6 Benefits of Macro Counting for Better Health & Fitness
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Do you want to burn fat? Build muscle? reach optimal health?
If the answer is yes, then this episode is for you.
I’m about to give you a deep dive into all why macro counting is so beneficial for your health and fitness and really help you understand why macro counting can provide you will all these benefits.
Hopefully, if you're on the fence about macro counting, the six benefits I cover in this episode will help sway you.
And if those aren’t reason enough, consider this…
When you join the MCMS Online Academy today, you get instant access to our tools and resources, including your customized macro calculations!
This course is designed to walk you through everything you need to know to start tracking macros like a pro.
So what are you waiting for?
Start your journey to better health and fitness today!
Click HERE to get started.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your podcast. I am so grateful that you are here spending some time with me today. If you are wanting to burn fat or build muscle, or just overall reach optimal health, which I think majority of us listening that may be a goal or one of those things are a goal of ours. If the answer is yes, then this episode is for you. I'm going to be diving deep into all why macro counting can be so beneficial for your health and fitness and really kind of help you understand why macro counting can help you provide benefits and really help you understand why macro counting is able to provide you with so many benefits.
But before I dive in, I wanted to share this review of the day. It comes from Cool Miko. They gave a five star review and said, "Thank you. I'm so glad I found this podcast. It sounds like Julie's speaking directly to me in every single episode. She has given me so much food for thought and her inspiration has even given me the courage to start a blog, which is something that I've been thinking about doing for years. Thank you, Julie, for addressing things in a way that makes me think and encourages me to try new things." I love this so much. First of all, I am so proud of you for overcoming that fear and gaining that courage. I always say that there is so much courage to be found when we take action. And I think that taking action actually cures fear and it gains confidence. I read that or I saw that quote a few years ago and my life has truly never been the same because every time I get fearful or timid to start something new, I always just tell myself, take action.
Because when I take action, that is where true confidence can be found. And truly only confidence can be found when we take action and we show ourselves like we are able to do this. So I am so stinking proud of you. If you haven't already first subscribed to the podcast, be sure to do so. All you got to do is type in, Embrace Your Real to your podcast provider, whether that's Apple podcast or Spotify or Google and make sure you subscribe. And then secondly, if you could leave a rating and review on whatever platform you listen, that would mean the absolute world to me. It really does help us out spread the message of Embrace Your Real to more people around the world. Okay, so let's dive into the six benefits of macro counting for better health and fitness.
Reason number one, macro counting can help you achieve better health. And when I say health, I definitely mean both physical and mental, but in this podcast, I'm going to be discussing the physical health because I know so many people who are looking to take control of their health, but they really have no idea where to start. They think in order to take control of their health, they need to go keto or vegan or intermittent fast, or buy all these expensive, weird health foods, or honestly take thousands of dollars worth of supplements every month. And the thing is that is actually not what you need to do to achieve optimal health. Of course, certain things can be helpful, but don't buy into the lie that you think you need to do X, Y, and Z to achieve optimal health. If you feel lost and don't really know where to start, I can count on telling you that macro counting can be a solution for you.
When you count macros, you can ensure that you are getting the proper amount of macronutrients, which again, if you're not familiar, macros is short for macronutrients. And essentially there are three macronutrients that our body needs, protein, carbs, and fats. And when you are doing that, when you are counting your macros, you are ensuring that you're getting the proper amount of macronutrients in your nutritional plan every single day. This can not only help you maintain a healthy weight, but it can also help you reduce the risk of chronic disease and improve your overall health. Here's the thing. If you go vegan, keto or intermittent fast, or even buy organic only, or shop at these health food stores, you can still eat more or less than your body actually needs and not reach optimal health. Most likely you will still not be eating the correct amount of protein, fat, and carbs.
And that's why I'm a huge believer in macro counting because it is not a diet. It is literally teaching you how to optimally fuel your body because without nourishing your body with the macro nutrients that your body needs daily, no matter what kind of foods you're eating, you will still struggle to reach optimal health, to maintain a healthy weight and to reduce your risk of chronic disease. Reason number two, macro counting can help you take your fitness to the next level. The cool thing about macro counting is that you can tailor your diet to support your fitness goals. When you count your macros, this can not only help you lose fat, but it can help you build muscle and improve your performance in your workouts. Have you ever heard this saying, "You can't out-train a bad diet"? Honestly, as cliche as it is, it's because it's true.
Your fitness will likely not improve without improving the way that you nourish your body. Let me say that again, your fitness will not improve without improving the way that you nourish your body. You still need the right amount of carbs to fuel your muscles in your workouts. You need the proper amount of carbs and proteins to help your muscles recover after your workout. And you need the right amount of protein to actually build muscle. And you actually need to eat enough calories daily or else your body will likely be in a chronic state of catabolism, which essentially means that you are constantly breaking down muscle and never building it back up. You know what this means. You may lose fat, but you won't change your actual body composition. You won't look like you have more defined arms, legs, booty, or whatever it is that you're aiming for.
And as I said earlier, you can tailor your diet to support your fitness goals. When you count your maccros, whether you want to be gaining muscle shredding fat, or maintaining, you just change your macros depending on your goal. You don't have to be constantly living in a [inaudible 00:05:51] deficit, but instead you alter your calories and macros to meet your goal in whatever season you are in reason. Reason number three, macro counting can help you lose fat. Now, if weight loss is one of your goals, macro counting can be a great tool to help you achieve it. When you count your macros, you're able to create a diet that's specifically designed for fat loss, and this can not only help you lose weight, but it can help you keep it off in the long run. Here's how we essentially gain body fat if you need like a 101.
Our bodies can only store so much protein and carbs at one time. The storage for both are limited, but the storage for fat in our body is actually unlimited. So when we eat more proteins and carbs than our body needs, our body runs out of storage, but it needs something to do with it, right? So it breaks it down, transforms it into fat. And since again, our storage for fat is unlimited, you kind of get what I'm talking. You kind of catch what I'm throwing. Now I need to put a disclaimer here. It's honestly nearly impossible for someone to reach the point where they eat too much protein. Protein is so satiating that I think you would be way too full to actually do such a thing. Plus, most of the people that I worked with and I've worked with thousands of women over the years, they struggle to even get close to what their body actually needs in terms of protein.
So this is more in reference to carbs than it is to protein. Now here's actually how eating the correct amount of macros can actually help you burn fat. Carbs, if you are eating too little carbs, your body stores excess body fat, because it feels deprived and it thinks it needs to save fuel for later. So doing a low carb diet for too long will actually make it harder for you to see the results that you want. Fat. Eating fat in the right amount, actually primes your body for fat loss because without eating fat, your body is incapable of burning fat. Plus eating fat at each meal can actually help keep your blood sugar levels stable and fat storage is triggered when blood sugar levels spike. So the more stable your blood sugar levels are the less fat your body will likely be triggered to store.
And then lastly, protein. Protein is the building blocks of muscle. Without protein, you cannot build muscle and without muscle, your body needs to have something, right? You can't just be skin and bones. So it will likely just hold on to fat. Plus when you build muscle, you are actively transforming fat into muscle. So the more muscle that you gain, the less fat you will have on your body. Makes sense? So macro counting can actually help you lead to more effective fat loss. You can avoid eating too much to trigger fat storage and you can eat the perfect amount of protein, carbs, and fats to prime your body for burning fat. It sounds pretty awesome, right? So essentially macro counting can help lead to more effective fat loss. You avoid eating too much to trigger fat storage and you can eat the perfect amount to prime your body for burning fat.
Reason number four, macro counting can help you build muscle. Now, when you count macros, you can make sure that you're getting enough protein and carbs into your diet to support muscle growth. This can not only help you build muscle, but it can also help you achieve the physique that you desire. Now, this is worth highlighting. And I think I've already touched on it in this episode, but let me just do a recap. Protein is essentially the building blocks of muscle. Carbs are fuel for muscles and help with muscle recovery. If your muscles don't recover, you will be in a constant state of catabolism aka muscle breakdown. And when you're not eating enough calories again, that equals a state of catabolism. While it is possible to build muscle without counting macros, it might just take a little bit longer. The reason being is just because how macro counting can prime your body for burning fat, it can also prime your body for building muscle.
While these two things are with different sets of macros, this is the amazing thing about macro counting is that you go through different seasons. You go through what I call different phases. So you have muscle building phase. You have a body fat loss phase. You have a maintenance phase, essentially. You can just adjust your macros based on your current goals. Now, obviously I don't recommend you constantly be doing this. You want to be in a pretty significant amount of time for each one so that you can do it slowly and methodically versus just doing it super fast. Want to make sure that again, you are taking care of your metabolism and not only your metabolism, like I mentioned earlier with your mindset, you don't want to enter into a state of those crash, dieting, toxic cycles. That's the beautiful thing about macro counting is that you can honestly go as slow as you want.
And when you do it slow and methodical, you're likely to actually have it be more sustainable long term. And kind of a side note when it comes to a mistake that I see many people do, many people think that they can try to lose weight and build muscle at the same time. When in reality, you will see better results when you first focus on muscle gain and then focus on weight loss or vice versa. And that's actually something that I talk about inside my macro academy made simple online academy. And inside that academy, we not only teach you how to utilize the different phases of macro academy, but we also teach you when to do it because you're not going to have the same macros. You're not even going to have the same macro sets within a specific phase. So as you go throughout, for example, a body fat loss phase, you're going to likely go through progressive sets, which we talk about all in our Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy.
So if you want to learn more about that program, I will link that in the show notes, but you can go to www.macrocountingmadesimple.com. Again, that's macrocountingmadesimple.com and we will teach you all the ins and outs of what you need to know so that you can feel confident in your macro counting journey. Reason number five, macro counting can help improve your mood. Now, when you count your macros, you can ensure that you're getting the proper amount of nutrients in your diet, and this can actually help improve your mood and boost your overall happiness aka no more hanger, no more mood swings, no more sitting around unable to concentrate because you need more food, no more brain fog because you ate too much food and no more food guilt because you overate or you are labeling foods as good or bad. All you'll be left with is a stable mood.
And when you have a stable mood, that means a healthy, happy life. No one is happy when they're moody all the ding time. So if you're constantly feeling tired, unfocused, foggy, lethargic, on edge, snappy, annoyed, or just plain angry, you've got to try macro counting. It's seriously insane how nourishing your body plays such a huge role in your overall mood. If you don't believe it, at least just try it out and to tell me, I can tell you speaking from experience and having done macro counting for the last almost nine years on and off, really going into a healthy state of now knowing how to properly fuel my body without tracking every single macro, simply because I'm educated and empowered around food. I can tell you that I didn't realize in my journey, especially in college, how much the lack of nutrients really affected my mood.
It affected my productivity. It affected so much in my life and not just that on a basic level, it also affected my relationships. It affected the way that I showed up in my profession at college, around my friends, my family. And so really nourishing your body. You're not just doing it for the physical benefits, the mental benefits, but also think about the other aspects of your life that you can be more present in and nourishing your body can actually help you with that. And reason number six, macro counting is flexible and customizable. And one of the best things honestly about macro counting is that it's so flexible and customizable. You can adjust your macro goals to fit your individual need and preferences. This is honestly what makes macro counting an excellent option for anyone regardless of their fitness level or even dietary restrictions. The thing with all things that I mentioned earlier, keto, intermittent fasting, vegan, organic supplements, and so on and so on.
They are not flexible and they are not customizable. And when it comes to developing a nutrition routine, it's important that you develop one that you can number one, remain consistent with, and two remain consistent with long term. It needs to be a lifestyle, not just something that you do temporarily until you see the results that you want to see. Because when you do that, you'll likely just gain all the weight back or lose the results. And then you'll have found yourself in the toxic cycle of dieting. And that is not a place that you want to find yourself. So macro counting allows you to eat the foods that you love. Enjoy holidays, eating out social gatherings, without fear or guilt, and never feel like you need to deprive yourself again. If you eat the donut for breakfast, you're able to alter the rest of your day accordingly without messing up your goals or even feeling guilty.
If you know you're going to eat pizza on a Friday night, again, you can alter your macros during the day so that you can eat the pizza without feeling shame or guilt or feeling like you need to punish yourself. All in all, it's amazing. Hopefully if you're on the fence about macro counting, these six benefits, maybe help sway you to at least try it. So let me quickly recap these six things. Reason number one, macro counting can help you achieve better health reason. Number two, macro counting can help you take your fitness to the next level. Reason number three, macro counting can help you lose fat. Reason number four, macro counting can help you build muscle. Reason number five, macro counting can help you improve your mood. And reason number six, macro counting is flexible and customizable. And if that reason is not enough, I want you to consider this.
When you join the Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy, you instantly gain access to our tools, our resources, and even customized macro calculations. We teach you how to do that. This course is designed to walk you through everything that you need to know to start tracking your macros like a pro. So if you are ready to take the leap, start your journey towards better health and fitness. You can go to macrocountingmadesimple.com. Again, that's macrocountingmadesimple.com. I hope that this episode out was helpful for you. Maybe it was the first time you ever heard about macros, or maybe you're just still in that information phase where you're trying to learn all the information. I can tell you, speaking from experience, having done macro counting for, like I said, nine, almost 10 years now, it has single handedly transformed so many aspects of my life.
I feel like it has improved my relationship with food. And I also have seen so many other physical and mental benefits from just feeling empowered and educated around food. Because for a decade plus in my life, I was not educated around food. I felt shame. I felt guilt. I felt confused around food. And when you feel those feelings, it's really, really hard to experience the freedom that we deserve around food. And that's exactly in my opinion, why macro counting can be so beneficial for better health and fitness. If you have someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your story. I love, love, love connecting with you guys.
That is all that I have for today's episode. But again, if you want to learn more and join the Macro Counting Made Simple online Academy. We would absolutely love and be honored to help do a deep dive with you so that you can be a master at macro counting and properly fueling your body for any season of life. You find yourself in again, that's macroaccountingmadesimple.com, if you want to learn more about that is all that I have for today's episode. Thank you again so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next one.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie A. Ledbetter. Yes. It's with A name in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing. Be sure to subscribe to Apple podcast, to never miss an episode. Thank you much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.