Why Macros Might Be All You Need to Streamline Your Nutrition | Ep 194
Nutrition can be overwhelming: from calories and macros to saturated fats, fiber, micronutrients, and meal timing. But what if you ONLY tracked macros? Is that enough for a diet that supports your health and physique
In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) breaks down why tracking macros might be all you need to rebalance your diet and set the stage for long-term success. If you're ready to streamline your nutrition without the headache of overcomplicating things, this episode is for you.
Philip dives into the basics of macro tracking, explaining how this flexible dieting approach can cut through the noise and provide a clear path to better nutrition. By focusing on just three targets, you can reduce mental fatigue, promote consistency, and prioritize what's most important for muscle building and fat loss.
Philip also shares an advanced tip for seasoned trackers who are feeling stuck. He recounts a client's story to illustrate how even those with experience can benefit from revisiting the basics.
Whether you're new to nutrition tracking or an experienced dieter, you'll find practical tips and insights to help you simplify your diet and make meaningful progress.
Today, you’ll learn all about:
1:33 Nutrition can be complicated
3:17 What tracking macros means
7:15 Steps to implement effective macro tracking
14:47 The significance of tracking macros in sustainable nutrition
18:23 Tip for the advanced trackers
20:09 Outro
Episode resources:
Try MacroFactor free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS – Apple/iPhone or Google/Android
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Episode summary:
Nutrition can be overwhelming with countless details to consider, from saturated fats and fiber to micronutrients and meal timing. What if there was a simpler way to kickstart your progress and maintain long-term consistency? Enter the If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) method, a flexible dieting strategy that focuses on tracking just the big three macronutrients: protein, carbs, and fats. This episode of Wits and Weights delves into the essentials of macro tracking and provides practical steps to transform your eating habits without the stress of perfecting every detail.
The IIFYM approach prioritizes the fundamentals, allowing you to let go of the nitty-gritty details and embrace a simpler, more effective way to manage your nutrition. By focusing solely on macronutrients, you reduce mental fatigue and increase adherence to your diet. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned tracker, this episode lays out the steps to calculate your calorie needs, set macro targets, and find a balance that works for you.
One of the key aspects of the IIFYM method is understanding the importance of protein intake. Protein is essential for building and preserving muscle, especially during fat loss. The episode provides tips on how to allocate your remaining calories between fats and carbs based on your goals and personal preferences. A suggested starting point is 30% of calories from fat, but this can be adjusted according to individual needs.
Tracking your intake is crucial for understanding your eating habits and making necessary adjustments. The episode emphasizes the importance of experimenting with different foods to fit your macros while maintaining satisfaction and balance. By tracking your macros, you can uncover patterns in your diet and identify areas that need improvement.
A significant benefit of macro tracking is its ability to simplify nutrition. By focusing on just three targets, you can reduce the mental load of tracking multiple dietary factors. This approach promotes consistency and adherence to your diet, making it easier to stick to long-term. The episode highlights that even if you're already familiar with detailed tracking, revisiting the basics can streamline and enhance your nutritional strategy.
In addition to simplifying your diet, macro tracking can also promote consistency. When you think of your diet in terms of numbers rather than good or bad foods, it becomes easier to stick to your plan. This flexible dieting approach allows for a more sustainable and enjoyable way to manage your nutrition.
The episode also explores advanced strategies through a revealing case study. By revisiting macro basics, even experienced trackers can address common issues such as imbalanced protein, fat, and carb intake. This case study demonstrates how a simplified approach can lead to significant improvements in energy levels, training performance, and overall well-being.
Listener feedback plays a crucial role in shaping the content of the show. The host emphasizes the importance of sharing thoughts and suggestions to ensure that the show continues to deliver valuable content. By engaging with listeners, the show can adapt and improve to meet their needs.
To get started with macro tracking, the episode provides simple steps to implement this approach. The first step is to calculate your calorie needs by tracking your food and weight for about two to three weeks. This data will help you determine your personal calorie needs, whether you want to maintain, gain, or lose weight.
Next, you set your macro targets, starting with protein. Aim for up to one gram of protein per pound of target body weight. For example, if you're 200 pounds and want to reach 180 pounds, aim for around 180 grams of protein. Allocate the rest of your calories to carbs and fats, starting with 30% of calories from fat and adjusting based on your preferences.
Once you've set your targets, track your intake without worrying about hitting the exact numbers. This process will give you a better understanding of your eating habits and help you identify areas that need rebalancing. By focusing on the big rocks, you can simplify your approach and promote consistency.
Experimenting with different foods to fit your macros is also an essential part of the process. By trying various foods, you can find what works best for you and what keeps you satisfied. The goal is to create a sustainable approach that allows for nutrition and enjoyment over the long term.
In conclusion, the IIFYM method offers a simplified approach to nutrition that focuses on the essentials: protein, carbs, and fats. By tracking these macronutrients, you can reduce mental fatigue, promote consistency, and achieve significant results without getting bogged down by unnecessary details. Whether you're new to tracking or looking to revisit the basics, this episode provides valuable insights and practical steps to help you master your nutrition strategy.
Listener feedback is highly encouraged, as it helps shape the content of the show. By sharing your thoughts and suggestions, you can ensure that the show continues to deliver valuable and relevant content. Join us for an episode packed with actionable advice to help you use your wits, lift those weights, and conquer life one macro at a time.
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Transcript
Philip Pape 00:01
Maybe you've heard about tracking macros. But you've also heard experts say that usually not enough that you need to care about food quality and other factors. But if you're struggling with your nutrition to begin with, it can be even more overwhelming to worry about saturated fat fiber micronutrients, satiety, calorie density meal timing and even supplements. It's like trying to optimize 100 different parameters at once for the 5% before you've mastered the basics that will give you the 95%. What if I told you that sometimes just focusing on macros can be enough to kickstart your progress and streamline your entire approach to nutrition to make it easy and effective. Today, we're diving into why tracking only macros might be all you need to rebalance your diet, prioritize what's most important, and set the stage for long term success without getting bogged down in unnecessary complexity. If you're ready to streamline your nutrition, you're going to love this one.
Philip Pape 01:05
Welcome to wit's end weights, the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart, efficient systems to achieve your dream physique. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And today we're tackling a topic that might bother those both in the intuitive eating and the flexible dieting camps. Why macros alone might be all you need to streamline your nutrition and get most of your results. And of course, if you want more content like this, hit the Follow button in your podcast app, so you never miss an episode. All right, let's just jump right into it. First, the elephant in the room. Nutrition can be complicated, really complicated. We've got macros, micro saturated fat, trans fat, fiber, glycemic index, index, nutrient timing, and a ton of misinformation to go along with that, like carbs are bad or protein is bad or fat is bad, right? The list goes on and on. And for a lot of people, especially those just starting out, that alone can be overwhelming, and cause you to just throw up your hands and say, All right, forget about this. And I've seen it time and time again, even with clients who have come to me and said, Look, I understand there's an approach that works. I want to learn that. And they come to me heads spinning with all this information, paralyzed by the fear of not doing everything perfectly. And then you know what happens, they end up doing nothing at all. Now, now these are assuming that they don't work with me. And we show them that no, you can actually simplify this process just like we talked about on the show. Otherwise, you get into that analysis paralysis, you know at its finest. But here's the thing. While all those details can matter, eventually, they're not always necessary right out of the gate. Sometimes we need to step back and focus on the fundamentals. Remember, I talked about the Pareto principle in a recent Wednesday episode about focusing on the 20% to get 80% of the effort. And that's where macro tracking comes in. So in this episode, first, I'm going to share why I think it's a great idea for many people, including some reasons that you might not have considered, then I'll give you some pointers on how to get started. And finally, I've got an advanced tip for those listening, who may have already been tracking much more than macros by this point. But you want to come at it from a fresh perspective. So stick around for that near the end of the episode. And so let's talk about what we mean by tracking macros, right? What is tracking macros? It is a type of flexible dieting approach, right? Just one type. Because flexible dieting, by definition has a flexible spectrum of approaches. Tracking macros focuses on hitting your daily targets for macro nutrients, protein, carbs, and fats. That's it, right? No food is off limits, as long as it fits within those goals. You might have heard it called If It Fits Your Macros, or I F YM. And interestingly, I covered this in Episode 110. From the opposite angle. In that episode, I was talking about why macro tracking alone isn't enough. And as always, it's about context. Because if you go listen to that episode, Episode 110, after you listen to today's episode, you'll notice they're entirely consistent with each other. And that the approach that you take depends on well, you right, that's the essence of flexibility, isn't it? And I mentioned this because I can already hear some of you saying, but Phillip, what about micronutrients? What about fiber? What about meal timing, you know, around my workouts, which you talk about all the time. Trust me, I get it, right, those things can be important. But let's strip it back. Are you even getting to the basic goals that you're going for here with your nutrition? Right? Because if you're not doing that, Why care about those things? First, here's why focusing on just macros can actually be a game changer for many people. And even some people who've gone beyond that by this point. I want to step back and give it a shot. First of all, it simplifies nutrition. You're just focusing on these three simple targets, right? And we're not talking about getting precisely the exact goal Hamza each every day, we're just talking about having either minimums or ranges to aim for. And this reduces the mental load of tracking a whole bunch of things, right? It just reduces friction and reduces mental fatigue. The second benefit of tracking just macros, it can promote consistency right out of the gate, right when your diet isn't this constant battle of, you know, good versus bad foods, which many of you may be in that head state right now. And you just think in terms of these cold, hard numbers, and any food goes within that, it's actually a lot easier to stick to long term. And by long term, I mean, even past the first week, or two, which is where a lot of people give up. The third benefit of tracking macros, it prioritizes, the big rocks, it's the 2080, or the 8020 principle at its core, right? We've got to hit our protein to build muscle and preserve muscle during fat loss, we got to have a certain amount of carbs for energy for recovery for performance, and we got to have fats for Hormonal Health. That's it. These are the heavy hitters that drive most of your results. Yes, calories are in there as well, because when we track macros, we're also tracking calories. But I'll tell you what, even if you weren't tracking calories, and you're just trying to get enough protein, that's still going to massively improve a lot of the other other things that later on, you want to track like food quality. The last thing, the last benefit, and perhaps most important one here is tracking macros is a nice simple stepping stone, it is a great way to first build a habit of awareness, right? Not even not even trying to hit the targets, just becoming aware of how much protein you eat, for example, before you dive into more complex nutritional strategies, in fact, it's where I want clients to be before I start working with them, so that we can take you to the next level and make the best use of our time together. And you might be surprised by that. Because I usually don't work with rank novices rank beginners who've never tracked before, I have kind of a filtering process. By the time you join Whitson weights physique university or I take you on as a client, you kind of already know the basics of tracking, maybe you're already using macro factor, you understand, you know, even even a little bit beyond that. But you're not just coming in cold, right? You're not coming in saying, Oh, I thought carbs are bad. I want you to be listening to this podcast and understanding that there is a flexible approach you can take. So it's a great stepping stone. So now how do you actually put this into practice? I think it's pretty simple, which is the whole point. Before I give you the steps, though, I want you to do yourself a favor, download macro factor. First, pause the episode, use the link in my show notes or search for macro factor all one word macro factor in your app store. Then enter my code Whitson weights to try it free for two weeks. Okay, my code, Whitson weights, that's wi TS wits, and end weights all spelled out all together, and you'll get it for two weeks. Again, this is all in the show notes for your convenience. But do yourself a favor, this is going to be a game changer for you not just for tracking macros, but for learning about your metabolism, and then eventually having the right macros for your goals. Alright, so here are the simple steps to implement macro tracking. Alright, so back to basics if you need a refresher, or if this is new to you. We're getting back to basics here. Number one, you've got to know your calorie needs. Okay, this is your starting point. Now, even though I said earlier, tracking macros is a great way to build awareness, you don't even have to hit targets, you still can use that data pretty quickly in short order within a couple of weeks to figure out your personal calorie needs, how much energy your body needs to maintain, to gain weight or to lose weight. And the simplest way to do this is to track your food and track your weight every day for about two to three weeks. Right? Just get into the habit of doing that. And the cumbersome way to do this is to then calculate it in a spreadsheet. And if you are if you're a geek, if you're a nerd like me, and you love numbers and spreadsheets go for it. The easy way is to guess what download macro factor and let it do it for you. And if you already took my advice earlier and did that you're ready to go. It's the only food logging app that can actually determine your true calorie target. Other apps chronometer, My Fitness Pal, and many others only estimate this and they do so pretty badly. They can be off by several hundreds of calories, which is why many many people use those apps and then they struggle to hit their goals. Because all they're doing is they're entering numbers and they're not actually determining what they really need. And then, when you've got that setup, this is still step one, determine your calorie needs. I recommend not trying to gain or lose weight until you've spent those three weeks just trying to figure out your maintenance calories, which again, if you use a macro factor, it's just going to do that for you. And all you need to do is log in food and weight. And here's what I want you to reach out to me if you get stuck on this first step. Alright, just reach out to me, you could reach out to me on Instagram at what's in weights. Or you can reach me in our Facebook group which is totally free. Alright. Also be patient. And don't worry about what the metabolism is until you've hit that three week mark. It could be higher or lower than you expect.
Philip Pape 10:00
Hey, this is Philip and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Whitson weights. I started with some weights to help ambitious individuals in their 30s 40s and beyond, who want to build muscle, lose fat and finally look like they live. I've noticed that when people transform their physique, they not only look and feel better, but they also experienced incredible changes in their health, confidence and overall quality of life. If you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same thing to build your ultimate physique and unlock your full potential whether you're just starting out or looking to take your progress to the next level. That's why I created wit's end weights physique University, a semi private group coaching experience designed to help you achieve your best physique ever, with a personalized done for you nutrition plan, custom designed courses, new workout programs each month, live coaching calls and a supportive community, you'll have access to everything you need to succeed. If you're ready to shatter your plateaus and transform your body and life, head over to Whitson weights.com/physique. Or click the link in the show notes to enroll today. Again, that's Whitson weights.com/physique, I can't wait to welcome you to the community and help you become the strongest cleanest and healthiest version of yourself. Now back to the show. So that's number one is just calculating your calorie needs, then we have setting your macro targets. All right, protein is the one we start with. Because this is the game changer for most people, most people are getting far less protein than they need. And you want to aim for up to that one gram per pound of target body weight. So if you're 200 pounds, and eventually you're gonna try to get to 180, you want to be eating at least 100, like around 180 grams of protein, don't overcomplicate this, right, get in that ballpark, and you're good, you're probably currently eating way less than that. So just getting close, that is going to be a major improvement. And again, if you use the macro factor, you select high or extra high protein, you'll get right in that range, then you allocate the rest of your calories to carbs and fats. And this can vary widely based on your preferences and goals. I suggest starting at 30% of calories from fat, and the rest of them carbs. And then you can go up or down on the fat if that's your preference. And at the risk of sounding like a parrot macro factor will do this for you if you select a balanced approach. So we've got what are your calories, what is your protein, what are your fats and carbs, then you just track your intake, don't worry about hitting the targets. So this is where I'm repeating what I said before, just track your intake, and then see how it stacks up against your targets. And that will give you the reality based data that you need to know what needs rebalancing. Because you may have something pretty close to where you need, you don't have to worry about it. And something else is way off. And it might be off from day to day, or might be off every day. That's it. It's amazing how much you can learn about your eating habits that eventually will give you insights into all those other more detailed things I alluded to earlier, like your saturated fat, like your fiber, like your meal timing, it's all going to come out of that eventually. But we just start with the big rocks. Last step to tracking your macros is have fun, figuring out what foods are going to fit your macros without making you hungry. Ah, okay, so that's a sneaky little variable that I just added to the equation I get it adds a tiny, tiny bit of complexity, hunger, right to biofeedback we call hunger. But this is your chance to start experimenting, eating whatever you want to fit your macros. And what you're gonna find as you do that, is that certain types of foods, for example, more whole nutrient dense foods will tend to fit your macros better and satisfy you at the same time. But hey, if pizza or ice cream fit in there, and you feel great eating them, and you enjoy them, see what works have those in there. Like that's what I encourage is the experimentation and the feedback of how you feel when you eat these things while trying to hit your macros. Because your body is really it's what was I gonna say your body is is very much able to tell you what's going on, it's going to quickly give you feedback on what makes sense. And then the things like micronutrients, fiber and so on, will naturally start to get rebalanced. You know, in some cases, they will and that's okay, that'll be step 234 later on, but you're gonna get a lot into a lot better food quality and kind of healthy dietary pattern than you've ever been before. Just because you're trying to get these macros lined up, especially driven by protein and having balance. Those are very important. And there's other things you know that you can get complicated like gut health and whatever, that again start to get resolved when you have enough protein and balance. All right. Now, the elephant in the room here The caveat is that theoretically, you can hit your macros eating nothing but protein shakes and pop tarts are nothing but you know, meat lovers pizza with a little bit of vegetables. But that's not the point. The goal here is to create a sustainable approach that allows for nutrition and enjoyment over the long term. And tracking only macros is just Don't wait to ignore all the noise and focus on the simplicity of balance before you then move on to more fine tuned optimization, I think it's a very reasonable stair step, like I mentioned earlier. So macro tracking, like anything else is a tool, it's just a tool, just like a budget is a tool for your money. If you use it wisely, it's going to teach you a lot about your eating habits and behaviors. And thus, you'll know exactly what needs to change. And that is the kind of clarity and confidence that most people don't have. Now, for that advanced tip that I mentioned earlier, as we wrap up the episode, even when working with very experienced clients, I often start with them by revisiting these basics, these macro tracking basics, because they are that important. And I had a client recently, let's call him John, he came to me frustrated with his lack of progress. And by that I usually mean inability to lose fat, right kind of the beer gut and a little bit of extra weight and already lifting weights, but still not getting the physique and the health of the want. And he was actually tracking a lot of things. He was already tracking macros, tracking supplements, he was asking questions about creatine, and mealtime, and what should I eat about my workout around my workouts? What kind of supplements should I get? But then I said, Hey, just send me some screenshots of your food log, please. You know, he was even using macro factor, right. And I saw that his protein and fats had gradually increased at the expense of carbs. Okay, like he didn't even realize he was actually eating a ton of protein. And again, especially bigger mail clients who eat a lot of meat, you'll see this pattern using a ton of protein and fat. And there were like fatty cuts of meat and high fat, dairy, and whatever. So it ended up being a lot of protein and fat. And the carbs are actually pretty low. They were like close to 100 grams, which for him being on over 3000 calories was was very low. And then he was hitting some walls in his training and recovery. After heavy lifting sessions. He's like, man, I've wiped. And I'm really having trouble pushing it and getting the reps. Even when I'm not dieting, you know, I'm not in a calorie deficit. And so we just stripped everything back to basics, right? I advise them, let's just rebalance your meals this week, and hit your protein, fats and carbs targets again. But really focus on the carbs this time, because it just wasn't balanced. Focus on that for a month. Let's see what happens. So what happened, of course, he started to feel much better his lifts started to move his sleep and recovery improved in in his biofeedback to me, that his ratings that that I collect a lot of data. By the way, when I work with clients, we collect a lot of data to know what's going on and be very proactive about it. And he didn't have to worry about meal timing or supplements or creatine, he just had to get his carbs back up. His energy in the gym went up his stressful and down, because we simplified the process. He was like, Man, this is I don't know why I overcomplicate things, but I do. And that's it. It's a very stripped down easy change. But it doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone, right? You may be in the weeds and not even know it. And you may be hitting macros every day, consistently. But they're not the right ones, or they're not balanced for you. Right? You may have gotten like, No, I'm getting my protein every day. And then my fats and carbs are consistent every day. But what if one of those isn't what you need? Right? So I'd like to think that by you know, having me in his corner as a coach, I was able to see a pattern that he wasn't seeing, even though the solution seems very simple. And that's the power of mastering the basics before diving into complexities. So my tip for all of you advanced trackers out there that, you know, think you know, at all, because trust me, I've been there is to ask yourself, Is my simple macro balance, right for me? Is there something I can nudge or rebalance to unlock my next phase of progress? Even better? Can I just ignore some of the minutiae for a while and focus on macros, and see if that overcomes a roadblock for me and go back and listen to the episode we did recently about the Pareto rule or the Pareto principle where we talked about sometimes you just you're putting way too much effort into something to get very little for it, and you might need to just strip it down. Alright, so as we wrap up, let's recap the main points. Number one, tracking macros, while while it's not perfect, right? It's not the 99%, it gets you to the 90 95% or even 80%. It's an excellent starting point for many people. Number two, it allows you to focus on the most important aspects of nutrition, which is energy balance, and macro composition, which goes a ton goes a long way toward what you're trying to achieve. Building muscle losing fat, right, that's where it's at, and then a lot of the other health stuff tends to work itself out. Number three, by simplifying your approach, you're more likely to be consistent, a wonderful combination, right? And that's the key to long term success, consistency. patience, flexibility. Last thing, remember, you can always add complexity later if needed. Like if you're at 80%. You want to get to 90%. And it takes a little bit of extra effort to get there and you want to make that trade off. Go for it. Right. But Master the basics first.
Philip Pape 19:57
All right, if you found value in today's episode That's really all I have for you guys. Like, that's as simple as it is. If you thought there was something magic or secret in this there isn't. But I think the simplicity of this approach is itself the secret. So do me a favor. If you like this, send me a text message, using the link in the show notes where it says, Send me a text message. Let me know what you thought about this simplified approach. Or if you have any questions that you want me to address in future episodes, like a future q&a, because when I hear from you, I just light up, I get a smile on my face. It's not like we have millions of people clamoring to send me messages, please send me a message. And I don't want to sound desperate either. So if you don't want to send me a message, that's fine. Your feedback really does absolutely help shape the content of the show. I mean, everything I put in the show my blood, sweat, soul, heart, whatever is for you. And the changes that I make tend to be based on what you tell me you're getting out of the show and delivering what you want. Alright, until next time, keep using those weights. Please keep lifting those weights and keep taking it one day, one calorie at a time, one macro at a time. I'll talk to you next time here on the wits and weights podcast.