I have mixed feelings about eating “healthier” alternatives to the treats we love and sometimes crave.
I think it is important we know when we need those macro-friendly versions to keep us on track and even when it is simply better to indulge in the real thing.
And I will personally do both, depending on the situation and even the specific craving.
Because we can find a balance between indulging and staying on track toward our goals. What that balance is though, will be unique for each of us!
Like I LOVE dessert.
Do I need a sweet treat at the end of the night?
No.
But do I want one?
HECK YES!
And especially as the weather warms up, my cravings for ice cream increase.
But I know if I get a pint of…well…anything…that whole pint will be gone.
And then I’ll feel crappy and won’t sleep well from the sugar and have a crappy workout the next day.
Now, sometimes, despite the fact I know this will happen, I still indulge and enjoy. (Balance, right!?)
BUT often I find I just feel better, and stay on track toward my goals, when I swap in a satisfying, but more macro-friendly alternative!
That’s why I love this Chocolate Greek Yogurt Ice Cream.
I can make the one serving, satisfy my sweet tooth and even pack in 20 grams of protein!
So if you’re an ice cream fiend too, try this delicious recipe!
Chocolate Greek Yogurt Ice Cream
INGREDIENTS: 2 1/2 oz Fat-Free Plain Greek Yogurt 1/2 scoop Vanilla (or chocolate) Whey Protein 1 tsp Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder 1/2 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk 1 tsp Vanilla Extract 2 tbsp Stevia or sweetener of choice
Blend yogurt, protein powder, cocoa, stevia and almond milk thoroughly.
Place in freezer.
Take out the ice cream after an hour and turn it over gently with a spoon to avoid it becoming one big ice block. Do it again every 30 minutes until it has the right consistency (it should take about 2 hours total).
You can either eat it right away (after the 2 hours) or keep it in the freezer for up to a week. If you leave it in the freezer, take it out 5-10 min before you serve it to let it soften up a bit.
Ok before you start getting all mad that I’m saying all carbs are created equal….hear me out.
And I could have said all fats are created equal or proteins…but it probably wouldn’t have made you as mad or as curious 😛 (Just kidding….but seriously…)
Sooo….how can I claim all carbs are created equal?
Because guess what?
If you dial in your macro ratios correctly, and according to your goals, as long as you stay within those ratios, you’ll get results regardless of whether your carbs are all fruits and vegetables or they’re only sugar and white bread.
Yup…weight loss and body composition goals are really all about calories and macros.
Quality…well it doesn’t really matter.
Now I’m not giving you an excuse to just eat crap. BUT…
If your macros are off, you may not see the results you want no matter how “healthy” your diet is or how high a “quality” the foods you are eating are.
Now I’m not saying focusing on whole, natural foods…more NUTRIENT DENSE foods…isn’t important.
They 100% are for your health.
And I do think you function better and feel fuller when your diet is made up of foods that give your body the nutrients it needs.
Focusing on whole, natural foods only helps you get better results faster.
BUT I also think sometimes we get so focused on depriving ourselves of the foods we enjoy, stressing over QUALITY, that we sabotage ourselves.
While we are killing ourselves eating “well,” our macro ratio and calorie intake aren’t in line with our goals so we don’t end up seeing the results we want.
No wonder we get frustrated and give up, feeling like nothing will ever work!
So what am I telling you?
Basically, if your macro ratios are out of whack, it doesn’t matter that you’re eating nutrient dense foods.
That sweet potato…well those calories and CARBS are still going to count as much toward your calories and carbs as that white bread will.
Basically, that carb is just that…a carb.
Eat too much of either type of carb and you’re not going to get the results you want.
(Honestly….”clean” is going to be soooo dependent on your dietary preference and 9 different people will tell you different foods are evil that you could drive yourself insane obsessing over this….)
Stop depriving yourself of all of the foods you love so you end up binging each and every weekend after being worn out from the constant restriction (hmm just thinking about how maybe this happened this week, huh!?).
Find a BALANCE where you focus on nutrient dense foods, but also still enjoy the foods you love.
Because if you want to change your body composition and lose weight or even gain muscle?
It’s really all about FOCUSING ON THOSE MACROS!
(And guess what? When you dial in your macro ratios, often we do overall dial in the whole, natural foods more but in a way that is less restrictive so we end up being more consistent which is TRULY the key to overall wellbeing!)
Need a macro ratio you can use to track and log with?
Take my Macro Cycling Quiz to help you get started!
(PLEASE NOTE….this is of course a discussion about “healthy” overall alcohol intake and a “healthy” relationship to drinking so if discussing alcohol is a trigger, please ignore this post and know I will love you for doing so.)
I get asked if I drink it…
YES.
Beer?…meh. Wine?…meh. Craft cocktails and margaritas?
Hells to the YEAH!
I also get asked about how it fits into the macro cycling program and a healthy lifestyle in general.
I’ll tell you right now…
NO alcohol is healthy.
Now don’t go trying to defend the health benefits of your wine…Cause that just really isn’t all that it’s touted to be.
First off, most of us DO NOT actually get those supposed benefits.
And secondly, most of us aren’t really consuming wine for it’s health benefits in the EXTREMELY moderate amounts it should be consumed.
Basically studies showed the healthiest amount of alcohol was ZERO.
Sorry to break it to you, but as I jokingly say all of the time – Alcohol is a toxin.
Drink it knowing this.
But that doesn’t mean there can’t be a reason to ENJOY alcohol.
I would argue the only real “benefit” of alcohol is that you ENJOY it and life is meant to be enjoyed.
And that by relaxing, and enjoying a couple of drinks with friends, you can lower stress levels, which may, in the end, do much more to benefit your overall health than a few drinks will do to negatively impact it.
Because STRESS does play a major role in our overall health. Much more of one than we give it credit for.
So if alcohol is a part of your lifestyle, it doesn’t have to be eliminated.
But how do you TRACK alcohol if you’re counting macros?
I do tell clients though that when they are starting out with tracking their macros to keep it to their “cheat day” or at least 1-2 set days.
Logging alcohol is an interesting thing.
While beer and wine will register a few carbs, alcohol will register as calories but not really a macro since it’s…well…it’s own macro.
So if you’re trying to track and log, you can count it as either a fat or carb, whichever you have more of with the ratio you are using.
You will then divide the calories in your alcohol by 4 for carbs or 9 for fat to get the grams of each you would have consumed. (No you can’t count it as protein :-P)
If you can, I do recommend counting it as a fat because alcohol suppresses fat oxidation.
So alcohol can fit into a balanced lifestyle even while you’re tracking to get a specific result.
I will tell you though that if you want FASTER RESULTS, eliminating alcohol, if even just for a time, can be key.
Let’s face it…most of us get a few drinks in us and want some not so healthy treats!
Plus, even if you avoid overindulging, alcohol can also negatively impact the benefits you see from your training done PRIOR TO drinking by inhibiting protein synthesis and lipolysis (or fat loss).
Not to mention it usually makes for a crappier training session the next day (hehe this picture below cracks me up)!
And dudes…you have it worse as drinking negatively impacts your testosterone levels too!
Plus, it can perpetuate and create inflammation, which can not only make you feel aches and pains more but be detrimental to your workouts AND your recovery!
So, while I’m sure this sounded negative, my overall feeling is that you can find a balance and that alcohol doesn’t have to be something you eliminate.
Just go in with your eyes wide open when you do decide to indulge.
Find that lifestyle balance that helps you eat according to your goals!
There legit looks like there is absolutely no difference between these two images above.
I mean maybe if you look really closely you can see the peanut butter is spread thinner on one…or the bananas are cut a bit thicker.
But if you were making this for yourself, you can see how it would be so easy to make the second and THINK it was the same portion size if you didn’t measure it.
And that’s EXACTLY the problem.
Most of us aren’t as good at “eyeballing” our portion sizes as we think.
And our hunger levels, as well as our stress levels, can dramatically impact exactly how big or small a portion looks….trust me.
Now with general weight loss, you may be able to “get away with” a little more deviation in your portions, especially if you’ve started your journey by cutting out specific foods.
But for fat loss…well you can’t.
We NEED to track if we have specific goals because it’s just so easy for our portions to become distorted.
Something that literally can look exactly the same can have 100 calories more and double the fat. (And heck, if you’re a nut butter fiend like me, that extra tbsp can EASILY become 2 or 3 more…)
And this is exactly why we can FEEL like we’re doing all of the right things yet not seeing the results we want.
Small portion distortions at each meal can add up.
And let’s face it too…the portions that usually become distorted aren’t generally the lean meats or even veggies….
It’s usually the nuts or the dried fruit or the crackers we have “just a couple extra of.”
It’s not that we are even eating “unclean,” whatever “clean” means to you.
But those little things we tend to want to have “extra” of are usually calorically more dense and not as “macro friendly.”
We have to remember that fat loss requires a calorie deficit AND tweaks to our macro ratios…both of which can easily become skewed by “just a few more” constantly being added in.
Tracking may be annoying. It may be tedious. Heck, you may even think it sucks.
But it not only gets easier, it’s truly key to results.
Plus, is 5 minutes of logging a day or an extra few minutes weighing out your food at each meal really worse than not reaching your goals?
MACROS – You may have heard this word recently when someone mentioned a new diet they were starting. But what the heck are macros and how do you “hit” or “fit” something into them?
I wanted to give you a little “cheat sheet” guide to macros and why paying attention to them may help you get better results FASTER!
So first…
What is a macro?
A macro is a macronutrient or protein, carbs and fats. It is the nutrients your body needs in large quantities.
Almost every popular diet out there manipulates the amount of each macro you consume to get results whether it is promoting low or no carbs, low fat, high protein, or some balance in between!
And all of the foods we consume have a certain amount of each macronutrient.
Animal proteins such as chicken, fish, eggs and beef all have a different amount of protein, and fat. Some are very low in fat, like chicken breast, while some can be higher in fat like say Salmon.
This doesn’t mean one food is BETTER than another.
It just means you can include a variety of protein sources based on your specific needs and goals and even “work around” different fat contents by the foods you include at other times!
For instance, if you’re doing a diet that is lower in fat and higher in protein, you may start to realize that eggs, while protein, also increase your fat intake.
So you may still include eggs, but you may eliminate a less healthy source of fat from somewhere else OR include a leaner protein source at another time.
Or if you’re doing Keto, you may start to look at which foods are higher in fat to focus on those while eliminating some foods that are higher in carbs.
Or if you’re a vegetarian looking to increase protein, you may realize that you need to not only combine certain foods for a completely protein, a complete amino acid chain, but that many of your protein sources also contain more carbs too.
The key is understanding what our food is made of so we can eat according to our goals!
To often we start a diet, dial in our diet with whole, natural foods and then wonder WHY we aren’t getting the results we want.
And it may be because while we think we are following the principles of the diet, we aren’t actually hitting the macronutrient ratios the diet suggests because we don’t actually KNOW what the macros are.
That is where this quick cheat sheet can come in handy!
And it is also important for us to realize that while the quality of our food is key for optimal functioning and better health…for some aesthetic goals…well it kind of doesn’t matter!
Quality Doesn’t Matter!?
This isn’t meant as an excuse to just go eat crap.
BUT I think it is an important fact to recognize because it is a frustration I often hear from clients trying to lose weight.
“Well I cut out all of the processed stuff and am eating one ingredient foods, but I’ve stopped losing weight and I have 10 more pounds!”
It’s because the quality of our food doesn’t fully matter to weight loss.
Because calories in vs calories out is at the heart of what matters, and how we dial in your macros CAN affect how we create a deficit, but you can still OVEREAT even eating only healthy foods.
While the quality of our food does help our body function optimally, I think often the fact that we cut out all of the foods we love to eat “cleaner,” ends up backfiring.
Often I even see clients overeating because they have a craving they aren’t satisfying.
So they hold themselves back from getting the results they want instead of striking a balance.
Instead of also including the foods they love while focusing on whole natural foods, they completely cut them out, and, all too often, end up binging on them at some point and falling off the restrictive diet they’ve created.
You CAN indulge in those foods you love while still dialing in the overall quality of your diet for results.
But realize that no matter how “clean” you eat, the bottom line is that if you want to lose or gain weight, the amount and type (aka macros) of calories that you consume matters most.
What’s Right For Me?
The most confusing part of this is where to start. What ratios or diets do you choose?
How do you create a calorie deficit without cutting out too much?
How can you get fast results without restricting yourself so much you end up binging?
Where is the balance that will work for you!?
The one key to figuring out what is right for YOU since one size doesn’t really fit all with dieting?
START TRACKING!
Learn about the different diets, experiment with different ratios and then track what you eat so you can truly see your calories, your macros and even what may be working or NOT working!
If you don’t track, you don’t know.
And tracking, while annoying yes, not only becomes easier and a HABIT, but it also helps you stop feeling like nothing will work!
What’s worse, not knowing what is or isn’t working and therefore constantly struggling to see the results you want OR taking a few minutes each day to weigh and measure and log?
