TRANSITIONING AWAY FROM TRACKING MACROS
We at Level TEN use macronutrient and/or calorie tracking with most of our clients for all or some of their time with us. Dietary tracking can be a great tool to build awareness around food, help clients understand how food impacts physiology, and when shooting for specific physique or athletic goals. Dietary tracking is the practice of logging and calculating the amounts of protein, carbohydrates, fats, and calories in one’s diet and shooting for specific numbers to hit each day. Research has shown that people who consistently tracked their food for a year (>67% of the time), had significantly better weight loss outcomes than those who tracked rarely or inconsistently (Ingels et. al, 2017).
Here’s the thing - when people get used to tracking their macronutrients, they can sometimes become completely dependent on technology to make decisions around food. It can feel paralyzing for some when their food scale breaks, or they’re out at a restaurant without nutritional info, or they are faced with a plate of food made by a loved one who doesn’t pay attention to macros or calories. They can also lose touch with the physical sensations of hunger, fullness, and satiety as they outsource their nutritional decision-making solely to macro-making coaches and MyFitnessPal entries. And in extreme cases, dietary tracking can exacerbate disordered eating patterns and food obsession in individuals who are susceptible to eating disorders.
This is why most of us coaches at Level TEN would argue that the end goal for all clients is NOT a lifelong relationship with a food tracking app. Even for us as coaches, most of us don’t envision pulling out our food scales and smart phones at every single meal for the rest of our lives. What we want for our clients (and ourselves) in the long run is the ability to maintain a healthy weight range and fuel our bodies for the activities we love by using both our knowledge of nutrition and our bodies’ internal signals to guide us. For many clients, we like to think of tracking calories and macros as “training wheels” for a long, healthy relationship with food - to be used for a period of time until we can comfortably navigate eating without the extra help.
So how do we bridge the gap between meticulously tracking what we put in our mouths to using our awareness and intuition to help us make decisions around food? Let’s talk about a few ways I like to help my clients do just that. We can use these approaches as progressive steps on a path, or as distinct practices to try on their own. Feel free to play with each approach as you see fit!
STEPS WHEN TRANSITIONING AWAY FROM TRACKING
1.) CALORIE RANGE + FLEXIBLE MACROS APPROACH
One of the first approaches I use with clients who are looking to move away from strict macro tracking is using a calorie range with a protein “minimum” and a fiber goal. For example, if a client has been closely tracking and hitting 2000 calories, 130g protein, 180g carbohydrates, and 84g fats and maintaining weight, I would likely give them a range of 1900-2100 calories and a minimum of 130g protein and 25g fiber. This would allow the client to start to tap into hunger, fullness, and food preferences without completely letting go of tracking. If the client was less hungry on a given day, they could opt for the lower end of the calorie range and shoot for higher fats, which tend to be less filling. Alternatively, if they were extra hungry that day, the client could get closer to the higher end of the range and opt for more protein and carb dense foods, which tend to be more filling.
What I love about this approach is that it allows the individual to feel what it feels like to have a relatively consistent energy intake day to day (rather than having very high and very low calorie days), and to start to tap their own internal signals and preferences to help make decisions. It also allows for more flexibility with eating out at restaurants or on the road, supports balanced holiday eating, and helps clients avoid getting too wrapped up in the small details. We also continue to pay attention to biofeedback, performance, and weight as we use this intermediate approach.
2.) WEANING OFF OF TRACKING DAYS
With many clients who have learned to track consistently and are hesitant to go cold turkey, it can be helpful to have a period of time where we reduce the number of days tracked per week while monitoring weight, performance, and biofeedback. This can help the client learn to trust themselves without the “training wheels” of tracking. For example, a client who starts out tracking 7 days a week may start by removing 2 nonconsecutive days of tracking for 2 weeks. They would still pay attention to how their weight, hunger, fullness, digestion, energy, performance, sleep, etc are impacted by the change. I usually encourage clients to try to eat in the same way they would if they were tracking. Over time, we remove 1-2 days of tracking at a time, slowly building up to a full week without tracking.
The benefit of this approach is that it helps the individual start building trust with themselves. It allows them to see that they can lean on the skills they’ve built and use their bodies’ signals to make good decisions. It also allows us to see if adjustments need to be made in real time. If a client’s digestion slows, their weight drops, their energy tanks, and hunger spikes up on non-tracking days, we can make an adjustment by adding a snack or more food to meals. On the other hand, if the client starts to feel sluggish, over-full, and average weight ticks up over time, we can adjust by looking for lower calorie food options and aiming for satiety cues like “satisfied, not stuffed” at the end of a meal.
3.) USING HAND-SIZE PORTIONS OR THE PLATE METHOD
These are both methods for loosely estimating the macronutrient components of foods without using a scale or app to track. It’s a great way to keep tabs on intake without having to pull out a phone at the table. Some helpful strategies can be shooting for 1 palm sized serving of protein at each meal and 1 fist sized serving of vegetables each meal. This could also look like filling up half your plate with colorful foods, ¼ of your plate with protein, and ½ of your plate with carbohydrates.
4.) HUNGER/FULLNESS AWARENESS
This is one of the most important skills that we can have in our nutritional toolkits for the long haul. Many people who have dieted, overeaten, or used macros for long periods of time have lost touch with these vital cues and it may take time and practice to restore them. After a client has spent adequate time eating at maintenance (i.e., not over or under eating), we can work towards using these physiological cues to guide eating. Spending time eating at maintenance can help to re-calibrate hunger and fullness cues, which is why it’s important for many clients to spend some time there.
A practical tool we can use to develop this skill is quantifying hunger and fullness. Some people use a 1-10 satiety scale, while others use a percentage system. If you’ve never used one of these methods, it can be helpful to start by describing what each extreme number or percentage group feels like to you physically, mentally, and emotionally. For example, someone who is at 100% full might describe that level of fullness as uncomfortable, feeling lots of pressure in the abdominal area, and lethargy or heaviness in their bodies. On the other hand, someone might describe a 10/10 on the hunger scale as painful, gnawing sensations in their abdomen, paired with obsessive thoughts about food and intense irritability.
After getting comfortable assigning values to the extreme levels of hunger and fullness, we can start to work on the more nuanced levels of satiety. We can start to learn what a 7 on the hunger scale feels like and understand that it’s probably time to start seeking out some food, before we hit a 9 or 10. A hugely important tool for most people for long term weight maintenance is being able to stop eating when they feel satisfied, instead of stuffed. This requires practice and lots of trial and error. Some helpful steps in getting there are eating slowly, chewing food completely (to a paste consistency), and putting their fork down between bites.
With time and practice in satiety awareness, many people will find it much easier to maintain weight and have a healthy relationship with food & their body for the long haul. This allows people to enjoy flexibility with eating, navigate travel, events, holidays, and different seasons of life while staying in tune with and honoring their bodies’ needs. It can help to continue to collect data while practicing hunger and fullness awareness. This could include paying attention to things like weight, energy, digestion, performance, recovery, sleep, stress, etc.
5.) THE END GOAL: “INTENTIONAL EATING”
Intentional eating is where nutritional knowledge meets individual awareness and allows us to experience sustainable, enjoyable eating for life. This is where we’d love clients to end up for the majority of the time. By practicing the skills outlined above and continuing to work on them, most of us will be able to learn how to eat intentionally for the long haul.
Intentional eating is characterized for most people by:
Eating a wide variety of whole, nutrient dense foods
Eating foods that work for each individual’s unique needs
Eating adequate amounts of protein, fiber, & micronutrients
Making room for fun & celebratory foods without binging or restricting them
Eating when physically hungry, stopping when comfortably satisfied
Being able to navigate social situations, holidays, and challenging seasons of life with confidence and awareness in food choices and eating behaviors
The beauty of viewing calorie/macro tracking as a tool as opposed to a lifelong commitment is that we can always go back to it if and when we need to.
If we are noticing biofeedback changes like low energy or we notice unexpected weight changes, tracking will always be there as a tool to “audit” our current intake.
If we have specific performance or physique goals like wanting to run a marathon or participate in a bodybuilding competition, we can always enter back into the practice of tracking as well for more precision.
We at Level TEN hope to empower clients with the many tools needed for peaceful, healthy relationships with food and their bodies. In the meantime, we hope you found this helpful!
UNTIL NEXT TIME - COACH SARAH