#FJUDGEMENT | Why tracking macros ISN'T a disorder
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Welcome back to the show, guys. What's up? Do they know our names or our voices? I think so. I think they know which one's us. Okay, good. I think they can tell. Our first official topic is today. We're actually going to give you some valuable information, I think. Yes, very important. I think this will definitely lead into more episodes. Obviously, we're not going to be able to cover it in one topic, but

Yeah, so we're going to kind of just go over why tracking macros isn't disordered and why the fit shaming should stop around tracking macros. Our stories, every single part of it. Yeah, especially I know it can be very hard, like finally pulling out that food scale and

Literally, I remember when I first started tracking macros, you need the food scale. It's helped so much. And I just remember being fit shamed so much for it, being like, oh my God, that's so disordered. You're tracking literally everything. And I'm like, well, no, that is literally the complete opposite of what I'm doing. What I was doing before tracking was disordered. And now I've moved into a more healthy relationship with food. Tracking it with a food scale is not disordered in any way.

Yeah, exactly. But before we get into it, if you guys want to hear a little bit about our lives and what we've been doing, we're away from each other now. We're actually on Zoom.

Yes. We are on Zoom because Sam's in Texas. What have you been doing, Sam? Oh my God. I've only been home for like three days, but I feel like my life is moving so fast. My days are so long. I got my eyelashes done today because I'm going back out to Dallas tomorrow. If anyone out here is in Dallas, I hope you guys saw my story today that I'll be at a fitness expo. So I hope to meet a bunch of you guys this weekend. But yeah, that's pretty much what I've been up to that and just a lot of work.

Yeah, I feel that. I'm traveling like every single day until I move pretty much. Like I think in July, I'm only home for like one week. I just went to my college apartment to officially move out. A lot of you are probably new and have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you've been following me for a little bit, you know, I used to live in an apartment. It's a long story. Had to go back there and get things running around. I just got out of a seven hour car ride and now I'm sitting down to record this and I leave for Disney tomorrow.

So I'm like nonstop. And then like a few days after that, I'll be in Texas again. So life is nonstop. Damn. Yeah. I just feel like I'm like, I'm flying to Dallas, which is a three hour drive. And she just drove seven hours. Yeah, it was really bad, but we made it. And then I have a three hour car ride tomorrow. Oh, hell no. I didn't. I didn't drive. I sat and I did work on my computer while I drove.

There you go. Yeah, no. Sorry, not while I drove. That'd be really dangerous. Yeah, no, don't listen to her on that one. But yeah, no, I think we've pretty much been trying to just catch up with work and travel. That's our life. Thank you so much for the support on the podcast. I know. The amount of story mentions and stuff is crazy. I know. It's going to come to the point where we're finally and hopefully going to have... What do we have right now on it? Like 8,000? Almost. I don't even know. Guys,

Okay. So everyone that's listening right now, get us to the swipe up link. That's what I was just about to say. Like we're almost there. We're almost there guys. Like repost, like do whatever you need to do. Let's get to that swipe up. So that way it will be so much easier for us to like post on a story. We haven't been posting on the story as much because it's harder to like

you know post things on the story when you don't have this wipe up link exactly and it's also we got to get into our routine because we post so much on our own pages that thinking of where to add in an extra instagram yeah it's hard but you guys are supporting us so much so you're what keeps us going we're gonna do what we gotta do yep

So I think that's pretty much it. It's hard to catch up when I feel like we post everything we do 24-7. I know. I already know what you did. I know what you had for breakfast. I know what you had for lunch. I know what you hit at the gym today. Yeah. I wish I went to the gym today. Oh, was all those posts? Oh, yeah. You went yesterday. Yeah, I went yesterday. I was supposed to go when I got back, but I'm not going right now. It's 7 p.m. and I don't want to go. No, no. Big time now. Mm-mm.

But, okay, should we get into the topic? I think we should. I think they are eager to learn. And I'm eager to talk about it. So I think you should get into your story first. Of course. Yes. So I know all of you guys, or most of you guys listening definitely know about my eating disorder past. I went from a restrictive eating disorder straight into a binge eating disorder and tracking macros was never a thing for me. I didn't even know what a macro was. I didn't really know what protein was, didn't know the benefits of it at all. But

slowly but surely in my binge eating disorder, I was slowly recovering. I knew that I needed to be a little bit more educated on food and like how it properly fueled me. That is when I made like my fitness page was like mid binge eating disorder, but it wasn't a fitness page. It was like a page for healthy recipes. And I was just following a bunch of like

um, like meal accounts, not like fitness accounts, but then those accounts started talking about like macros, protein carbs, like all the, I don't know, just like, what, what is this stuff? I need to learn more. So as soon as I started or stopped playing field hockey, um, that is when I started to like really focus on dialing in on like what my nutrition actually was. I, I

Unfortunately, didn't have any, you know, resources when I was playing sports for nutrition or anything like that, which is horrible to say the least, because I should have been nourishing my body way more than what I was during feel lucky in the cross. I probably was eating around like a thousand, a thousand, 200 calories daily on top of like four to six hours of training during my day. And just, it was horrible.

But what I did, like when I first started like learning more about macros was I just focused on my protein intake. I learned so much about protein and the benefits of it. And obviously it's one of the most filling macronutrients. And I knew if I just jumped right into the MyFitnessPal and started tracking right away, I

after having a restrictive eating disorder that I, my traits probably would have come back. So I just knew that I was going to track my protein. I started off with tracking protein. I just did one gram per a pound of body weight. And at the time I was probably like, I don't even know, like a hundred, like I was a hundred pounds at a hundred, 110 pounds. So just eating around that much protein every day.

And then once I started to get a little bit comfortable with like eating that much and like tracking that into the MyFitnessPal, because I used to use the MyFitnessPal in the not so healthy way. But that's when I ended up getting the food scale. I started using that, I would say probably summer of the year I graduated. So like, like two years ago. Yeah. Oh my God. Was that two years ago? No, I graduated last year.

oh my God, time is like moving. But I ended up getting the food skill. And then that's when I started to learn way more about like carbs and protein. I didn't jump into the whole like

all macros. I did protein and calories. So I made sure of a goal for myself to make sure that I was hitting amount of calories a day. So I was probably doing like 1800 calories and getting my protein for the day. Um, and then that's when I felt like I just woke up one day and I was like, holy shit, I'm completely cured from my eating disorder. Food does not phase me. And now I need to like fuel myself. So that's when I started to do like the whole reverse diet process and

tracking macros and now I'm here where I am now. And it's been probably about like, I would say almost a year of fully tracking, um,

I would say I would have to like look back on like my Instagram or something to remember, but I think I've been tracking for a little less than a year now. But it's, it's changed for the better. Literally. I do not find any toxic, horrible traits with tracking. I've learned so many great things from it, but we will obviously get into that as soon as Taylor tells us about her little story with tracking. Yeah. So I used to, the first time I ever tracked my food was in high school and I did it to eat the typical 1200 calories a day.

Um, because, you know, that's just a number that you hear that seems like the number you should eat to lose weight. And that's what I did. And I tried to track it and stay under. And I obviously knew nothing about food because the foods I was eating to try to eat less food, like I was just starving. Like I didn't know anything about

what would be like the most new like feeling choice to be on a sustainable weight loss journey I knew nothing I was just like someone told me 1200 calories so I'm gonna try to do that and I think the app I was using you know how you can pick a goal in the beginning and it was like lose two pounds and like that's how my fitness pal does it yeah it was a different app though and I clicked that I think it gave me 1200

So that was horrible. I did it for a little bit while I was in a bad mental state. I had a terrible boyfriend, like just all bad. But then I got like way back into like hanging out with my friends. We broke up. So that kind of ended because life kind of opened up and I was like, I'm not tracking food anymore. I don't care. Had fun, did the whole high school partying thing. And then I started tracking again in college. I did not track until my sophomore year of college after that point.

And that's because I went vegan. So in the fall, this past fall semester, I was newly vegan and I really wanted to make sure I was eating enough of the right things, especially as someone giving advice on social media and who was starting their personal training. I was like, how can I guide someone to macros and what they eat if I don't know what I eat? Like,

I like if someone's like, what's a high protein snack? Like, could I give an answer? I don't really track my food. I don't know how much proteins in snack I ate. So I wanted to track a little just to make sure I was eating what I needed to and how I did it. Because like I just mentioned, I used to try to eat very little calories. So I had a slight restrictive past. I didn't set specific goals for myself.

What I did was look, my fitness pod gives you percentages. So I tried to make sure my percents of my calories for each macro were in a certain range every day. So like what, like I tried to make sure my calories of the day had 20% protein per

60% carbs, 20% fat. Like I tried to make sure my percentages were correct and not focus on the grams. And I didn't really focus on total calories. I was just trying to keep it balanced that way. And that gave me help in just learning balanced ways to make meals. And I realized now tracking it correctly, well, not correctly, but by gram doing it that way, it got me pretty used to eating meals that fit my macros anyway, without me even knowing.

But I did that. And then I stopped just because I didn't really feel the need for it anymore. And my mental health wasn't the greatest. And I was like working on some other things within myself. And I just didn't want having to track my meals, be time and energy I had to use.

So I just stopped. And then I got into it again because, you know, I'm just working to better myself in the gym, better myself as a coach, care about my nutrition a little bit more. And same thing Sam said, I feel zero like attachment to the numbers of food. It does not bother me at all. Tracking right now, honestly, just like helps me feel good. And that's all it does. And it's only like, yeah,

honestly like two months of tracking like this whole week I'm not even tracking it like doesn't phase me at all yeah not care what I eat but yeah it's been like two months maybe of consistent tracking since that point yeah no I to bounce off of that though like I think

No matter what your goals are, no matter what you're trying to do, I think it is so important that at one point in your life, you track macros just for the sole reason of like being able to get into that intuitive stage, like intuitive eating. Yes. But if you're intuitive eating, you've never tracked macros in your entire life. You can literally be eating junk.

Whereas if you want to jump into that intuitive eating stage, but you've already tracked macros before you can intuitively eat and know what you need to be putting on your plate, know how much protein you'd be getting a day, just eyeballing it that way. And like, I think that's what we are able to do so well is like, Oh,

You didn't track today. So it's like, all right, whatever. I didn't track, but I'm still able to like nourish my body and know what I need to be giving it. And it kind of goes to show to like, we will track one, like we won't track like our breakfast. And then we're just like, oh, whatever. I didn't track my breakfast. I'm just not going to track the rest of the day just because I know what I'm able to actually deal my body with. Yeah. It gives you like a sense of trust.

in your body, I think. And it just lets you know if you've never done it. And let's say you follow us and you're trying to get into lifting. Lifting takes quite a bit of energy out. And if you've been eating very low carb and you don't know it, you're going to feel like shit. Like you're going to feel so bad and you might not know you're eating extremely low carb. And then you're like, I started lifting and like, you feel bad. You feel dizzy during your workouts. You feel so tired all day. And that might be because, you know,

If someone tells you one time, oh, chicken and salads as like meals every day are just the healthiest thing for you and you think it's healthy, it might not be enough food of what you need to hit your fitness goals or just life health goals. Which to be clear, when we are talking about tracking, both of us really, aside from our restricted phases, what we do and what our clients do and what most people that follow us, it's to eat enough.

It's sure you're eating enough not to starve yourself. Cause even if you are in a deficit and you're trying to lean out, nothing wrong with that. Making sure your deficit's not too low, making sure your protein intake isn't being lowered, making sure you're getting enough healthy fats. It's all about getting enough. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that's like another, that's a whole nother subject and metabolism adaptation is

Like I'll just kind of explain it a little bit, but I'm not going into detail on it because that's another subject. But like basically when, like how she was saying, if you're in a calorie deficit, like you want to make sure you're not in one for way too long because the longer you are in one. And if you're in one for too long, that is when your maintenance calories will drop. Okay. Your metabolism will slow down. And then that's why a lot of the time people will be like, well, I'm in a deficit, but I'm not losing weight. And in that situation, that's what metabolism is.

adaptation is, is because you've been in a deficit for way too long.

And it's like, it will, we'll have clients that will like come to us and they're like, okay, well I'm eating, um, 1300 calories and I'm only eating a hundred grams of carbs. And I'm just like, and they think like mentally that that's like what they need to do to lose weight. And then when we show them that like, you need to eat more and they're like, wow, I feel so much better. I'm losing weight by eating more. What is like, there are so many great benefits of just tracking macros and actually understanding what your protein, your carbs and your fats are. It's

It's not all about the number, the calorie number. It really is not. Yeah. And it's also because disordered habits are not the action themselves, but the mindset you give to it. So it's like we use a scale to measure our food, not because every single gram of oats is like going to make or break the way we look for the day or like the way we feel, but because it's easier to use a scale.

I'd rather just measure it out and tracking macros doesn't bother me I think it's just easier and some people looking at the numbers is very obsessive but not for everyone I almost see the numbers of macros almost like made my relationship with food better because I know a lot of people say like once you track then everything is just like numbers to you but in a weird way

I feel like that took away so much of the emotional attachment to food because let's say like something like chips, something that's like a junk food. I'm putting air quotes. You guys can't see me. But something that's like deemed unhealthy. Well, there's really no emotional label to it if it's just carbs. It's carbs the same way the potato chips are carbs the same way the brown rice is carbs. Like, you know, like it almost...

helps my mindset seeing it as just numbers and seeing everything as just macros because there's like nothing to worry about and I feel like I used to worry so much more about like sugar and processed and junk food and oh my god it's packaged and it has like artificial this and now it's just like well carbs protein fat like everything fits everything works I can enjoy anything I want

Yeah. And to kind of bounce off that too, like the way you and I track when we're together, it guys, it's so fun. Like we'll obviously track for the day, but we like to leave like a good amount of like macros at the end of the day. So we can like, obviously have like a little late night snack because we're going to get hungry and we will come up with the best creations of food. We'll be like, okay, so I have like 50 grams of carbs left and like 20 grams of protein. And we'll just like go into our fridge cabinets and make like this crazy, like

concoction of like something and it's always so good like I don't know something about tracking is just so fun because you can get so creative with your meals it is fun and I'd say like I mean for most girls like in this age range you're probably under eating so when you see like how much food you can eat when I was with Sam I had to make a macro cap and I have two English muffins with almond butter on them like and I think past tracking me if someone was like

it's 8 30 p.m and you're gonna eat two whole english muffins with almond butter like i probably would have had a heart attack but like it was like oh dope cool like my body still needs this like this like 100 grams of carbs i need this right now yeah it's gonna be good for me it's gonna give me energy tomorrow it's gonna keep my digestion running good it's honestly just a guide as long as i think you see it as a guideline and not some like crazy intense rule book that needs to like

guide your life and like stop you from doing things. It's just like a helpful little, a little tool to keep, especially like I said, with us doing physical activity. Yeah. And I want to do a little bit of a disclaimer too, before we get too deep into this podcast, but if you are currently in the moment struggling with a horrible, whatever eating disorder is binge eating disorder, restrictive eating disorder, whatever,

Do not just jump right into tracking macros. I do not think this will be beneficial for you if you're doing it alone. If you're doing it with a coach, sure, go for it. But if you are going to be just trying to do this on your own, I would definitely recommend reaching out to somebody or anything like that. I don't want you guys to think that like, this is the only way to build a healthy relationship with food. If you are currently struggling with any sort of ease into it. Okay.

Yeah, of course. Cause what I'm, or what both of us are really referring to is not

eating disorders like diagnosed mental conditions but more unhealthy habits that society puts on you and just clearing the air to how you can't just diagnose someone with an eating disorder because they track their food because not only is that totally totally like downplaying a real eating disorder like I think it is so insensitive to people who

really struggling to say anyone that tracks is struggling. Seem like something so easy for people that are to get out of. I just think it's so insensitive. But yeah. And okay. I totally forgot what I was saying and that we're not bad or disordered for promoting that. I've gotten that on my, on my tick talk so many times I've posted what I eat in a days with calories because for the purpose of saying that,

look how many calories I eat like I don't eat like 1500 I eat over 2000 every single day and people would be like ordered and I'm like yeah literally the amount of times it's only TikTok though but the amount of times where it's like you share like I'm done sharing like the calories or whatever slash macros to my meals because it's just like the amount of comments that I'll get back this is so disordered like why do you care so much about the number like blah blah blah I'm like god I

People just don't understand. And that's why we're here. We're here to teach you the benefits of tracking macros. So when you track macros, obviously the days you're just cooking at home, your normal days, super easy. If you can track macros and then have your days where you can be off and it doesn't ruin your entire mood and you don't stress over it, I'd say you're in a pretty healthy place. There's nothing wrong.

With, or maybe there's a fine line. I think to each person, it may be different what the line is between being disciplined on yourself to hit a goal and being disordered. Because like, if I'm trying to be on my macros for a day, because for the past week, I did not track or did bad. Like, for example, this week, I'm not tracking. Next week, I'm going to try to be on my macros. I'm going to try to be on my macros 100% because I want to.

Like, because I want to, it makes me happy. It makes me feel good. I don't think that's disordered. I don't think people should be shamed for doing that. I think that's perfectly fine. And knowing the difference between, no, I can never have a week off ever. Like that's going to cause me too much stress. And oh my God, I'm going to gain 10 pounds because I didn't track macros. Or, hey, I had a week off. I enjoyed my life. I went to Disney World. Get back on it tomorrow. Yeah. I think that's another thing too. It's so hard for...

Being in a household with your family members and like tracking macros. I remember when I used to track, I used to hide it. Like my parents would be in the other room and that's when I would pull out my food scale because I was just so embarrassed of like what their thoughts may be. And I know I have so many clients that have struggled with this too, being like, Oh, my parents don't understand. Like they're mad at me. They think it's disordered, all of this stuff. But I just think that generation just doesn't quite understand. Um,

Um, cause like they obviously just grew up, like times are just so different. Like they grew up eating whatever they want. It wasn't much of a care in the world, but nowadays like it's so different, like getting to that intuitive approach and just like understanding like what foods are and what they are like.

macro tracking is just like that step that you need to get to to actually be able to read the food label like we taylor you were saying this to your mom the other day about like the was it ranch dressing or something some type of dressing yeah that she had in the fridge low-fat dressing yeah so we were to do you want to say it you can say it because i don't even know what the dressing was just that when you read food labels this also kind of ties back to what i was saying about just like reading labels and it's like processed and organic like caring about that stuff yeah yeah

Labels and the way foods are marketing have zero to do with the actual nutrition content. For example, do this in your grocery store. I challenge you because I've done this to so many products and it's true like 99% of the time. So let's say something is labeled as low fat. Look at that compared to the normal fat.

um, normal thing. Let's say we were talking about ranch dressing, for example. So take your normal ranch dressing, take the one labeled as low fat, and you might look and realize the low fat one may only be one gram of fat lower and maybe like lower in protein, or the other one might have more protein and only one gram more fat. So nutrition wise and macro wise, the other one might even be better for you.

And all you're following is like the diet culture labels of the food product, maybe spending more money and making things so much harder on yourself. If you just learned how to read your macros and basically that's what she was acting, asking us if like low fat dressing is healthier and we're like, well, you have to read the labels because they're probably just lying to you. Yeah. Another thing too, is like, obviously like,

another way to answer her question of saying if the low fat's better for you, it's like, well, are you struggling to get your fats in for the day? Because if you're not, then the higher fat dressing may be better for you. Yeah, exactly. That's, that's why I hate the question. Like is insert whatever food you want healthy. It's like, well, yeah,

what do you need? What do you struggle in getting? Like for some people, a food really high in this isn't even macros, but same concept just because I had this dilemma today in my mind, sodium, something really high in sodium might be so bad for you. I drink a lot of water. I don't eat that much sodium. Something really high in sodium doesn't phase me really. Yeah. Like things are healthy for different people. And the

So once you understand nutrition, it's so much easier. And how you were saying you hid the scale. I feel like the amount of problems that arise from people trying to hide it rather than us having open conversations like this and saying that it's okay.

could save so many people. When I tracked and was eating 1200 calories, I wanted no one to know. No one knew how much I was eating. No one knew I was struggling. And no one told me this. Like I had no

I feel like we could be people's like older sisters, younger sisters, however old they are listening, like telling them this. Cause no one, no one around me understood macros. They didn't know what I was eating. I would bring fruit and baby carrots and I don't even know what, like nothing else. Cause I would barely eat lunch, but straight carbs and people just be like, Oh, you're so healthy. No one told me you should eat more protein at lunch.

No one does that because people didn't understand macros. It was just like, oh, you got a salad. You're so healthy.

Yeah. When I was like that whopping 100, 110 pounds, like I remember like being in high school and like girls would tell me or ask me, they'd be like, what do you eat every day? Or like, what do you do to work out every day? And I'm like, I thought because these girls were coming to me asking for like nutrition fitness advice that like I was doing it right. And God, God, no, looking back on it, like not doing it right at all. And like going off the food scale thing, I, I,

Another thing that made it worse is that like my family, love my family. If you guys are listening to this, no hate to you guys. Okay. But my family, when I was struggling without using the food scale, hardly eating, skipping meals at family events, not eating dessert while everyone else was eating dessert, all those things, they were just, they would just call me healthy.

Like they were just like, Oh, she's really healthy. She doesn't want to do that. But the second I would pull out the food scale and I had a better relationship with food at the time, that's when they would call me crazy. And it was like, it just does not make sense to me. Like the whole healthy, this is when diet culture really comes into play where the dream body of America for females is like this tall skinny girl with like skins and bones. And that's just like, when I was that,

People thought I was healthy, but deep down mentally, I was not at all. It's just. Exactly. And if you want to intuitively eat, that is so great. Tracking macros for your lifetime doesn't have to be for everyone. But if you let us intuitively eat right away from where we were, that probably wouldn't have ended well because those diet culture thoughts don't go away that easy. And yeah,

I think the best way to beat the diet culture thoughts is by understanding nutrition for real. And people think counting is diet culture, which it's not at all in the slightest because counting could also be to gain weight. So I don't know how that'd be diet culture. Yeah, that's literally what I did. Again, it's like you're counting to gain weight. Yeah, like...

Yeah. Because we like obviously reverse dieting. That's like the first thing that we do with pretty much anybody that's coming to us. It's like nowadays, it's like if you've never tracked before, you're 110% probably under eating and you want to lose weight, but you're under eating. So it's like, we still need to bring you through the reverse diet. And guess what? You can still lose weight from reverse dieting, but it's just like,

The thought of the, it's just the outsiders. The outsiders don't know what we're physically doing, what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish. But like going from under eating to eating more, you need to track that. You can't just jump right into like, all right, I'm going to eat. I was eating 1200. Okay. I'm just going to eat 1800. Well, okay. Of what? Like you could be eating like

400 grams of carbs and like 100 grams of protein. And that's just not enough. Like you need to be, it's a puzzle piece. It all needs to come together. And like for me, I, or both of us are most people in the fitness industry. We track because I have physique goals and gym strength goals. There's nothing wrong with that. When done in a healthy way, you're allowed to care about what you eat to look a certain way. Totally allowed. Yeah. Yeah.

So I track it. It's easy. And if I want to intuitively eat, I'm in such a great spot to intuitively eat because the diet culture can't get to me. I know how my body feels when it eats, eats a balanced diet. I know what a balanced meal looks like.

I know what a meal higher in calories looks like, what a meal lower in calories looks like, what my maintenance calories kind of look like in a day, how often I should be eating to feel my best. I know all of that already.

And for someone like us, I would much rather go into an intuitive eating lifestyle down the road if I wanted to. Now, I mean, yeah, now that I know all this, rather than my high school self just being told, oh, eat intuitively, I would have been like, well, yeah, I intuitively like my 1200 calories. I'm just kidding. Because my body's telling me I should eat 1200 calories because that's what will make me happy. And what's weird with us, I feel like we...

mindfully eat while tracking.

I was literally just about to say that. I feel like we do a mix of intuitive slash macro tracking because we're not sitting down at every meal tracking everything. Like I'll just eat for the day, come dinner time, everything's put into my fitness pal, whatever I eat as I would for the day. And then I'll figure out what my macro cap is at the end of the night that I still need to put into my body. And I have the same meals I go through because that's just easier for me, honestly. That's another thing people say is like,

a disordered quality when you only stick to the same foods because people think it's out of fear to eat other things. It's just because that's what I know is cheap to buy at the grocery store. I know how much it's going to cost. I know how to make it. It's fast. That's the only reasons I eat the same stuff. So when we come back for lunch after workout, we're counting macros. So it's not like we're like, oh, we must eat.

a protein and a carb and like be so sad we're like oh I'm like excited yeah it's like oh should we have a rice bowl or could we make tacos or do you want to make a quesadilla or maybe we can make like pancakes like we still are picking what we want and enjoying the foods we want we never feel restricted ever I'm never going to bed hungry because also we know what our macro should be

So we're not going to bed hungry. And that's why I definitely recommend working with a coach because that's what we help our clients do. You know, they tell us they're going to bed hungry and it's like, okay, let's increase the food, like help them figure it out. So they're not going through it alone, but we never feel restricted ever. It's literally just keeping it balanced. I feel like I can eat whatever I want. I just make it fit my macros.

One or two swaps. Like you guys know, if you follow me, I eat chickpea pasta. Regular pasta does not fit in my macros. I can't have a whole meal with like five grams of protein. That does not fit my macros. And you shouldn't be having that low protein in meals on a daily basis every now and then. Totally fine. But that's something I wouldn't have known if I didn't track. I used to have plain pasta all the time. And I was definitely eating

Like probably 50 grams of protein a day. Yeah. I was probably around there too. Like before I was tracking, I didn't even like know what protein powder was. I used to have oatmeal, but without the protein powder, cause like I just loved protein or oats anyway. But then I started adding the protein into it. I'm like, holy heck, this is so much more filling. It's just like, I probably around 50 and I didn't even eat protein bars. I didn't eat like, oh God, I don't even know. I wouldn't eat. I would have rice cakes for my lunch and that would be it. Yeah.

I highly recommend if you are a vegetarian or vegan like me to track because getting your protein is important and it's easy to do. It's not hard, but just a little side note to my plant-based people out there listening to this podcast, track your food for a little bit, or at least track your protein intake because I don't want you guys to be lacking on your protein. But anyways, there's my little shout out to my plant-based people.

It's also easy when you track to go grocery shopping. Yeah. Just know, you know your portions that you eat. So it's so easy to buy things. Yeah, I agree. And that's the thing too. Like that's the thing too, like going off of like, oh, eating isn't fun for you if you track. Well,

When you go to the grocery store, you're getting a week's worth of food anyway. So you kind of have to eat the same things no matter what, because you went to the grocery store for a week's worth of food. You know, like if you're going to eat more different meals for the day, that's just more expensive because you have to buy more of a variety.

exactly and it's cheaper because you know exactly basically how much you're going to eat like I know how much tofu lasts me for the week and how much in a week like I can look at something and know how many servings are in it we don't normally have leftovers of things we clear out we do back servings or not even also side note I can go on so many engines with this people tracking

That you're weighing out like an exact serving. Sometimes it's a serving and a half. Sometimes it's two servings. Sometimes it's three servings. We're not like strict on, oh, we're weighing oats because it has to be a single serving of oats. We both eat over a serving. Yeah. Like if I pour in like, I will eat like anywhere from like 50 to 70 grams a day or like in the morning for my oats. If I accidentally pour in like 62 grams,

I will leave it at 62. I don't usually change it. Um, if I'm like that day, like I already have like all my meals planned out, then yeah, whatever. But if I'm, if I'm aiming for 60 grams oats and I'm pouring it into my bowl and I get 62, I'm like, all right, whatever. Yeah. I just don't want you guys to think we're crazy about the recommended serving size because recommended serving sizes. Yeah, no 40 grams of oats. Right.

I think it's 40. Yeah. Oh my God. I could never, that would not fill me.

Yeah, we are definitely out here measuring like two, three servings of most things like frozen waffles, three waffles always. Wait, I actually cannot wait for my macro cap later. I need to eat something I haven't even tracked today, but I'm so excited for dessert. Okay, wait, here is a prime example for why you should track. Okay, so I've tracked my entire day's worth of food and I have 400 calories left for the day.

If I didn't eat those 400 calories and I just went to bed, I would have severely under eight today. And I would wake up tomorrow morning with low energy, no desire to go to the gym. My digestion would be crap.

And I'd basically be messing up my metabolism. If I were to continue to do that day and day, like keep doing that where I was under eating, my metabolism would decrease. My maintenance would decrease. So I'm going to be eating that 400 calories later tonight. I'm going to be making my macro cap because of obviously all the great benefits that I just mentioned. But that just goes to show, like I had such a busy day today and I underate.

Exactly. And all those reasons right there are just exactly why tracking and caring about the macros in your meals is not disordered. It's not unhealthy. It's not any of those things. It's just doing something that makes you feel good and betters yourself. Do not shame people on the internet for it. Do not shame your friends for it, your family for it. And don't overthink it yourself. Don't

Like wonder so hard if what you're doing is right or wrong because some people on the internet tell you it's good. Some people tell you on the internet that it's bad. If you feel comfortable in what you're doing, that's all that matters. We feel comfortable in it. So we do it and we are here to help you do it and correctly.

Exactly. Yeah, no. And like to bounce off of that, I feel like anyone that's coming to listen to our podcast definitely doesn't think it's disordered in any way. They probably want to learn how to do it. I think nowadays, like the people that think it's disorder or the people that don't work out, don't do anything, don't even know what the gym entails like at all. And it's like adults, parents, that's like the main groups that I see where I feel that people struggle to be around when it comes to

Going to a restaurant and wanting to pick a macro friendly meal and then someone's like, oh, like, come on, like, just get a burger. Enjoy the burger. It's fun. Like, whatever. It's like those types of things. They hurt. They suck. But I just know down the road that.

Like surrounding yourself with people that actually understand it helps a lot or having that like one-on-one conversation with that person being like, Hey, I'm doing this because I have goals. I am doing this to better myself. Please understand that I need to do this. And I need the moral support because I've had so many clients that had to actually have that conversation with their family. And after that, it's like game on, like they got that support and that's the most important. Yeah.

Yeah, and as long as they see you eating enough, because as long as I mean, obviously, we had stories where people didn't notice. But if you are doing it restrictively, it could be pretty easy to spot and make sure just like understand what your family's telling you if that is why they're saying something.

But you're tracking, you're seeing those numbers. If you see the numbers and they're up there and they're where there should be, then you're doing a great job. And if you follow what we say, you're probably killing it and doing a great job and feeling so much more just satisfied and nourished. Yeah. Because there, there can be situations where you are still, you know, struggling with that eating disorder and you're tracking, but

your mind probably is telling you, oh, I'm tracking, like I'm healed. I'm great. Like, this is awesome. Like I'm eating what my body like needs, but it's a mind game. It really can be. And you may not be eating what you need. Yeah, exactly. And just little tests. Like if you didn't know, let's say you don't know if you should track macros. If you have like maybe a, any type of fitness goal, like gaining muscle or losing weight and you have never tracked, um,

Highly, highly, highly recommend tracking because muscle is all about nutrition as well as weight loss. So if you don't know what you're eating, that's going to make it really, really tough. So I would recommend you start tracking if those are your goals. Also, I recommend you start tracking if you're someone that thinks they're in a healthy mindset to picture yourself tracking and then picture someone telling you tomorrow is

taking your phone, you can't track. How would that impact you? And be realistic about it. Because I had to be realistic with myself when I started tracking and the times I chose not to, to realize if I have off days, it might impact my mental health badly. So I didn't start tracking. And right now I'm in a really comfortable place that it doesn't bother me because like we said, I know how to make a macro family choice.

It's very easy for me. So be really, really honest with yourself. And that's not a no, I can't do it ever. It's just a not right now. Totally agree with everything you just said. Like, it's so important to understand that like, even now.

I guess like this kind of goes back into like the eating story past, but like, as long as you are tracking macros, like, and you're not tracking your calories, you're not super worried about that calorie number. Then you are good to go. Because I know being so fixated on that calorie number can be a little harsh on yourself sometimes. Like,

It's hard to get yourself into a place realizing that you need to eat that higher number. And like she said, if you can take your phone away for a day or whatnot and be totally fine with not tracking and like doing whatever, then you're in a good place. Memories or foods you really like or restaurants you really like should not be off limits for the months, weeks, however long you're tracking life isn't meant to be miserable. Yeah.

Yeah.

I also, like you said, don't look at my calories. I never look how many calories I eat. I know, neither do I. I used to be so fixated on that number. It's actually crazy. Like now I don't even pay attention to it. Yeah, I don't look at it either. I don't even tell my clients to look at it because when I give them macros, I just kind of round what the calories would be because sometimes it's like a random number. Like let's say it's like

2,112 like yeah 2,100 and then they're like my calories are a little off I'm like don't worry about the calories I rounded that number like don't don't worry about the calories irrelevant yeah but that'll be all talked about in our next episode about what exactly so if you want to track macros and you're like what exactly are you talking about what's a calorie what's a macro how what where why how do I do that we got you covered don't worry we do

We will be talking about that all next week, kind of the details about how it works, what it is, all that smart people stuff. How we're that like...

scientists out here but we know a little bit literally it's also facts information is like all on our instagrams too obviously but it cannot be told like there isn't it could keep being said forever and ever and ever like we need to drill it into your brains what this stuff is because it's how you guys are going to make progress trust us yeah especially like how to use your macros to your advantage based on your goals like

Just going into like a little bit of a detail next week, like on like, yeah. How to read a nutrition label. I don't even know everything. Yeah. Macros, macro basics. Oh God. Macros 101.

literally so much to cover but don't guys do not get overwhelmed in the slightest from this because one first of all we got you and two we weren't an expert at it right away it took months months to get used to it and I've only been tracking for like two months I'm sure I'm gonna learn so much more but I've been looking into fitness and researching fitness since for the last two years and

And I'm, like, just now getting extremely comfortable with my knowledge and ability to do so. So don't be stressed. Just, you know, next time you listen to our episodes, the informative ones, keep a little, like, notepad on hand. Take notes. Write it down. Really? Oh, my God. Because it'll help you guys a lot. It's just everything we wish we would have heard. Because, you know, like, we both started tracking on our own. And I was a scared little girl, you know? I had no idea if I was eating the right stuff. Yeah. I actually...

When I was about to start tracking, I actually had reached out to a girl about coaching me and we like started like the first week and whatnot. And I literally had a panic attack and canceled on her. I was just like, I cannot do this. So if you are in that situation, you're having like a slight panic attack and you just feel like you're still like on the fence about it.

like try it on your own first, you know, like learn like the basics. And that's why we're, we're going to cover that next week. Okay. We will. We'll be here next week on Friday on like every single platform there is because you guys can listen to this on everything. Now, the first one took a little bit to get on Apple podcasts, but hello, Apple podcast listeners.

We're here with you now. And on Apple Podcasts. The bougie one. Yep. That is awesome. You can rate and review this podcast. It helps us out so much. If you guys do that, please leave a nice rate and review. That would really, really help us out. Throw a little five stars. Takes two seconds. Write something nice if you want to. Your support is just doing this stuff.

because we can only really keep doing this if you guys listen and like it or else we're talking yeah yeah because then who are we talking to you know like come on and keep yeah

So keep the reposts coming on our Instagram stories. We are sorry if we cannot get back to you because there are hundreds of them daily, but we see you out there. Okay. Although we cannot get back to you. We see them. We see them all. They do not go unappreciated. I see them all. Like you said, hard to get back to them, hard to repost all of them. I think.

Our followers would kill us. Yes. There's quite a lot, but we see them all. It is so appreciated. Keep doing it. We love it so much. Are we, did we talk about everything? I think we did. I think we're good to go. And I think we're just going to see them next week. Yes. So.

See you guys next week. Thank you guys so much for listening. Make sure to follow the podcast on Instagram. Follow us on Instagram. It's all linked in the description of the podcast. Have a good weekend or day whenever you're watching this. Bye guys. Okay. Bye. Bye.