3118 Track?
MetCon//
18:00 AMRAP
7 Burpees
9 Back squat 95/65
Row 15 Calories
If It Fits My Macros, Zone, Calorie Counting. There are a lot of eating plans that require tracking the food you eat. The goal of tracking programs is manipulating your energy balance to achieve some sort of result. Weight loss, gain or maitinence.
The problems with tracking and weighing and measuring are plenty. The biggest problem is accuracy on every front. Let’s use an apple as our example, but it goes for really all foods and people.
No two apples are going to have the exact same nutrient density. There are different varieties of apples, different ripeness of apples. When was the apple picked? How was it stored? Is it organic? How well did you chew? What other foods did you eat it with? There are a million variables that we know about to consider and that doesn’t count all the variables we don’t know about or could ever know about. Your tracking app might say 80 calories but the over/under margin for error is guaranteed.
Also, who wants to live a life afraid of apples? Not I!
Our bodies and lives are the other half of the inaccuracies. No two days are the same. No two days share the exact same caloric needs. We all have unforeseen stressors and activities or lack there of.
Truly hitting your macros or calories or zone blocks perfectly is like standing up in a canoe and trying to thread a needle that someone else is holding.
But Devin, “I see Instagram models with 10 packs who swear by their macros!” Here’s the rub. Mr. TenPack does count his macros, and that’s likely his job, but he’s never perfectly hit them ever because of what I said above. What that actually shows us if anything is that ‘close enough’ does a lot more than he wants you to think! It also shows us that getting to that place takes more than accurate macros. Likely genetics, lighting, camera angles, photoshop, spray tan etc.
Where are you at in your own eating habits? Do you eat mostly whole or minimally processed foods? Is your relationship with food pretty healthy, meaning eating certain foods doesn't cause you anxiety or making healthy choices is fairly effortless? Tracking your food can be a fun practice. You can take a couple approaches. Plan the food you know you want and can eat, record it first and eat that food only. The other approach is to go about your day, but record absolutely everything that passes your lips. You can do a lot with all the data and you might learn a lesson or two about what you're actually eating. You might realize that you don't actually eat as much whole foods as you thought. You might realize you're only eating 1500 calories a day. You might realize you're eating 4000 calories a day (doubt it!) (btw, if any of you are eating 1500 calories a day and you're not loosing weight, that plan has stopped working and it's time for a change and that will be the blog topic tomorrow). You an examine the macronutrient breakdown of your foods and compare that o how you feel or perform.
Don't track if you can't walk past the candy dish at work without having a melt down. Don't track if you still drink soda or sugar-flavored coffees. Don't track if you eat out often. Don't track if someone else is cooking for you (this is ok, but just hard to quantify). Don't track if you have an eating disorder.
If you do want to track, I recommend using MyFitness Pal. I'm not sure how well the other apps work, but MyFitness Pal is basically the fitness industry's go-to food tracking app.