The Truth About Macro Tracking And How To Know When It's Time To Stop Using A Scale
I keep getting a question from busy mamas who are looking to improve their health: If I start macro-tracking, will I have to do it forever? And I love giving them the answer: Nope! You shouldn’t weigh and measure your food for the rest of your life. Because that’s not what the goal of macro tracking is!
The goal of macro tracking isn’t to have to track forever. Macro tracking is a tool that teaches you:
How much food you need to reach your goals
How to portion your food for a balanced day
I’ve been macro tracking for nine years, and for the first few years, I tracked everything that I put in my mouth. But now that I understand nutrition and what my body needs I don’t need to track all the time!
Although you don’t need to track forever, I want to explain why you do need to track for a little while and how to know when to move into intuitive eating.
The reason you need to start using a scale
One of people's biggest fears with macro tracking is measuring their food. If you aren’t used to using a food scale, it can feel intimidating to start.
But the good news is, that it’s not nearly as hard as you’ve built it up to be! To be 100% honest with you, I prefer using a food scale over measuring cups, even when I’m not tracking! Instead of having to wash 10+ measuring spoons or cups every time I cook, I just use the scale and have maybe a spoon or a knife to wash.
The biggest reason I have my clients measure their food with a food scale is so that they can start understanding portion sizes.
Although we all understand what portions are, very few people can tell what a portion is just by looking at food. Especially when we aren’t used to seeing measurements in grams, which is what most companies use to measure a portion.
So until you start measuring out your food and see what 4 oz of chicken looks like, or what one serving of pasta is, you can’t understand how much you’re eating
One of my favorite examples of this is Crumbl Cookies. And yes, I eat Crumbl Cookies, even when I’m tracking my food or in a cut, where I’m actively trying to lose weight. But anyway, here’s why Crumbl makes such a great example of portion sizes!
My husband brought home Crumbl one day, and I thought to myself, there’s got to be a lot of calories in one cookie, so I’ll just have half a cookie.
I ate my half of a cookie and went on my way. But then a few days later I was thinking about how good the cookie was and decided to look up the nutrition to see if I could fit another half a cookie into my meal plan for the day.
When I went online I was shocked to see that one cookie was four servings! And that one serving, for ¼ of a cookie, was 300+ calories! And I ate two servings without blinking an eye.
That’s why you need to understand what a serving size is! Had I understood that half a cookie was going to “cost” me that much nutritionally before I had eaten it, I would have made a different decision!
How can you expect yourself to eat a balanced diet if you don’t know what balance looks like?
So yeah, you have to start macro tracking by measuring your food. Because when you begin to measure your food, you can physically see and understand how much you’re eating.
Before you can run in your nutrition you have to learn to walk. And measuring your food is the walking stage of healthy eating. But I fully expect every one of my clients to learn how to run, so I don’t want them to measure their food forever.
How to shift away from measuring your food
I love food scales for their accuracy, but just like any tool, they can become a crutch that we rely too heavily on.
This is something my Type A, perfectionist mamas can easily fall into. Hitting the perfect numbers becomes more important than learning how to eat intuitively.
But that’s not the point of macro tracking. It’s meant to ebb and flow, just like life. Macro tracking is a tool, not a way of life.
Which is why I want my clients to use the scale with the intention of dropping it one day. If you don’t ever get past the stage where you need the scale, then you’ve missed the point of macro tracking.
Macro tracking isn’t meant to be another way to restrict yourself or drive yourself crazy striving for perfection.
Macro tracking is a tool that you use to learn about nutritional awareness.
When you first start tracking your food, you discover where you might be overeating or undereating.
As you move through the four phases of macro tracking, you learn when to increase your food, when to keep it at maintenance and when to cut your calories.
When you become aware of your nutritional needs you can learn how to fuel your body without knowing exactly how many grams of food you should eat each day.
I encourage my clients to move into intuitive eating after they’ve reached their weight loss goals or once they’re happy with where they’re at.
Intuitive eating is the end goal of macro tracking. What I want for my clients, and for you, is to understand your nutritional needs so that you can eat well for the rest of your life, with or without a scale.
If you don’t know what your nutritional needs are, then let me help you! Schedule a free Healthy Mama Blueprint Call and we can discuss where you’re at in your nutrition. Then, if we’re a good fit I can help guide you through the four stages of macro tracking so that you hit your goals without feeling restricted!
