7 Reasons Why Macro Counting “Doesn’t Work” for You
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
Marco counting is what healed my relationship with food. It opened me up to this whole new word where I didn’t need to deprive myself of food. I no longer needed to eat as little as possible, avoid my favorite foods, and completely cut food groups out of my daily food intake.
I finally stopped feeling confused about WHAT I should and shouldn’t be eating, or confused about HOW MUCH I should and shouldn’t be eating. I could sit down each day and properly fuel my body without the stress, without wondering if I was “doing it right”, without feeling guilty or having to punish myself. If you can relate to any of these feelings, then I highly suggest trying macro counting.
But here’s the thing: I talk to so many woman who have a poor relationship with food and are constantly dieting and they say, “Macro counting didn’t work” for them. Whenever I hear someone say that, I know there needs to be more to the story than the mere fact that macro counting didn’t work. So if you, too, feel like macro counting isn’t working for you or you are struggling with it now, let me share a few reasons WHY and solutions for each.
What I discuss:
You’re not being honest with yourself about what you’re eating and how much you are eating.
You’re not being consistent enough.
You’re not giving it enough time.
Your macro goals aren’t accurate.
You deprive yourself too much.
You’re not cycling through the four phases of macro counting.
You don’t listen to your body.
Link mentioned in this episode:
Episode 243: What Are the Four Phases of Macro Counting?
Episode 256: 5 Ways To Monitor Your Progress Without The Scale
If you want more from me, be sure to check out…
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Free e-book: www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-6bda1ca8?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_influencer-6bda1ca8_dp_DgsIam9salgfi
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 issue 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 hugs, girl. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your podcast. I'm really excited about today's episode.
Now if you've heard any podcasts of mine, you've likely heard me talk about micro accounting. I'm a huge believer in macro accounting, and I believe that it's a great tool for you to be able to achieve your health and fitness goals without feeling the need to sacrifice the foods or time with friends and family going out to eat and so on and so forth. And I believe that macro accounting has played a role in helping me heal my relationship with food for a decade plus in my life. I struggled with this, but when I implemented and really learned how to macro count, it really opened up a whole new world where I felt like I didn't need to deprive myself.
I no longer felt like I needed to eat as little as possible or avoid my favorite foods, or even completely cut out my food groups of my daily intake. When I started learning how to properly feel my body, I stopped feeling super confused about what I should and shouldn't be eating, or confused about how much I should or shouldn't be eating. I would sit down each day and I would know that I'm actually properly fueling my body. So I no longer had stress and I was no longer feeling like I was, you know, asking myself the question, am I doing this right or feeling guilty for having food or punishing myself or any of those things? And so if that's you, if you have had any of those feelings, I want to suggest that you look into macro accounting.
Now, I know you might have a negative connotation with macro accounting, and maybe you've tried it and you just don't feel like it works for you. If that's the case, if you're kind of in that bucket, I want you to tune into this podcast because there's a few reasons why my macro accounting might have not worked for you in the past. And maybe if you implement, you know, one or more of these things that I'm talking about, then you'll actually see success in macro accounting. On the flip side, if you are really interested in macro accounting and you're like, I've heard you talk about it, I've never tried it, but I want to kind of, you know, dove into it. This is going to be a great podcast for you to learn ahead of time so that you make sure you don't fall into these buckets so that you can experience freedom and you can experience food freedom in particular with macro accounting, as well as knowing how to properly feel your body and feeling educated about that. Right.
And so in today's episode, that is what we're going to be talking about. Seven Reasons Why Macro Accounting Might Not Be Working For You. But before we dove in, I had to share this review. It comes from Hayley Lilly creations. She gave a five star review and said, Love, love, love this. I absolutely love this podcast. I think I stumbled upon it for a reason. There have been so many topics discussed by Julie that have really spoken to me. I have two young daughters and I truly wish to instill these ideas in them now as they get older. Thank you Julie for your amazing work.
Hailey I love this so much. I am so grateful that you stumbled upon this podcast as well and the fact that you are a mom to two young daughters. That is definitely a responsibility and I'm so entirely grateful that you are wanting to instill certain things that you've learned from this podcast in your daughters. I feel like that is one of the biggest honors, and thank you for sharing that. If you haven't already read it, interviewed the podcast, it really does mean the world to us. And not only does it help me and my team as we continue to develop content for this podcast, but it also helps people like Hailey, she said. I stumbled upon this podcast and by you leaving a review, it actually helps other people who stumble upon the podcast as well, actually tune in and decide to tune in or not tune in. And so I just ask that you let us know what maybe a specific episode that has been helping you or spoke to you or in general how this podcast has helped you. We love to hear it. And also people who stumble upon the podcast, whether it's through a friend or someone recommending it or they maybe saw it on the podcast charts. It just helps people decide whether or not they want to tune in. So it really does help us out and it would greatly, greatly bless us. Thank you. In advance. You're doing that.
Okay, so let's dive into the seven reasons why Macro counting might not be working for you. Number one, you're not being honest with yourself about what you're eating or how much you're eating. I hear women all the time say, you know, I'm tracking my macros perfectly and I'm not seeing results. Now, if you were actually tracking your macros perfectly, you would in fact see results. It's inevitable. One thing I want to point out is you don't actually even need to be completely tracking your macros 100% perfectly. No one's going to do that. That's not realistic. But you do need to be consistent and you do need to be honest with yourself about how much you're eating. This is why I'm a huge advocate for weighing your food, especially when you first start macro accounting. And there's many different reasons for this, the first being that it's going to be a lot less messy. So you're now no longer going to need the measuring cups or anything like that. Which just creates more dishes. And, you know, we don't have time for more dishes, but also it also gives you the most accurate representation of what food is. So when you're first starting out, you might not know what four ounces of chicken actually looks like. For me, I was like, Oh, it's a chicken breast. Well, that's the same thing as me saying, like, any banana is equivalent to a banana. Well, the fact of the matter is, they're small bananas. There's medium sized bananas. There's large bananas. So you can't just say like, oh, I had a banana. And I'm just going to say that it's X amount of carbs while the banana itself. Same with apples. Same with so many other different fruits and especially with chicken like it's four ounces is going to look different than just a chicken breast. And so it's just important that you learn what it looks like or. Another example is maybe you are thinking like, Oh, I know what a half a cup of oatmeal looks like. And yet when you actually weigh it out, you're realizing that it's maybe not a half a cup. It's a full cup. Now, if you were to do that, if you were to, you know, track a half a cup in your macro tracking app, but it was actually a full cup that would be 30 grams over what you thought you were eating. And that over time adds up. Right. If you do that in every meal, if you say like, oh, I'm just going to estimate this, that's going to add up over time. And over time, you're likely going to be way over your carbs, fats and protein goals for the day. This happens all the time with something like peanut butter. Oh, I know what two tablespoons of peanut butter looks like. Do you actually, though? Because I know for me, when I first started, I literally thought four tablespoons of peanut butter was two tablespoons. I would do a heaping heaping spoon like a measuring cup. That's another reason why I'm a huge believer in the food scales, because a measuring cup or a teaspoon or a tablespoon, if you go to do a tablespoon of peanut butter, it's most likely going to be a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter. Well, if you do that over time enough, that's going to put you over your protein, carbs and fat. So huge proponent in weighing your food. I believe that there's so many benefits to it, not just it being super convenient, but also teaching you. And that's the biggest part. And one of the biggest reasons why I'm a huge advocate of macro counting is because I've had I feel like I have learned I feel like I've gone to school in a sense of like I've gotten a full education on food. And when you feel empowered around a certain subject, it's so much easier to be confident around it because you feel fully educated in it or the same thing happens. Maybe you are, you know, doing great, you're tracking your food, but then you grab a few crackers or a few chocolate chips or whatever it is. If you do that over time, over and over again, that's going to put you over on a regular basis. And once you start exceeding on a regular basis, consistently, you're literally going to be over your macros entirely. And that's going to lead to you not seeing results simply because you're not meeting your protein, carbon fat or even calorie goal in and of itself.
Number two, maybe you're not being consistent enough. Maybe you're tracking Monday through Thursday, but then you're skipping Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Well, if you did that, that's going to yield minimal results compared to someone who is tracking their intake and making smart choices seven days per week, not being perfect, but being consistent. I know when Friday hits, people are exhausted from the week they toss in the towel a.k.a their macros and they just have a free for all for the weekend. I am not saying that you need to track every single day, but what I am saying is that the more consistent you are, the better your results will be and the less consistent, the slower your results will be. Maybe over the weekend you're not tracking perfectly, but you have a good idea of kind of where you're sitting at. And that's going to be a whole heck of a lot better than you tossing them out the window completely. The important thing to remember here is that you can eat whatever you want when you're tracking your macros, but the portion sizes matter. You can eat what you want when you want, and you can still see results. That means you can still have the pizza on Friday night. That means you can still go out for date night on Saturday or have drinks with girls, you know, for a brunch on Sunday. You can still do all of those things and see results. It's just a matter of budgeting those things. Just like you are responsible when you have financial goals, you're budgeting these things, right? It's not just like, Oh, I have these financial goals, but then I'm just going to go out every single weekend and blow my money and then get to the end of the month and be like, Why am I not saving anything? Why do I have this huge credit card bill? It's the same kind of concept. Again, you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to be consistent. Estimating your macros on the weekend is so much better than not tracking at all. And here's the thing you're going to feel so much better as well. When you nourish your body throughout the weekend, you're going to feel energized. On Monday to start the week off strong to attack your week. And once you start realizing that you just need to be consistent. You don't need to be perfect on the weekends and just stay in perfectly consistent that the weekend itself will become so much easier.
Number three, you're not giving it enough time. I know that you might be used to seeing quick results from your diets, but guess what? Macro counting is not a diet and there will not be quick results when it comes to macro accounting. That's just plain and simple. I know it's not sexy. I know it's not sellable. And that's why so many people, they're not actually putting in the work and they're not. And so as a result, they're saying, Oh, yeah, I tried macro counting for a week and it was too hard. And, you know, it's just another diet I didn't see. You know, it's not sustainable long term. The fact of the matter is, if you go into macro accounting with this Amazon Prime mentality, you are not going to succeed. Long term macro accounting will help you build real, sustainable results that actually last. But the thing that comes with that is that you need to be patient and trust the process. Plus, our metabolisms are very complex. They're very dynamic, and whatever works for you is not going to work for someone else. So you have to remember that when you first start, you have to be patient with yourself. You have to maybe make adjustments. You have to figure out like, okay, I prefer to have a bigger dinner and not a bigger breakfast. Maybe you're watching someone and they're sharing recipes and they're sharing foods or what they eat in a day. And you're like, Okay, I'm going to try that. But then you're not feeling satisfied come the nighttime because you've had kind of, you know, a bigger breakfast and a bigger lunch, and then you don't have as many kind of macro budget to work with for your dinner and your dessert if you decide to have that. And so that's you feel unsatisfied. And when you when you feel dissatisfied, you're not going to stick with that. You have to learn what works best for you. I have found that I need to have something sweet in my daily intake every single night after my dinner. I learned that years ago, and it's just something that I do. So I track that first in my macro tracking app. Secondly, I love to have a good dinner. I love to have a bigger dinner. I just prefer that I like going to bed with my stomach full and happy. Like that's something that I just prefer. And I know that other people, they prefer to have the bulk of their macros, you know, in their breakfast, lunch and snacks earlier in the day. So it's just going to be different for every person and that's going to take time for you to recognize and for you to understand and for you to start implementing yourself. You have to remember that changes sometimes are not visible. Maybe your weight isn't changing, but maybe the muscle mass versus fat mass is changing. Maybe you're losing fat and gaining muscle. And that actually is not reflected when you just step on the scale or maybe or maybe your clothes are still fitting the same, even though now you have more muscle and less fat than you did before. There is so many ways to monitor your progress when it comes to not even looking at data or numbers. Sometimes changes are happening, even though you think that they're not. The macro counting is likely working, but maybe you're obsessing so much about the results that you can't even see the results that are happening. One thing that I like to do is take progress photos. This blows my mind. And you guys, I'm still I'm a decade into this journey and this still blows my mind when I take progress. Photos. So if you are struggling to see your progress or you're struggling with just your journey right now, I want to encourage you tomorrow morning to take your first progress photo, take your first progress photo, and I want you to put on a sports bra or bikini or whatever you feel comfortable in. I would ideally like you to have something where you can show your midsection. Obviously, you're not going to be showing this to anybody. So this is just for yourself. Show your midsection and show the upper parts of your thighs. That's important. So it could be a bathing suit bottom, it could be underwear, whatever it is. But the key to this is that you put on the same thing every time you take the progress photo. So and the other key to this is that you take it first thing in the morning before you eat or drink anything after you go to the bathroom. I want you to do that and take it tomorrow morning. And then in two or three or maybe even four weeks, maybe on the same day. So maybe it's a Monday morning or maybe it's a Tuesday morning. So this is coming out on Monday. So Tuesday morning in two, three or four weeks later, same sports bra, same bikini, whatever you wore in the first photo, same time of the day, right after you wake up before you eat or drink anything after going to the bathroom. And I want you to compare those things. Remember, consistency is important in this. You can't just take a progress photo and then three weeks later, you know, not putting any work into it, not being honest with yourself and then take another progress photo and put in time. And say, I'm not seeing any progress. It is impossible if you are consistent. It is in. Possible for you to not see some sort of results. Actually just talk about this in an episode. So if you want more kind of talk on that episode. 256. Five Ways to Monitor Your Progress Without the Scale. I've linked it in the show notes that you can easily go listen, but please, girl, take the progress photo and you will be amazed. There are so many times I have done, you know, I said, okay, I'm really going to nail down my macros this week. I'm going to nail down my movement, my steps, getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, and I feel two or three weeks. And I'm like, Man, I just don't feel any different. And then I take the photo four weeks later and I compare the two and I'm like, Oh my gosh, it is so cool. It's so cool. So I want to encourage you to do that. All right.
Number four, your macro goals aren't even accurate. Now, one reason why people think macro accounting isn't working for them is because the macros that they're trying to count aren't even accurate. Maybe they overheard what someone else's macros are and they just copied it. Or maybe they read it in an article. Or maybe they pulled up their macros from five years ago and they first, you know, wanted to get into macro accounting and then a week later they quit. Whatever it is, you have to remember that your macros are your macros. They are not anybody else's macros, even a person who is the same height as me, the same way as me. We can have different macros and you might be like Julie, how? Well a lot of factors come into play. What is your activity level? What are your goals? What are you currently doing on a day to day basis? What is your profession? There are so many things that come into play. They're your age, all of those things come into play. And so it's really important that you're setting yourself up to win by setting yourself up to have accurate macros. Now what happens if you're not following the right macros? You could eat too little and your metabolism could not function properly. You could eat too little and constantly feel hungry or trigger yourself to regularly overindulge. Or maybe you're eating too much and you're actually gaining body fat. You could trigger a poor relationship with food simply because you are not satisfied with the macros that you have. Because those macros are not accurate for your body, all of which are not good and they should be avoided. So instead you need to recognize that you need to get your own macros calculated for you and your body and where you're at. You need to realize that the macros that you need today and the macros that you might need to eat six months from now or one year from now are not going to be the same. And this is where progressive macros sets come into play. And I talk about this a lot in the macro planning meet simple online academy. We actually give you progressive macro sets. So when you first start out, we give you an extensive questionnaire form and then you fill that out and then we send you back to your macros, your starting macro set. And then we recommend sticking with that macro set and staying consistent, not perfect, but consistent with that for at least 4 to 6 weeks before you decide to check up and see if you need to move on to the next progressive macro set. So again, it's not sexy and it's not sellable because it's not a quick fix. It's not an Amazon Prime overnight thing that's going to happen. But it is sustainable and it is sustainable results. You are creating a lifestyle in that. So if you want to learn more about this, I'll link it in my show notes. But you can go to macro accounting made simple dot com and you can learn all about our program. And if you decide to invest in that program, we give you progressive macro set so that you make sure not, number one, that you are eating the accurate amount of macros that your body needs. But as your body progresses or stalls, you also have the macro assets to support that.
Number five, you deprive yourself too much. Now, many times when people first start counting macros, they try to do so by eating perfectly clean. They meal prep their food game. You know, they are eating plain broccoli. They're eating plain chicken or plain rice simply because they think that that's good for their gut. They think that that's good for their body. And I'm not saying that good, healthy quality food is a bad thing. What I am saying is that you need to make sure that what you are eating is delicious. You need to make sure that what you're eating is something that you are actually enjoying. And this is the point of macro accounting. The whole point is that you are eating and you are allowing yourself to eat the foods that you love while still seeing the results that you want. So maybe macro counting isn't working for you because you're actually not eating the foods that you love. And when you're not eating the foods that you love, they're not satisfying you. When they're not satisfying you, you're more apt to overindulge if you want to learn more or get some more ideas on recipes. I have literally hundreds of recipes for you. You can go to my my website, our link in the show notes as well, but it's truly a la better dot com forward slash recipe dash guides. And in those recipe guides, not only do I give you some ideas for all different types of meals, but I also give you some batch proteins. Now, what are batch proteins, you might ask. They are a protein that you batch that you make kind of a bigger batch of, but you are able to use it in multiple different dishes. This is key because if you, number one, want to save money, but to also not feel like you're eating the same thing over and over again. Batch proteins can be a game changer when it comes to reaching your health and fitness goals and eating foods that you love. So again, please, please, please do not just think that you have to eat this clean, plain food. There are so many delicious things that you can make. And if you don't even I don't even care if you buy my recipe guides. You guys, there are thousands upon thousands of macro friendly recipes on Pinterest. Just literally type in a Pinterest macro friendly recipe guide or a macro friendly recipes for any sort of meal or snack, and you will get tons. So I just want you guys to know I'm never here. I never want you to feel like you have your pressure to buy something. There is tons of free resources online. And I'm telling you, like game changer, there are so many delicious macro friendly recipes, so definitely check those out.
Number six, you are constantly living in a body fat loss phase. You're never coming out of that. I think that somewhere along the line, just with this diet mentality, we feel like we always have to be in a body fat loss phase. And when we feel like we're in a body fat loss phase and there's so many contributing factors to this, it could be that you are not eating foods that satisfy you. It could be that you're not eating the accurate macros for what your body needs because you just randomly are copying somebody else's macros or macros from five years ago. Whatever the case is, you should not be living in a body fat loss phase forever. And this is what we kind of go into, especially in the macro accounting meets in simple online academy. When we give you the progressive, let's say you go into a body fat loss phase and we give you progressive macro sets there. Well, yes, I said you want to weigh, you know, anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks before moving on to each set, because you want to give your body the adequate amount of time to make sure that, number one, you're being consistent. And two, that your body is you're just giving your body enough time to kind of adapt to that. But it's really important and this is what we talk about in the academy is we typically we don't put our clients anywhere after a 30% Clark deficit and I say 30%, that's pretty high, typically will end you at about a 25% Clark deficit. And trust me, if this sounds like overwhelming, we will walk you through in our macroeconomics and Bottom Line Academy. But when you get to a steeper caloric deficit, that's when two things happen. Number one, you're not eating as much. And so you might not be as consistent just because you are at the higher end of a caloric deficit, like you're towards the very end of the progressive macro sets. And so that would be a time when we transition you to a reverse diet. But two, because you're not eating maybe as many calories when you first started because you're slowly losing that body fat, you might not be as consistent. And so it's just really important that you educate yourself in the fact that there are so many different phases when it comes to macro counting. So there's body fat loss, there's reverse dieting, there's a maintenance phase, there's a muscle building phase. And so I never want you to live in this body fat loss phase. In fact, it's not healthy for you to live in this body fat loss phase. I talk about the phases in depth in episode 243. What are the four phases of macro counting? So be sure to tune in. I will link that in the show notes below, but it's really important that you educate yourself and you're not just staying in one phase forever. And that is why you felt like macro accounting wasn't working for you.
Number seven you don't listen to your body, so you have to remember that you need to feel full and energized after eating. If you're constantly feeling hungry or it maybe feels nearly impossible for you to stick to your macros, then something's off. You need to ask yourself Are the macros actually accurate? Am I accidentally tracking more than what I'm eating? Am I eating enough fiber daily? Maybe. Do I need to switch up my proteins? Do I need to add more animal protein into my daily intake or plant protein or whatever it is? Do I need more nutrient dense foods? Or maybe do I need less nutrient dense foods? Being honest with yourself and this is a huge part of success in macro accounting, you have to be honest with yourself. It's just like any other thing in life especially. And I keep going back to this financial budgeting analogy because it's so true and there's so many correlations with financial budget and a macro budget if you're not being honest with yourself on a financial budget. The numbers don't lie. The numbers don't lie. If someone were to go into your bank account and look at every single purchase that you have, and you're saying on the surface, Oh, what I'm doing, I'm doing good. But then you're not, you know, maybe you're going in debt every month or you're not setting yourself up for success with your financial goals. And people kind of look beneath the surface and say, Yeah, but you had this software purchase and you had this Lulu purchase and you had this Amazon purchase. Like, are these actually things that you've budgeted for? Well, no, you've got to be honest with yourself. You have to be honest with yourself. And when it comes to counting macros, you've got to figure out what your body is asking for, right? Macro counting should make you feel your best if you're following the correct protein, carbs and fats.
Okay. So let me recap those seven reasons why macro accounting might not be working for you. Number one, you're not being honest with yourself about what you're eating and how much you're eating. Number two, you're not being consistent enough. Number three, you're not giving it enough time. Number four, your macro goals aren't accurate. Number five, you're depriving yourself too much. Number six, you are staying in one phase. You're not cycling through or even looking into a different phase of macro accounting. And number seven, you are not listening to your body. Again, if you need help with your macros and you're wanting to, you're like, okay, what you were talking about with this progressive macro sets and really making sure that I have the accurate macro macros for me. I do have a program, it's called Macro Accounting, made simple online academy. You can learn more about it and just kind of everything. See, we have worked with thousands of people over the last decade and you can read all about it at macro accounting meets simple dot com. I will link that in the show notes as well.
And then the two episodes that I talked about today. Episode 243 What are the four phases of macro accounting? And Episode 256 five Ways to Monitor Your Progress Without the Scale. All of those are linked in the show notes below. That is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that this was helpful for you again, I hope. Number one, if you have maybe tried macro accounting in the past and you're like, it just didn't work for me. Maybe one of these seven things, if you're being honest with yourself, you're like, Yeah, actually, maybe I didn't give it my all, or maybe I was following the wrong macros, or maybe I was not being honest with myself, whatever it is. No shame in that. I just want to educate you because I want you to see results. I want you to feel like you can eat what you want when you want and not feel guilty about it. But I also want you to see results. Or number two, maybe you're interested in macro accounting and you want to set yourself up for success. I hope that these gave you kind of the reasons that maybe to look out for as you're on your journey. So it can really help set you up for success in this journey. So wherever you are today, I am just so grateful that you are here.
I hope that this episode helped you. If you have a friend or coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would benefit from this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can copy the link, send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your Instagram story. That is all that I have for today's episode. Again, I love you so much 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, @juliealedbetter, it's with an A in the middle where that daily posts are about 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 Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so 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.