Cereal for breakfast, grilled cheese for lunch, and spaghetti for dinner. That is what a typical day looked like for me eating-wise. I saw no problem with it and truth be told I DIDN’T KNOW there was a problem with it. I mean ignorance is bliss right?
It wasn’t until I noticed how I was always feeling kinda… “not great” that I knew there had to be a trick to this nutrition thing. I mean I would literally wake up every morning with a belly ache, shrug my shoulders, and move on totally ignoring the red flag being waved in my face.
Going to the gym is when things started to change, but let me tell you they changed oh so slow that I’m sure to the watching eye it looked like nothing was happening.
Don’t be discouraged if that’s what it looks like for you. Some people can instantly detach their emotions from food but I couldn’t. It took me a really long long time before I could go a whole day eating more nutritious foods.
However, sometimes I fail to recognize how far I have come. It is truly astounding the things I’ve learned and the mental barriers I’ve broken. Sometimes I only look ahead of me and see where I am not, not letting myself celebrate in the moment.
If you are starting a health journey I want you to visualize your goals, write down all your victories, share your discoveries, proclaim your wins, and dance along the way. Don’t be the person that sits in their garbage can of failures. That’s gross! Rather, try to find the rainbow amidst the rain.
That being said, I’ve been this close (imagine my thumb and index finger a millimeter apart) to quitting hundreds of times. I’ve failed, not met my goals, cried, been unbelievably angry, and have given up for a few days. Sometimes it feels like I am trying to find a needle in a haystack, except the needle is invisible. Call me foolish or not but I keep trying even though sometimes it’s really hard. I may be going at a turtle’s pace, but maybe the slow and steady really do win the race.
On this slow and steady journey, I could really only handle a little bit at a time. I first started out by trying to eat less sugar. I then started trying to incorporate more protein. And if I’m being honest those little things took me months to accomplish, but I knew these were good things, habits that would benefit me for the rest of my life so I kept trying.
It seemed like a lot of trial and error for me so I was always interested to see other people’s strategies or what worked for them. I remember one weekend we had family come to town and they were staying with us so to make dinner as painless as possible we had build-your-own tacos. My cousin was tracking her macros at that time so I watched as she logged different things not eating anything that didn’t fit. In the end, her plate was basically just a pile of lettuce which made me sad for her, but grateful that I didn’t put myself through that special kind of torture. Little did I know…
I seriously used to think that tracking your macros was the devil. It was for the health-obsessed who deprived themselves of the happiness of food but made up for it by being smug in their knowing that they were healthier than everyone else. I would sooner run a mile (which I couldn’t do) than track my food.
So I started tracking my macros about a year ago…
I now truly believe tracking your macros can be THE best method to start eating healthier. Let me explain the process a little bit.
Tracking your macros is when instead of counting your calories you count how much fat, carbs, and protein you are eating. I use MyFitnessPal to do this! You can search the name of the food or scan the barcode and MyFitnessPal has all the information you need.
It is important to note that MyFitnessPal is a tool, not the bible. It is easy to get carried away and become obsessed with counting macros just like it is easy to become obsessed with counting calories.
I try to think of it like this. You know how when there is a fight or an argument everyone seems to have their own version of the story? That’s just like counting macros. You don’t listen to one side of the story and decide that that one is right. Similarly, you don’t count your macros, weigh yourself, or take measurements and then gauge your health on one alone. Everything is a tool that is providing us more information so we can get the whole story.
The first step to eating healthier is to do just that: get more information on where you are now. Use MyFitnessPal and take a day or two and just track what a normal day of eating looks like for you. You might be surprised at how many carbs you are eating or how little protein you are getting, trust me I was.
MyFitnessPal is great because they show you how many carbs, fats, and protein you should be aiming for in a day. A trainer or a nutritionist would be the best for more accurate information, but you can also just google a macro calculator and they will give you some relative numbers as well.
Now, do you think the first day I hit all of my carb, fat, and protein goals? Ummm no.
I was actually kinda stressed about counting macros because I thought that I wouldn’t be able to eat the foods I enjoyed anymore. Cue my garbage can of failures now filled with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Luckily that’s not the case and lucky for me too someone explained it to me in a way that changed my life forever.
They explained that counting macros isn’t about taking away the food that you love it’s about finding a healthy balance. For example, I want Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast… GREAT! When I log that into MyFitnessPal I can see though that my cereal contains quite a few carbs… that’s okay! As a result, for lunch, since I’m now closest to my carb goal, I decide that I’m going to eat some chicken and get closer to my protein goal. It’s almost like a puzzle arranging the foods you love with more nutritious foods to create a balanced diet.
It can be that simple!
I love logging my macros because it helps me track my food not restrict my food.
The first step to eating healthier is being aware of what you are eating and macros help you do just that.
Of course, there is so much more to nutrition but if you don’t know where to start, start here!
xxx Karlie