Since starting my own Crossfit journey in May of 2017, nutrition has been a major focus as part of my training regimen. For the longest time, I wanted to believe that, as long as I exercised I could eat whatever I wanted. To an extent, I still believe that to be true. However, portion control has been a struggle of mine for as long as I can remember (back to grade school), and understanding the amounts of the macronutrients my body needs is something that took me a little longer to figure out on my own. It started with calorie counting and weighing myself on a scale religiously every single morning. I became sick and obsessive.
I eventually realized there’s more to it than that. Then, I found a resource that helped me calculate a more personalized daily macro guide.
I found an app and tried it out for a while. It was certainly a trial and error process, but since then, macro tracking has been a tool I continually use and come back to when I have a short term goal, especially if I’ve hit a plateau and am looking for some fresh results. The great thing about it is, you can still track macros no matter what diet (or fad) you’re doing, whether it’s paleo, keto, zone, or anything else out there. You can still fit in restrictions due to allergies and intolerances. The thing I learned the most is that I do not like to limit any specific macro nutrients and my mental health and wellbeing depends on a diet with less restrictions. In the beginning, macro tracking was something that opened my eyes to the reality of what and how much I was consuming, and it helped me to realize why I was not seeing the results I wanted to see at times.
Through macro tracking, I learned how to eyeball-measure my food. This is nice because I didn’t feel like I needed to meticulously track every single meal for the rest of my life in order to reach my goals. In conjunction with macro tracking, I practiced mindfulness through meals. I discovered that I wasn’t always listening to my body when it had enough food. I experienced imbalance and how it felt when I fed myself certain ingredients at certain times of the day.
With macro tracking, I learned how to work on this.
The first week of macro tracking is challenging, requiring consistency and precision of measuring and weighing food. Starting out, I just wanted to grab a convenient snack or revert to old habits. This is where having an accountability buddy comes great into play! While the idea of macro tracking can seem overwhelming at first, I realized that I typically ate the same things from week-to-week, and this made it easier. The great thing about macro tracking is that most of the tracking applications out there have the ability to save the foods and meals you want to repeat later. I learned which of my everyday foods sustained me for intense workouts, long workdays and allowed me to recover from my extensive training.
I look at macro tracking as a way of food journaling, and I appreciate being able to plan my meals for the next day the night before, and knowing exactly a day in advance that I would be hitting my macros tomorrow. I also appreciate the meal-time reminders and the support I receive from the tools and resources I had.
This January, I am looking forward to jumping back into macro tracking for the Solcana Fitness Macro Challenge so that I can be a resource for you. I’d like to help take some of the guesswork out of macro tracking and be there for accountability if that is something you think you can benefit from. You don’t have to try to figure this out on your own like I did. Emily Field has a wealth of knowledge and is an excellent resource for us as we continue striving for overall wellness. As someone who has done macro tracking consistently with outstanding results, I am excited and here to take this challenge side by side with you!
Sign up here to be part of the challenge. If you are a member, use code PETEY for a discount at checkout.
-Coach Kristina