you need to do is try and aim for these ranges and these targets. And you don't even have to hit that perfectly seven out of seven days. In order to see results. Now, what I will say is you do have to show up consistently. So if you think that you, you know, are going to try this macro counting thing and that you can just do it like four days a week and you can let you know the rest of the week go, I'm talking to you, weekday dieters, who like to take the weekend off and that you're going to see results that way. It's really probably not going to work out in your favor. In order for macro counting to work, you have to be doing it consistently. You've got to be in a calorie deficit, consistent Lee, not just some of the time. Uh, in order to see results now, you don't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be. A hundred percent. That's not even, you know, reasonable. That's not realistic at all, but you do have to be consistent. That's where maybe that conversation of like 80 20 comes up a lot of times. So I did want to just note that really quick and now let's move on. Who is macro counting for and not for, and we are going to start with who it's not for. I just want to get this out of the Because I am excited to tell you who it is for, because I'm really, really hoping that it is for you. So first is the big disclaimer who macro counting is not for, if you have an eating disorder or you have struggled with disordered eating, I will never recommend macro counting to you. And that is because for some paying such close attention to your food can cause you to hyper fixate on it. It can be triggering for You, you know, weight loss in general might not be the best thing to pursue if you're struggling with. Uh, eating disorder or you have struggled with it in the past. So I just want to put that disclaimer out there. It will never be my recommendation personally. We have had. So many women come through our program that felt like they struggled with lots of binge eating. And that was because they felt like those foods were off limits, right? Like pizza, it was off limits. They were trying to diet on these super low calories. And on these fad diets that told them they couldn't have carbs or they couldn't go out to eat. And so then they would end up binge eating on those foods. Right. I might be speaking to you. You might know exactly what I'm talking about. And so, so many women who felt like they had that lack of control around treat foods. Come through our program and completely eliminate it. And that makes me so excited because food is not moral. It's not good or bad. You can have all the things with balance. So I always like to note that Macro counting is also not for someone who wants lazy weight loss, and I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I want to be very clear and very honest and, and set this up correctly so that you do understand that if you're somebody who just wants to be told what to eat, just give me a meal plan. Right. Just give me a meal plan. Just tell me what to eat. Tell me what foods to eat. And I'll just follow what you tell me to eat. And that's the kind of weight loss I want. This is not for you. Backrow counting is not for you. With macro counting, the goal is to learn how to eat for the rest of your life. So what happens when the meal plan is gone? What happens when you don't have a food list anymore? If you're not willing to learn about your food choices and you're not willing to figure out how to take the foods that you love and create this customizable diet for yourself. Then macro counting is definitely not it for you. So macro counting, definitely not for anybody who wants the lazy weight loss method. Just tell me what to do. Give me a meal plan. It's also not for anyone who wants a quick fix. I'll just say it. Macro counting is Cutting out carbs. So you're not going to see these huge drops in the scale. That by the way are just waterway when you're cutting cards. It takes time to see results because you're not just slashing a ton of calories, specially in our programs, we just use a very small to moderate calorie deficit. So. Remember gotta be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. So you've got to take in less food than what your body burns, but so many programs have you cut out a large amount of calories and then you just end up hangry. I mean, sure. You see great results to start. But can you even keep that going? Like. By a couple of weeks, like I'm hungry and your body is smart. It wants to be fueled. So it's going to fight against that eventually. And you can't add here again, you've got to be able to adhere consistently to see results and then especially to keep those results. So if you are looking for a quick fix, want to just drop weight really, really fast day in macro counting is probably not for you because you have to be willing to learn. And you have to be willing to trust the process in order to see results and keep those results. All right. Let's talk about who macro counting is for. I'm so excited if you've made it this far, then that means you're probably kind of interested. And that makes me so excited because I love, love teaching about macros. They truly changed my life, losing a hundred pounds and not feeling like I had to give up the enjoyment of food. Like I'm a foodie. I love, love food. And so it's so exciting to teach women about this and to show them that they don't have to choose between the foods that they love and the body that they are going to feel their best in. So let's talk about who it is for. Number one. Macro counting as for ladies who are done fat dieting. Got it goes back to what I was just talking about for who it's not for. If you've tried it all, like you can sit here and list out just all of the insane diets you've done. Right. Military diet, keto, paleo, whatever. And those weren't sustainable for you. Maybe you've lost weight, but you ended up gaining it back or you lost weight and you could never, you know, Lose the rest of the weight, or it was bad for your mental health and you started having a bad relationship with food, especially treats if you're done with that, if you're like, I am so freaking sick of gaining and losing the same weight. Uh, starting a new diet every Monday or every new year's resolution. If you're done And you are ready to learn. How to lose weight. But still be able to go out to eat or enjoy baking cookies with your kids or have a girls' night or, you know, just live life. Like not have to cut out entire food groups, if that is what you are looking for and you are willing to commit to. The process, logging your food, then macro counting is definitely for you. Macro counting is also for women who want to sustain their weight loss. And this is probably one of the most important things that I talk about. If the methods that you use to lose weight are unsustainable, meaning you're not gonna be able to keep it going, right. So like, You can't have any sugar. Okay. If that's how you're going to lose weight. If you can't keep doing that, if Avoid sugar for the rest of your life. Then you're probably not going to keep the results either. If the methods that you use to lose weight are unsustainable. The results will be too. So macro counting is for women who don't just want to lose weight, but they want to keep the weight off. Okay. Because this goes back to that whole. Balanced plate and understanding that the right portions of food, the right amount of protein, the right amount of carbs and fats. That is truly how you set up a balanced diet for life. And I get asked all the time. So does this mean I'll have to log my food for the rest of my life? No, no, no. And no. Okay. Food blogging is a tool to help you create awareness. Macro counting is a tool to use when you are in a goal season and you are actively trying to pursue weight loss, fat loss, changing your body or whatever goal maybe, or even just trying to maintain your weight or gain weight. Macro counting is the tool that you use in order to take action and pursue those things. It's a goal season thing. But we teach you things like mindset. We teach you to focus on your balanced plate and the portions of your foods we talk about mindfulness and honoring your hunger. So not just eating until you're stuffed, stopping when you're pleasantly full, we have a hunger ranking scale in our programs that we talk about. So. We really see it as food logging is the tool to teach you and create awareness. Macro counting is the tool that you use when you're in a goal season. And then the goal should be that you take all of that knowledge that you learned during that time, and you move into maintenance and you step away from food logging. I lived in maintenance mode for several years. It was amazing. Everything that I learned from macro counting, I was able to apply in my day to day and we have a maintenance mode course where we teach this, we talk about it has a workbook and a video from me where I go through the workbook and teach you all about it. But that should be the goal. Weight loss should just be a season of life. It should not be a way of life. Okay. So macro counting, sometimes people ask me. Are you going to count macros for the rest of your life? Number one I shared in my 100 pound weight loss journey, episode one, that I am in a goal season right now, because I am trying to get body fat off that I gained during quarantine. And also, I love just like physique goals. I think it's fun to, you know, set a goal to like grow the glutes or, you know, something fun like that. Maybe. Lose a little body fat for summer. So I am somebody who just likes pursuing. You know, physique goals. So that's the reason that I still use macro counting. But the majority of women, their goal is and should be to lose the body fat, reach the body composition they want. And then just move to balance. That is why our program like our monthly membership. It is not just for weight loss. Okay. We have women inside of our membership that have reached their goals. I'm thinking of my girlfriend, Alison. She is an amazing example of this. She worked hard. She reached her goals and now she's in there with us in. Maintenance mode. And she just loves that being a part of that community and living this balanced lifestyle. And that should be everybody's goal. The goal is truly to be balanced. So just remember, as you're thinking through macro counting, and is this a good choice for me? The goal is really to set you up for long term sustainable results that will allow you to lose weight and an enjoyable way. Reach your body composition goals, and then move into a lifestyle of balance. Macros are also for women who are interested in just creating a healthier relationship with We have a lot of women join our monthly membership that might not be pursuing fat loss goals or have even a body composition goal. But they're just wanting to create a healthier relationship with food for many different reasons, maybe for their own mental health or that they want to pass on. Healthier habits to their children. So you can also look at macro counting and learning how to balance your food choices and just feel better in your body and have this healthier relationship with food as well. All right, you guys. So I really want to just round out this episode. By talking about some of the benefits of macro counting, and also tell you where you can learn how to count macros with us. But when it comes to the benefits of macro counting, I just touched on this, but one of the best things to me is that you kind of become this mini, like food scientist, because you truly learn about the foods that you eat. Every single day. And you're going to take that information that you learned, and you're going to use it for life. So, for example, like cereal, when you'd log cereal, you see like, whoa, The portion size that I thought serial was, I've been doing like double or triple that I'm definitely speaking from experience, but you learn that when you log your food, what that portion size looks like, but you also learn that the majority of that is carbs. So that is information that every time you pour a bowl of cereal, you remember, Hey, This is a lot of cards. You also learn how those foods affect you. And I think this is the part that doesn't get talked about as much with macro counting, but for example, you might eat that big bowl of cereal. In the morning before you go to work and by 10:00 AM, your stomach is growling. So you know that when you eat a good breakfast with eggs and some toast and some fruit that you're good until lunchtime you've got, you know, that sustainable fuel because your meal was really balanced. It had some protein, it had some fats, it had some carbs. But when you eat just one really heavy macro lots of cards that you're hungrier faster. Those are things that you can truly learn for life with macro counting. And even if you don't continue with macro counting, you can remember as you are making your meals or planning your meals, you can remember what those foods are, how they affect you. And so I really see macro counting as a life skill. Another benefit is that. You get to enjoy your weight loss journey. I'm going to, I think I'm going to end with this because this is just truly everything. Guys, I don't know why anyone would want to suffer. To lose weight. I just, I remember when I started my journey, I was like, I'm not going to I don't know if we tend to think, like there's some sort of reward for like, who can be the most miserable. Like if you're really gonna cut out carbs and be miserable, you must really want it. Like there's no trophy for being miserable with your diet. I'm just, I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to be honest. There is no trophy. For look how committed and dedicated I am. I'm cutting out like all the enjoyable parts of life. Okay. I think the best benefit, the best thing about macro counting. Is that you can enjoy your weight loss journey. And seriously, I look back at my weight loss journey. I have like such happy feelings about it because macro counting was for me. I wasn't somebody who. It made me hyper fixate. It just was something that allowed me to learn. And I really saw it as a learning opportunity. I loved that I was able to fuel my body. I didn't have to store, I didn't have to deprive myself. I mean, I look back at my 100 pound weight loss journey and. I still enjoyed everything. I mean, I went out to eat with my girlfriends. I cooked nice home cooked meals with my kiddos. I was still able to use convenience items, like, you know, lean cuisines on nights where I didn't feel like cooking and that was allowed. It was okay because. It fit in my macros and I was able to eat sweet treats and have adult beverages and just live like a normal life and still see the weight loss results that I wanted. And there's just nothing better than enjoying your weight loss journey because. Again, I think we're taught that weight loss has to be miserable. You have to feel deprived. You have to be hungry. And I think we're shifting out of that diet culture. Thank the Lord. And into this new culture of fueling ourselves, taking care of ourselves, feeling energized, not depriving ourselves, having a flexible diet and macro counting allows that if you're somebody who wants to enjoy your weight loss results, who wants to be excited to, you know, walk into your high school reunion and feel amazing and know that you did it the right way, you enjoyed your journey and you can be proud. If you are looking for that and you're willing to, you know, do the things that I talked about in this episode that I really think you should give it a try. It's always worth a try and I would love for you to let us guide you through that journey again. Uh, somebody who isn't just degreed in this stuff. It's. For me more personal because I've been, you I've done the fad diets. I've, you know, done the miserable, beat myself up weight loss. And I know that there's this other side of it for you, where you can thrive. You can be happy, you can feel amazing and you can still reach your goals and enjoy your journey. I would love to show you how to do that. I would love for you to join us inside of balance monthly membership we always have the doors to our membership open. You can join at any time. It is our more self paced program. So. It's a subscription think like Netflix and inside of that, you get workouts. You get our recipes. But most importantly, you get all of our resources. So everything I've talked about today, step-by-step. Pictures videos, guides, PDFs, everything that you need to learn, how to do this. You get inside of membership as well as those personalized to you macros and. By far by far, the best part of membership is that you get community and support. So women of all ages, we have had women 18 through 80 come through our program and have phenomenal success. But women just like you who have done the fad diets, they're ready to ditch it. And sometimes we need that support. It's a little tough when you are doing something that. Doesn't get you like immediate results, like cutting out all your carbs. Right? So having that support of women who are on the same page and that accountability is just so important. And also inside of membership, you get. Expert coaches, mom and I are there to guide you to answer your questions. I do a monthly. Q and a, but you also have the opportunity to ask us questions every single day, and we will help you so balanced monthly membership that is more self paced, but those doors are open 24, 7, 365. We also have our 28 day macro challenge. This is our signature program and it is a four week program where we walk you through step-by-step we really hold your hand. We take our proven framework and we go through it. It breaks it down a little more and everyone's on the same page. So in membership, Anyone can join at any time. So you're kind of all spread out, which is really nice because you've got women who were just in your shoes a month ago, or a year ago that can really help you and support you and answer questions. But. With the 28 day, everyone starts on the same day. You're walking through it. We make it really fun. It's a transformation challenge. So we do a prize for the best transformation and I do more live calls inside of that program. However, we only offer that a few times a year now, and if you're listening to this, when it goes live, then we are running our next one. Our new year's. 28 day macro challenge. And that will be starting on January 6th. And I'm a really excited, because this black Friday, we are going to offer a 50% off for that. So again, that's what I was saying at the beginning of the episode, I'm making sure that you are staying up to date on our social media, checking things out. I don't want you to miss that email is the best way. If you haven't subscribed to our email list to make sure that you don't miss it because I know things. Things get buried on social media. So we only run those a few times a year now. So if you are wanting to jump in and do that hand holding like step by step, that is absolutely. The best option for you, or like I said, can always join us a membership at any time. We are there to support you, help you guide you all of our resources, workouts, recipes, everything. The other option is just a personalized macro count. There's no coaching, it's not inside of our app, but I will give you a personalized macro numbers. And that does come as a bundle. With some of our very best resources just to kind of get you going so you can test it out, get your feet a little wet and get going on your own women who do this have incredible success getting started. Oftentimes they do end up joining us because they want the accountability and support that we offer inside of. Our app in balanced monthly membership, but it is truly a great way to get started. And we are also doing those at 50% off. For black Friday as well. So. Just wanted to give you those options and tell you that if you have tried macro counting programs in the past, that were extremely rigid, extremely overwhelming, didn't offer a lot of support or community. I really want to encourage you to try our program. We have put so much love, so much thought so much time and energy into our programs, and we would love, love, love to walk beside you on your macro counting journey. So just check out our website and you will be able to see all of those options. And again, if you are listening to this at the time that it airs or close to the time that we will have those black Friday specials, but those options are always available. So make sure that you check out our website. Thank you guys for spending time with me today. I will see you guys in the next episode.