Want to lose weight? Or maybe you’re tired of that little bit of body fat that seem to cling to your belly or thighs no matter what you do!?
Well let me tell you….depriving yourself of all of the foods you love is not the way to get the results you want…especially if you want those results to LAST!
Part of staying consistent so you can get the body you’ve always dreamed about, and FEEL great, is getting to still indulge in the types of foods you love.
Like for me…I LOVE sweets.
The second I force myself to cut out sweet treats, like ice cream or cookies, I instantly start craving them and end up binging on them!
So instead of cutting out those delicious treats, I make macro-friendly “tweaks” to those recipes so I can still enjoy them AND get the results I want without risking becoming deprived and binging!
One of my favorite macro-friendly MUFFIN recipes is below…You’ll love it too especially if you’re a PEANUT BUTTER LOVER!
INGREDIENTS:
1 scoop PEScience Select Protein Peanut Butter Cookie*
¼ cup Unsweetened Applesauce
1 tbsp Coconut Flour
2 Egg Whites (6 tbsp liquid egg whites)
¼ tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Cinnamon
Cooking Spray
Peanut butter drizzle:
12 g (2 tbsp) PB Fit Peanut Butter Powder
1.5 tbsp Water
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a regular sized muffin tin with cooking spray. If you use the regular-sized muffin tin, it will make four muffins. You can use a smaller tin to make more.
Combine all of the ingredient in a bowl and whisk quickly for about a minute to combine and help the batter fluff up.
Then divide evenly between the 4 muffin tins. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.
While baking, combine PB Fit and water to create your simple peanut butter drizzle.
Once muffins are done, remove from the oven and top with the drizzle. You can even save some on the side to dip the muffin in!
* You can use any peanut butter flavored protein of choice.
This is why I LOVE Macro Cycling. No foods are off limits. You can still indulge in the treats you love. AND you can get killer results to look and feel great.
I get asked all the time about meal timing, and supplements, and micronutrients and this and that latest antioxidant (or whatever craze there is currently) when people are struggling to lose weight or that last little bit of stubborn belly fat.
They STRESS over those little details…little details that honestly don’t matter for 90% of us!
And it made me think about creating my own pyramid for success when it comes to dialing in your nutrition.
So here it is…my nutrition pyramid…And yes…yes it does include exercise.
Because let’s face it…While nutrition is about the foods we eat so we can be healthy…most of the time we are looking to dial in our nutrition for weight loss or body composition changes, which are also dependent on dialing in our workouts.
And I also wanted to emphasis that all that worrying we do about pre-workout nutrition or supplements or antioxidant pills or whatever else, really is the LAST thing we should be worrying about.
The first thing you need to do is focus on your macros. Yup…even over the quality of your calories or your caloric intake.
A little shocking huh?
Want to hear why?
Because if you dial in your macros, guess what follows…EVERYTHING ELSE!
If you focus on the breakdown of the foods you eat, and use my macro ratios, you can’t fit in a ton of crap AKA you basically are forced to dial in the quality of the foods you eat.
AND even if you technically eat over your caloric needs, the high protein can help prevents you from gaining fat. The thermogenic effect means you’ll burn more calories to process protein into energy, making it harder to gain weight on a high protein diet.
Plus, protein keeps you feeling full so you are less likely to overeat.
But these aren’t the only reasons why macronutrients are the first thing to focus on…
It’s because cutting your calories and eating whole, natural foods often isn’t enough to fully get the body composition changes we want.
All too many people have come to me after slashing their calories super low, FRUSTRATED they are still stuck at a plateau….and now super hungry and low energy.
Because we are told that weight loss is about eating less than you expend, right?
Well YES…a caloric deficit is key, BUT m&m calories and chicken and rice and broccoli calories are very different.
So then you may be thinking…”Well that is all about the QUALITY of the calories.”
Well…yes and no.
Have you ever gotten frustrated by your lack of results EVEN while eating only whole, natural foods?
Yea? Well you aren’t alone!
Some of the people that have come to me have too.
Because it is more than the fact that M&M’s are processed crap (the peanut butter ones may be delicious but they are still processed crap)…they are also basically carbs and fat.
That is why a calorie deficit alone may cause you to plateau and that’s why you may not get the results you want even while eating only whole, natural foods.
So Macronutrients are the first thing to dial in.
As you dial in your macros, you can then adjust your calorie intake.
Two things will happen if you focus on macros first THEN adjust your daily calorie amount…
A. You realize you can consume WAY MORE than you are actually eating and by bumping your calories you get better results.
B. You may think you need way more calories than you actually do to feel full BECAUSE focusing on protein keeps you feeling fuller for so much freaking longer! And it doesn’t have the energy spikes and lows of fueling yourself based on just carbs!
So after macros, you need to focus on your caloric intake.
THEN after that, focus on the QUALITY of your calories.
Blah blah blah we all know whole natural foods are better for us.
But I’ve been around the block a few times…And I’ve worked with tens of thousands of clients around the world, and I know the yo-yo dieting cycle all too well.
We like…nah we LOVE…some of that processed crap.
Let’s face it. There is a reason they make it that way.
Cause it tastes F****** DELICIOUS.
So if you’re one of those weirdos who doesn’t like anything processed, I salute you. Huge fist bump.
But to those of us who aren’t that way, trying to only eat whole, natural foods and never get to indulge in the foods we love is just a recipe for disaster. (feel like that’s a pun…recipe…hmm maybe?)
But anyway…When you dial in your macros, you help yourself eliminate enough crap to be healthy AND get results while still leaving in enough crap to make it SUSTAINABLE.
And by focusing first on the ratios, you don’t so much think about the fact that you are “cutting things out.”
NOPE! It almost makes you feel more like you are simply ADDING new things in.
That shift in how you view your diet is key.
And think about it…If you focus on whole, natural foods 80% of the time and 20% of the time you eat crap, you’re still consistently going to get results because you are consistently doing the RIGHT things.
And you are going to ENJOY what you are doing which is going to help you build a lifestyle.
If instead you tried to do 100% clean and then were constantly “falling off your diet,” which let’s face it means basically eating 100% crap, you probably won’t over time even come close to that 80/20 rule.
So that is why after focusing on macros and your caloric intake, I say start to dial in the quality of your calories, remembering you can still keep in some “crap” and ENJOY what you are eating!
Then after that comes exercise.
And I think it is important to keep exercise on the pyramid, even though I’m talking about nutrition, because it matters more than timing or supplements. Far more.
It is also important to keep exercise on this pyramid because all too often we let our “diets” hinder our progress in the gym.
If you can’t push hard during your workouts because you aren’t fueled correctly, you aren’t going to continue to make gains or hit your fitness goals.
If you have specific fitness goals, like setting a new race PR or deadlifting more or achieving that first full pull up, you need to focus on fueling your work toward those!
So you need to remember that part of eating well, part of changing up your nutrition plan, should be about fueling your workouts.
Being able to push hard in the gym will not only help you reach those fitness goals, but it will also be key to you getting better and faster weight loss and fat loss results.
You need to be able to CHALLENGE yourself if you want to build muscle. And you NEED to build muscle (and I don’t mean “bulking up” here ok?) to burn more calories at rest so you can lose weight faster.
Plus, you NEED lean muscle mass IF you want to actually look leaner as you lose weight!
So EXERCISE is an essential piece to consider when dialing in your diet. It not only speeds up your results, but the quality of your workouts is highly influenced by HOW you eat.
AND exercise is also on the pyramid because it play a part in figuring out how many calories you need daily! So do not ignore this important piece!
And then at the top of the pyramid we have meal timing and supplements.
Honestly all I’ll say about supplements is I use them to make things either A. taste good or B. make sure my macros stay in line.
I don’t believe in fat burners or any of that other random fad jazz. Not saying it can’t work or that you should avoid it if you want to experiment with it, BUT the other parts of the pyramid matter WAY MORE and if those aren’t dialed in, no supplement or perfectly timed crap meal will fix it.
Supplements should be just that…supplements to the well laid out plan we’re already sticking to. Those final tweaks we do that get us just those last few percents of improvement that we need.
And meal timing…
If you hit your macro ratios for the day, you’re going to get great results regardless of when you eat. Intermittent fasting can work. Eating 5 small meals a day can work.
As long as you hit your macro ratios and caloric needs for the day, you WILL get results.
HOWEVER, meal timing can be something to consider to make sure you are constantly energized and fueled.
For instance, using intermittent fasting to starve yourself, which will end up with you binging later, is NOT a good idea.
So meal timing is important to consider in terms of YOUR specific needs.
Do YOU feel better when you eat more often? Or do you prefer a 16 hour fast and skipping breakfast?
BUT freaking out over eating every two hours, or exactly what your pre-workout and post-workout snack need to be, should be the last of your thoughts when starting a diet.
It’s that stuff you micromanage and tweak when you’ve already laid a solid foundation.
It’s not the stuff you worry about at the beginning and let stress you out so you don’t even get started. Don’t overcomplicate things!
If you hit your macro ratios for the day and time your meals so they fit your schedule and keep you satisfied…You’re going to get kickass results.
Stop sweating the small stuff.
Start with your macros. Track what you’re doing. Dial those in.
As you make those big changes, you can then slowly, over time, play around with stuff at the top of the pyramid.
But don’t stress at the beginning over things that make very little difference, especially if the foundation of your diet isn’t already 100% dialed in!
Ready to learn how to adjust your macros to see results with the form of tracking right for you?
Check out my Metabolic Shred with 3 different macros methods to help you learn to adjust according to YOUR needs and goals!
We find a diet that promises the fastest weight loss possible…makes losing weight sound easy. And we start losing weight, sometimes rather quickly in fact.
We start was is commonly called a CRASH DIET!
But in the process of losing weight, we start “habits” that are really unmaintainable. We maybe even feel low energy and crappy.
We cut out the foods we love. We start eating these bland, boring tupperware meals of chicken and broccoli. We slash our calories and maybe even start two-a-day workouts.
And guess what happens?
It may happen a week into the diet, or a month…But we fall off.
We end up binge unable to maintain the unrealistic habits we were trying to instill.
And then we can’t seem to get back on track.
So we gain the weight back…and then some.
We lost weight only to gain it right back – we “yo-yo-ed.”
And the thing is…we aren’t alone. When we use a “short-term diet” aka a crash diet to lose weight, up to 65% of us will regain the weight we lost within 3 years.
Not only that, but only 5% of people manage to lose weight on a crash diet and actually KEEP IT OFF.
And the worst part is that the scale doesn’t even tell us the full story. It isn’t just “a few pounds” we are gaining back each time we repeat this yo-yo dieting cycle…this cycle many of us have fallen victim too more times than we’d like to admit…
Each time we cycle we are actually making it harder on ourselves to reach our goals!
Each time we crash diet to lose weight quickly, we may see that number on the scale drop . And it may seem super satisfying to see it go down quickly.
The problem is…well…that AMAZING weight loss?…It isn’t necessarily only fat being loss.
Actually, crash diets can cause you to lose a surprising amount of muscle mass. And when you lose muscle during your diet, your metabolism can also slow to conserve energy.
That can make you hit a plateau in your crash diet weight loss.
And when that happens?
Well that is often when we binge. And then we feel guilty. Which often leads to another binge. Until we end up back where we started, again putting ourself through another restrictive diet.
The other problem is, when we gain the weight back…well we don’t gain back muscle near as easily as fat. That means every time we yo-yo, we are not only gaining more weight, but actually increasing our body fat percentage.
AKA our body composition is getting worse and we could be adding more belly fat!
That is the yo-yo dieting cycle has to end.
If you want to not only lose weight but actually lose fat AND KEEP IT OFF, you’ve got to start a sustainable diet.
A diet that allows you to truly make lifestyle changes!
But what the heck would a diet like that even look like?
Well…
A sustainable diet:
Would have to let you enjoy the foods you love
Help you feel good and ENERGIZED
Let you make slow, steady change and build true HABITS
Not make any foods off limits
Let you enjoy time with friends and family
KEEP THINGS SIMPLE!
You need to find something that allows you consistent progress, but WHILE you are developing something you can maintain long term.
You need something that teaches you balance. Because there will be events. Vacations. Stressful times.
Times you are more motivated and less motivated.
And eating according to your goals can be balanced around them all.
Plus it should make you FEEL AND LOOK GOOD. Note…The FEEL GOOD part. Too often we just accept that we will feel crappy and low energy on a diet when that really shouldn’t be the case!
If you’re ready to get started with a sustainable diet and leave the yo-yoing behind, and you need some help knowing how to eat according to your goals, it’s time you checked out my Macro Cycling program!
Say GOODBYE to the restriction of crash diets and the rebound of the yo-yo dieting cycle!
With the distorted portion sizes at restaurants, misleading food labels, junk food masquerading as healthy, it’s hard to know what you should be eating.
Plus, stress, lack of sleep and boredom can all lead to mindless snacking and our body even sending us triggers we THINK mean we are hungry…when, in fact, we’re not!
It’s hard to really know when and IF we need food or if one of these other things is at play. Especially when we’ve created bad habits and those habits have been ingrained for years!
And to make intuitive eating even more impossible on top of all of that…
We live in a culture very centered around food.
Social gatherings are often centered around FOOD…I mean we even have a whole holiday centered around sitting down to eat an unreasonably large meal together where we know there is a chance the pants are going to need to be unbuttoned…
I mean…I can’t be alone in doing that at Thanksgiving!
That is why intuitive eating is something that has to be LEARNED.
It is why counting calories and tracking your food to start is key to success.
Starting out, most of us have no idea WHAT or HOW MUCH or even WHEN our bodies really need food. We’ve just become so out of tune that we need to relearn how to listen to our body’s cues.
We need to train ourselves to again respond to what our body needs.
It’s kind of like when you train for your first race or you want to improve your race time.
You don’t just say “Hey I’m going to intuitively run as far and as fast as I can whenever I want.”
NOPE!
You wouldn’t do that because then the first time you start to get tired or bored, you’d stop! You’d give yourself excuses to turn back and maybe not even run again that week.
So you write out a program.
You set out how far you’re going to run, when you’re going to run and you track your pace.
You track and measure and set goals so you know EXACTLY how you’re doing and what you’re doing to get you to that first race or improve your time.
So why would eating be any different?
The simple fact is…It isn’t.
We need to track and log especially to start because tracking allows us to know what we are actually eating.
It helps us understand how certain foods affect our body. It helps show us that quality calories matter and what portion sizes we should actually be eating.
It helps us learn when we are ACTUALLY HUNGRY or when we are actually bored or stressed or tired.
It gives us direction to reach our goal, just like that running program would.
You wouldn’t leave your race or that goal time up to “intuition” so why would you set yourself up for failure by doing the same to your weight loss goals?
If you want to LEARN to eat intuitively and respond to your bodies needs, you need to start by tracking and logging!
And it’s an interesting question with an answer that is based on, not only your goals, but a few basic things…
These three things are…
1. To lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit.
2. To gain weight, you’ve got to eat to support muscle growth.
3. Calories are not created equal. Quality and type matter.
These three things are KEY when figuring out how many calories you need.
They are often also why we get into trouble with our diets.
Too many people know #1 and therefore cut their calories way too low.
They end up starving themselves, which not only can slow their metabolism and cause them to store fat BUT also leaves them so hungry and angry they end up binging.
HOWEVER, on the flip side, so may people today use Fitbits and other fitness trackers and see they burned 300-500 calories and think that entitles them to eat even more.
I mean if you burn more, you get to eat more, right?
Yes BUT overtime our bodies become more efficient as we workout. They adapt to the stresses placed on them.
Are you accounting for that?
Are you sure your fitness tracker is accurate?
Also, what is your baseline based off of that you are ADDING IN extra calories you burned?
And on top of that, you then have to cycle UNDER on days off. If you’re cycling up on workouts, how often are you cycling UNDER on days you don’t move much?
All that cycling just makes for madness. And it’s freaking hard to track which leaves us guessing at what is working.
Ok so probably right now, all I’ve done is confuse you more.
I’ve said you can’t cut your calories too low. But then I’ve said too much is bad too and that adding in the calories you burned during workouts is a more challenging and complicated process than we account for.
So what do you do?
This right here is why #3 is so important. Quality and type of calories MATTER.
200 calories of meat, veggies and rice is way more filling than 200 calories of M&Ms. It also helps our body function correctly, sleep better and fuels our workouts more effectively.
This is why a 1,200 calorie diet with proper macros may be enough while 2,000 calories of crap may leave you hangry and starved. That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the foods you love, it just means that getting quality foods will help you stay full, energized and get the results you want FASTER!
And I’m not saying everyone should be at 1,200.
I’m just saying there is a HUGE difference in how you’ll feel and how your body will operate eating the same number of quality vs. crap calories.
If you can dial in these ratios, you’ll be giving your body what it needs vs. empty calories that leave you hungry even when you’ve technically consumed enough calories.
Quality calories will make you feel fuller even on a calorie deficit and one of the benefits of high protein is that it is hard to gain weight even if you “eat too much.”
Eating these ratios, you can change your body composition WHILE fueling your muscle growth by giving it the building blocks it needs EVEN if in a slight calorie deficit.
And then instead of cycling, just set one calorie goal.
That way on recovery days you get your body what it needs and you fuel your workouts. You won’t have to cycle down or up.
So you’re probably still wondering…How many calories do I need?
But my point is the quality and type is even more key to determining that.
It’s why I’ll get people saying “Holy crap I thought 1,300 calories would be too little but I’m stuffed.”
But it’s also why people say “Holy crap I thought I’d gain weight eating 1,800 calories, but I’ve lost inches when I used to eat 800 and still not lose all of the time.”
All of this is why I recommend if you want to lose weight, you start with 11x goal bodyweight (in pounds) and if you want to change body composition or maintain your weight while looking leaner you start with 13x goal bodyweight (again in pounds).
Of course it still always DEPENDS and each of our metabolic rates are different, but I always tell people…
START HERE. There has to be a starting point. If you don’t give something a shot, you’ll never know if it works.
Focus on the ratios and from there you can add or reduce calories as you hit those ratios. But hitting those ratios and getting QUALITY CALORIES is key!
For more tips to help you calculate calories and macros as well as amazing recipes and even sample meal plans, whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, train for a marathon or deal with the dreaded weight gain often associated with menopause, check out my Macro Hacks!
I love and hate social media all at the same time.
And one of the things I hate about it is the fact that so many people are persuaded to do crazy diets because they see some popular fitness competitor looking extra, super lean on Instagram.
Let me tell you one thing here and now….fitness competitor diets are unrealistic and, frankly, generally unhealthy long-term.
They are meant to get people down to extremely unmaintainable low levels of body fat for COMPETITION. They are extreme diets done for a specific reason – to COMPETE.
They aren’t meant to be super healthy OR maintainable long-term.
And most of the people that do them either keep doing them because they do them as part of their JOB or they end up yo-yoing back up and messing up their hormone levels in the process.
Yet all too often when people are trying to lose weight, to get that ELUSIVE 6-pack and look lean, they turn to these fitness competitor diets.
UNREALISTIC, UNMAINTAINABLE DIETS that lead to nothing but yo-yo dieting, starvation, misery and horribleness.
And no…I’m not being overly dramatic.
These images we see often present unrealistic lifestyles. I know. I’ve tried.
I did the extreme diet. I ended up hangry. Super hangry!
And I never…NEVER achieved the leanness I wanted. I ended up skinny. And hungry. And low energy. And every time I would rebound.
They also present ONLY ONE SIDE – ONE PERFECT ANGLE OR VIEW. They are a highlight reel…and that person POSED to get that shot.
And I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that. We all like certain angles of ourselves and tend to take photos from it. I know I do.
Heck, I share with you all my glamour shots from photoshoots. But I now share these because I’ve found a way to MAINTAIN the look I want. To be lean. To have a lifestyle.
But the point is…You can’t base YOUR DIET on some Instagram picture!
GETTING RESULTS ISN’T ABOUT PERFECTION, IT’S ABOUT CONSISTENCY.
And starvation, aka cutting your calories, and deprivation, cutting out all of the foods you love, doesn’t lead to consistency. And often it not only leads to binging but you messing up your metabolism and your hormones so you gain back even more fat each time you rebound.
So stop going for the extreme. Don’t fall for some fitness competitor diet.
Keep things simple and still enjoy the foods you love.
Because let’s face it…While nutrition is about the foods we eat so we can be healthy…most of the time we are looking to dial in our nutrition for weight loss or body composition changes, which are also dependent on dialing in our workouts.
A little shocking huh?
Two things will happen if you focus on macros first THEN adjust your daily calorie amount…
And I think it is important to keep exercise on the pyramid, even though I’m talking about nutrition, because it matters more than timing or supplements. Far more.
If you hit your macro ratios for the day, you’re going to get great results regardless of when you eat. Intermittent fasting can work. Eating 5 small meals a day can work.
