A Macro a Day Keeps the Doctor Away or Something Like That...

For this week's blog post I thought I would dive into my journey with nutrition and fill you in on why I am so jazzed about the macro approach to eating.

What I kind of touched on in my very first blog post (which, if you haven't read it, now would be a great time to do so) is that before stepping foot into a gym for the first time I never gave food a second thought. My mom is an incredibly cook and baker and I was lucky enough to always have a home made lunch packed all the way through college (I went to UCSB and lived at home, because I don't like people enough to share a room with a stranger). For dinners, she cooked up the most extravagant meals, which of course I didn't really appreciate until I moved out and realized that her cooking skills were not hereditary and I knew little to nothing about fixing a presentable meal (hello, eat your favorite cereal night every night) and I never had cause to really pay attention to what I was eating or how much of it was on my plate.

Fast forward to the time after I started going to the gym regularly for that famous cardio kickboxing class, when I suddenly became very aware of how bad carbs and fats were thanks to locker room chats with my fellow gym rats. As is always the case with me (and my mom would wholeheartedly agree), I can't do anything in moderation, so I dove into this skinny bitch mindset 120% even though I knew literally nothing about what a carb or fat truly even was. This new journey sent me down a path were salad dressing was replaced with mustard, pb & j sandwiches became j sandwiches (which my husband still teases me about to this day), burger buns and sodas were skipped and I made a good attempt at cutting out dessert, but who am I kidding, that was impossible so I soon abandoned that project. My plan was to eat as little as possible in an effort to avoid the dreaded carbs and fats, little did I know, I basically lived off of carbs. What was my stance on protein you ask?...Protein is for bodybuilders and since I didn't dare pick up a weight, I didn't need those yucky shakes in my life. Clearly I had a lot to learn to say the least!

My views on nutrition really didn't start to change until I moved to San Diego after college and fell in with a new gym crowd. Whole30, organic, whole food, gluten free, paleo were some of the new terms being thrown around and so, of course, I had to jump on the band wagon. While I never did a Whole30 (ummm again anything that asks me to give up sugar is an instant deal breaker for me), I definitely became a whole food groupie and made a big effort to eat paleo for the better part of 4 years. Now if you haven't picked up on this, I am extremely good at being 'all in' on anything I set my mind to, so when I say I went paleo for 4 years, I took it really seriously, so seriously in fact that I converted to only eating extremely dark chocolate sweetened with honey or coconut sugar, avoiding anything even remotely good tasting because let's be real, dark chocolate tastes like dirt. If I went out to eat I would almost always order a salad, dressing on the side and would ask for a side of mustard (at this point I still hadn't given up on the mustard on salad again, because who needs extra fat in their diet, right?) and I'm sad to admit that I literally never, ever ordered what truly sounded good to me off any menu, rather opting for what I knew I should be eating or what I deemed to be the healthiest option. At the time, I was convinced I was doing this for my own health, but if I was being totally honest with myself it was definitely also partly because I wanted to look 'fit' and 'in shape,' whatever that meant.

I'm not really sure what caused me to kick the paleo deal to the curb, but what followed was several years where I was still doing my best to eat whole foods, avoiding dairy and gluten because I had convinced myself I had an allergy to them and focusing on only eating non processed, healthy options at every opportunity. While I salivated over a strawberry yogurt, I opted for the plain version, because I knew the sugars in the fruity options were crap for me and eating out was really no fun because it consisted of me fighting with myself over the meal I wanted to order and the meal I knew I should order, with the latter always winning of course. This approach lasted several years until (for various reasons) I landed at a naturopathic doctor's office with blood work that showed I was deficient in all kinds of nutrients and just overall really messed up and out of balance in a variety of areas. I remember being so frustrated when the doctor went over my lab results, because I truly believed I was doing everything right, from healthy eating to adequate exercising and more that I couldn't understand why my body was apparently so out of whack. As it turned out, in effort to ace my health and fitness approach, I was putting so much stress and pressure on my body that it caused a sort of rebellion inside of me and the prescribed remedy was to relax, laugh more, spend time barefoot and just truly chill out a bit...easier said than done, let me tell you!

Without going into too much detail, I spent the next year really reeling in my workouts and approach to nutrition pretty dramatically, focusing on eating nutrient dense foods when available and enjoying meals with friends to feed my soul when the opportunity presented itself. In time, my lab work regulated and I was back to feeling myself, which is exactly when I stumbled across Madeline's instagram page and began following her workouts. I watched her weigh her food, categorize everything into protein, fats and carbs and always promised myself I would never go down that road, because if I learned anything from my past, it's that I am incapable of doing anything with 50% effort and could totally see myself going down an obsessive road with macros rather quickly.

While I wasn't onboard with counting macros quite yet, the idea that my body probably needs a whole lot more food, especially protein, than I always thought fascinated me and led me to sign up for the January 2020 Tighter Together challenge. I told myself I would give the assigned macros a try, but the second I felt myself obsessing over the numbers I would call it quits and to my surprise, not only did I end up counting macros the whole 4 weeks, but I felt a sense of freedom and total liberation like I never felt before around food. Suddenly, that delicious strawberry yogurt I so desperately wanted years before had value and added to my daily protein goal and I confidently added peanut butter back into my sandwich, because I knew my body needed more fat that it was getting. Every food took on a macro value and the need to only eat salads with mustard dissipated overnight (thank goodness!).

Macros allowed me to structure my meals as I pleased without having to worry about the actual ingredient of each and every little thing I was putting in my mouth. Now don't get me wrong, I still like to stay away from processed foods as much as I can and focus on whole food options, but I also enjoy protein bars, strawberry yogurt, sugary granola, Chick Fil A nuggets with sauce (I went the other day for the 2nd time ever and can't wait to go back for more) and so much more without any sense of guilt associated with those choices. I can opt to start my day with a cookie, muffin or pastry (this girl likes to start the day sweet) and not feel like the whole day is wasted because it began with a non-healthy treat. I can add butter to my English muffin and keep the bun on my burger if I decide to, because everything is simply a ratio of protein, fats and carbs, nothing more, nothing less!

I feel so confident knowing that my body is getting consistent and adequate nutrition each and every day, without me having to forgo dinner with friends or ever revert back to mustard on my salad unless I absolutely want to. While I definitely don't weigh and track every single day, I like to log about 1-3 days a week just to make sure I am still on track and just build my plate strategically for the remaining days. I still have plenty of days where things don't go according to plan (check out my Summary Sunday posts on my Instagram feed for sample weeks) and I am happy to say that I am 100% ok with that, because I know I have a game plan to fall back to the next day. I prioritize protein and let carbs and fats fall where they may, knowing that some days I want butter on my toast, avocado on my sandwich and dressing on my salad, whereas other days I need a bowl of pasta for dinner. I can confidently say that I have never felt such freedom around my food choices as I do now and my initial anxiety of obsessing over macros was thankfully never even an issue.

As you can see, my approach to nutrition was all over the place over the years and it will probably change again in the future, but for now, I'd say I am finally in a happy place both mentally and physically, eating more than I have ever allowed myself to eat before, while giving less brain space to obsessive thoughts about nutrition and feeling like a total champion because of it!