Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2160: Macro Counting Master Class

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin discuss six things to consider when tracking macros. The three different types of macronutrients and their value. (3:38) The value of tracking and who should NOT track. (7:21) 6 Ways to Count Your Macros the Right Way. #1 - How to figure out your macros (mapsmacro.com, My Fitness Pal). (12:34) #2 – Track protein only. (16:09) #3 – Track fiber and protein only. (20:30) Bonus: Prioritize whole foods first. (23:31) #4 - Full macro tracking. (26:43) #5 - Small meals vs. larger meals. (32:36) #6 – Whole foods rule. (36:21) Related Links/Products Mentioned NCI’s Nutrition Coaching Summit is BACK this October 17th through the 21st. Exclusively for Mind Pump listeners, they are giving an exclusive 20% off! **Code MP20 at checkout** September Promotion: MAPS Symmetry | RGB Bundle 50% off! **Code SEPTEMBER50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1830: Five Steps To Determine Your Ideal Caloric Intake MAPS Macro Calculator Mind Pump #1220: The 4 Best Sources Of Protein Calorie labels are often wildly inaccurate. Here’s how to prevent extra calories from derailing your diet. Mind Pump #1860: Fourteen Of The Best Foods For An Amazing Physique Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode is a macro counting master class. We know you're going to love this episode. Now it's brought to you by one of our sponsors

NCI Coaching. Now this is a company that certifies online coaches to become excellent coaches at helping their clients get better results But they also teach you how to build a successful phenomenal business and right now this is exciting. They have brought back the NCI nutrition coaching summit. It's back. It's coming back this October 17th through the 21st. Okay. So they're going to dedicate a lot of time to teaching you how to be amazing.

And they have, this is live, right? So they have incredible speakers at this event. Lane Norton's going to be there. Rachel Sheer, Dr. Bill Campbell, Alan Erigan, and more. You might even run into us. We tend to go to these and meet people. So they're pretty amazing.

And you're gonna get 20% off if you use the code MP20 at checkout. So go to NCIminepump.com-flour-slash-ncs23. So it's NCIminep dot com forward slash NCS 23 and then use the code MP 20 to get 20% off at checkout. We're also running a sale on some programs. Maps symmetry is half off and the RGB bundle is half off, both 50% off. If you're interested, go to maps fitness products dot com and then use the code September 50 for that discount.

All right, here comes the show. Macros, what are they? Why should you count them? Why should you not count them? Why is everybody in the fitness space talk about counting macros when it comes to getting lean, building muscle or changing your physique? Indeed, they are very important to understand.

In today's episode, we're talking all about macros who shouldn't count them and how the best ways are to use these to get to your results. How to do them right? How to do them right. I do get, we get a lot of questions surrounding this, everything from do I weigh my food before after I cook it. Is it important that I pay attention to saturated unsaturated fats? Yes. Is it make a difference on what carbohydrates? How do I know where to start unsaturated facts. Is it make a difference on what carbohydrates, how do I know where to start, and what a great episode to do when Justin can't make it. Yeah, Justin has to come over the hill

and there's huge actions couldn't make it. So we picked it episode that if we knew he would not be disappointed. Yeah, this will be good. Cause he's normally rolling his eyes when I'm talking about macros any other time when we're answering questions So it'll be an opportunity. Absolutely. Alright, so for the sake of this episode

We're gonna kind of cover macros from a body composition standpoint and we'll really kind of inform All of you the best ways to do this and the different ways you can do this But let's first start about start with what macros are right what are macros? Macro is short for macronutrients. So, micronutrients are like vitamins and minerals and things that are in food that are typically present very small amounts. Macronutrients are important things

that are found in food in large amounts. And really when we're talking about macros, we're covering three macronutrients. It's proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. So when people say they're talking about macros, we're covering three macronutrients. It's proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. So when people say they're counting their macros, what they're doing literally is counting or tracking proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. So first I think we should talk about each one

in their value, and then we can get to the rest. But proteins gotta be on the top of the list. Yeah, in terms of its value. This is typically where I would start. Even a client who maybe isn't care that much about body composition change, we just wanna figure out where, where or what they should be doing as far as

getting to their macros and starting them off in the right direction. I find just tracking protein is one of the easiest ways to get somebody's body to start moving in the right direction. And I've also found that it's probably the one that is the most miscalculated or overly estimated. Like when someone thinks they're eating our protein. Totally.

You brought this up the other day when we were talking. I made the same mistake when I first started counting back in the days when we didn't have all these great apps and tools to support it. We had to do it by hand. And I remember thinking that, oh, yeah, I eat high protein. I eat a lot of protein. And because I assumed, because I had protein in every single meal I had, I assumed that I was getting plenty of protein.

But when I actually started to track, I realized that I wasn't just under eating. I was grossly under eating. I wasn't even hitting what the, the kind of the minimum of what I should be doing for, especially for building muscle. Totally. So, okay. So protein is really important for a few different reasons. One, it's a essential macronutrient, meaning you have to consume some, otherwise your body can't function, period into stories. You have to have a certain amount of protein. But it's also the macronutrient that's most closely connected to body composition. That's in carbs are connected to body composition when calories are appropriate, but protein's really interesting because same calorie diets with high protein versus low protein actually

produce different results. Protein is more closely connected to muscle and fat loss, and here's the most important thing in my opinion, which is it's mostly tied, it's the macronutrient that's mostly tied to satiety, meaning of the three that we talked about, protein is the one that's most impactful on keeping you full and satisfied. Now, why is that important? If you're trying to get lean, the most challenging aspect of trying to get lean is your appetite and your cravings. Protein crushes those much more than carbs and even more than fats.

Here's the other reason why proteins are really valuable to look at. They're the hardest to come by with your food. Now why you think why are proteins so hard to come by? Because when it comes to palatability and enjoyment or the enjoyment of eating something, the taste of something, right? Protein isn't in that, it doesn't make the equation. Protein doesn't make food more palatable. Fats and sugars, salt is in there as well, but fats and sugars do. So food manufacturers and companies,

they dole out fat and carbohydrates really easily. Protein, they really only add protein if they're trying to make something high protein. So it's harder to come by. I think shelf life has a lot to do with that too. Right, so if you go to a gas station or somewhere quick to grab food, you're not gonna see many times lots of options for protein

because you can't leave a protein for the most part on a shelf. Other than maybe like some nuts, seeds or beef jerky, you're probably your three main sources of protein that you're going to see that could sit on a shelf for an extended period of time. Everything else you tend to have to make. And so it makes it that much more challenging for the person to consistently get their protein intake every single day.

Yeah, plus, I mean, if you wanna make something taste really good, the last thing you add is protein. Always fats or sugars or salt. So it's just hard to come by. All right, let's talk about the value of tracking. Why is this valuable? Well, we are extremely unaware of the amount of calories

and the grams of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that we consume. In fact, they've done lots of studies on this. And even people who understand proteins, fats, and carbs and the foods that contain them are typically off when they estimate by 20 or 30%. Let alone people who aren't really familiar with how many grams of protein are in six ounces of chicken

or how many grams of fat, a half a pound of 80% ground beef. Even people who are aware, we're just off. We just don't estimate. And so there's this massive lack of awareness. And so what happens is you try to judge your food without tracking and you're gonna be off and then you're gonna wonder why you're not seeing progress

and then what didn't happen is people overcracked and then they get too hungry or they don't feel good. And it becomes like this, I'm walking through room in the dark, I don't have a flashlight and I can't find my way out. So there is tremendous value in tracking macros, especially through the learning process and the awareness process. But this doesn't mean that it's valuable for everybody.

There are groups of people where I would steer away from tracking. And so we should say that first before we continue. And it just generally speaking, if you have dysfunctional eating patterns, if you've had an eating disorder, if you have a hyper body awareness, tracking macros can lead to more stress, more anxiety, and more dysfunctional eating. So if that's you, if you've been diagnosed with anorexia or bulimia, or you know, you've got really out of the ordinary bad relationship of food or you just know counting calories,

proteins, fats and carbs is gonna be trigger for you. Then you probably don't wanna go into tracking until you can figure that out because it's just gonna make things a lot worse. Yeah, I wanna be clear though. I think for my experience training clients, you would, you would have to have an eating disorder for me to not recommend or want you to count. At least in some capacity, right?

Yes. And that means in a real eating disorder, not somebody like, I just don't like to count calculators or I don't want to or I don't like you, you need to have had some sort of an issue with tracking foods or like a big trigger, right? Right, and those clients, I don't think this episode is designed. These are for people that are trying to lose weight. They don't have an eating disorder.

They're trying to figure out what they should do to start and I think everybody, and I even think that even if you have in the past that if you are getting ready to start like a new goal, like you hadn't tracked in a long time and you're now I wanna build, say, 10 pounds of muscle or I wanna lose body fat or I just, whatever the goal may be, if you're re-engaging,

again, I think you have to. I mean, still to this day, I, every time I decide I'm on a, you know, quote unquote kick, meaning I'm like, I'm setting like maybe an aggressive goal for myself to change body composition or even like build strength. I'm going to go and track for at least a few weeks to recalibrate because our lives are constantly changing. I mean, we just can't, you know, a couple of years ago, we had the pandemic, everybody's work life changed, their activity

level changed, gyms were shut down for a while. There's a lot of times where you go through these ebb and flows of lots of activity, not so much activity, more muscle, less muscle, and all those things factor in to metabolism changes. Yeah, so it's very higher stress levels, like at certain points of your life than lowers like all these good sleep versus bad sleep And you're so all those variables will Change how your your body is burning calories and so it's important to at least

Recalibrate figure out where your maintenance is and then from there we decide whether we're going to be in a surplus Just put the cherry on top. This is coming from somebody who was a professional, competitive, physique competitor. So Adam understands macro is better than 99.9% of the people out there. And he's saying he still has to do this. So if you, so you probably still should have to do this as well. Well, what I found is I'm, I'm almost wrong every time. Yeah.

So I'm, I, it doesn't matter how good I am at it, and I think I'm pretty good. I have the ability to look at a plate of food and I can get pretty close to exactly where the macros and calories are at. So I'm very good at tracking, but it's the other thing that is always changing in my life that I don't account for,

and when I actually guess, I'm probably eating this or, you know, and then I put it all in and I actually check for a while, it's like, oh, wow, that was much more than I thought, or way less than I thought. Well, in most situations, 95% is great, right? In counting macros, 95% means you're 5% off, which means you don't lose weight,

or you gain body fat, right? That's just 5% off, which means you don't lose weight or you gain body fat. That's just 5%. Most people are off by 20% or more. I hope we nailed that down and hammered that home. First, let's talk about how to figure out your macros or what macros you should aim for. First and foremost, there are macro calculators that are out there. There are ways to get a generalized number of where you should probably kind of start. Now, I do want to say this. They are estimations. And there's such a variance between individuals that I would never take an estimation as the hard number. This is just kind of a place to get started

and give you an idea of a ballpark. And then from there, you got to kind of dig down a little deeper. One of the best ways to figure out your specific caloric intake or your needs is to simply track your calories for about two weeks with no judgment, no change in diet, don't try to change anything,

and just see where your calories sit at now. And what that'll give you for most people is close to what's considered your maintenance calories, meaning that's the amount of calories that you'll probably need to consume. If you don't want to gain weight, you don't want to lose weight, you want to stay where you're at.

And then from there, we can decide if you want to go up or down depending on the goal. But it's about two weeks is typically where I'll have people go. Yeah, two weeks is plenty. I think even sometimes seven days, if my client is pretty consistent, I can get that. But I think it's so important to note that, and we have it. We have a max macro.com calculator that people know it's free. You can put in your stuff to get an idea.

Those things are really good for a client that has no idea of how much protein carbs are fat that their body should have. And there's an equation that breaks down their weight, their activity level, and their goal, and it'll give you this idea of where you should be at. But I like to use that as just like if someone is clueless completely, they've never counted any idea, they have no idea how much protein fat or carbs they're doing right now.

And it's like, okay, plug all this in, it'll tell you based off of your goal, your body type size, everything about where you should be at. And so that gives you a starting point maybe to where you should be at, but it's not the end all be all, even though they're presented to you like, oh, if you want to lose 13 pounds, you should eat this. I don't want to use that at all. I only am using it to give myself some sort of a baseline on what I want to start tracking in the first week or two. So I can get a really good idea of where my personal macro maintenance

level is. And what you're looking for is this I'm looking to not really gain or lose anything in those two weeks. I want to, I want to eat when I'm hungry. I most people know when they are, you know, binging or eating outside of their normal eating habits. Like I would tell clients like, if you, if you have a Snickers bar every day at two o'clock in the afternoon, I actually want you to still do that

during this time period. I want you to eat what you would consider consistent and what you normally do. So, and that is, and it's included in all these snacks or treats or things you normally, you normally would eat, no matter whether they're good or not, for you, I just want to see consistently your habits and your routine. This also helps this peer into easy little adjustments that we can make along the way that

aren't super radical that will shift this person way down or way up by changing up their calories. So you essentially want to figure out what your maintenance is, and that's kind of a good starting point. Now, the next step, and we're gonna go step by step here, okay? In other words, step one,

you can just track this, step two, we can add this to it, and then, you know, so on and so forth. So step one, if you just want to kind of dip your toe and you're not trying to go full on into tracking everything, is to just track and try to hit protein targets. Now why do we pick protein? Again, it's the most satiety producing.

If you're eating your protein intake, we don't need to worry about your fat. You're probably getting adequate fat. Fat is also essential. And carbs, you can eat them or not. They're not essential. And that'll come in or not depending on how you feel. But if you track protein and hit protein, most people will start to see body composition changes

by just doing that. So this begs the question, well, how much protein should I aim for? Here's what you should aim for. Aim for your target body weight in grams of protein. I say target body weight, because if you need to lose 50 pounds, use that as your target body weight. If you wanna pack on 10 pounds of muscle, use that as your target body weight because if you need to lose 50 pounds, use that as your target body weight.

If you want to pack on 10 pounds of muscle, use that as your target body weight. But it's protein in grams that matches your target body weight. Okay, so if your target body weight is 130 pounds, then aim for 130 grams of protein. If it's 200 pounds and for 200 grams of protein, just start there and most people, most people will start to see some pretty good progress just doing that. Now, it's harder than it sounds. So you may be listening like, okay, cool. I hit 130 grams of protein a day.

It's not easy. So some tips do not skimp on protein early in the day. We don't want to do is play catch up with protein. Try and eat more than 50 grams of protein in a meal. You're going to hit palate fatigue real quick. I mean, satiety kicks in, and like, I can't do this anymore. So start your day off with a really good high protein meal,

figure out your total protein, and make sure you divide it through your meals so you don't end up playing catch up. Because the catch up game screws everybody up when it comes to protein. Well, the reason why I focus for with all clients at least here is because it's the one macronutrient that if it's off by a lot for what you need it will make a difference in your body composition where the other two so let's say if all calories We're exactly the same you eat let's say 2000 calories put you in a fat loss deficit

or it puts you in a place where you should be maintaining but losing body fat or maybe gaining muscle, you, if you have most of those coming from saturated fat or carbohydrates, either one, and they go up and down a percentage, you'll still stay the same because your calories are the same. If you are grossly under consuming protein in that same calorie range, your body won't build muscle.

It just won't. You won't lose the much body fat. Yeah. And so it will, even though you're like, let's say it's a number that will actually make you lose weight. And on the scale you go down, but you are getting mostly carbohydrates and fat and your protein is really low. The scale weight went down, but you lost muscle as fast as you lost fat.

And so protein of all the macronutrients is the one that if we make sure that we're hitting that target every single day, I can really change the mac, or change the carbon and fat ratio. And it not make a difference on that client's ability to either build muscle or hold onto muscle, protein makes that difference. So it's normally where most people that are dieting, make a mistake is thinking that, oh, all it matters is calories. So if I cut my calories, oh yeah, I will lose weight.

Problem is, you will lose as much muscle as you lose fat. Here's what the data shows. The data shows that when it comes to fats and carbs, so long as you hit essential fats, because fats are also essential. I mean, you have to have a certain amount, in order to survive. Carbs are not essential,

so you could go all the way down to zero. But so long as you hit essential fat, that the individual variance between how I feel, what gives you more satiety and energy, can vary greatly. Some people do much better with a lower carb, higher fat diet, and other people vice versa. You could play with those, but the data shows consistently that high protein is beneficial for fat loss, for muscle gain, muscle maintenance, and for satiety.

So in other words, for the vast majority of people listening right now, keep your protein intake high, play with the other ones depending on how you now, keep your protein intake high, play with the other ones depending on how you feel, what you crave, and the kind of energy that you tend to get. Now the next thing that you probably would want to add to track is fiber. Now, why fiber? Fiber is also satiety producing. In fact, if somebody's hitting a high protein, high fiber diet, they almost always don't

overeat. It's hard to overeat when you're hitting, you know, if you're a hundred, let's say your goal is 130 grams of protein, you're eating 130 grams of protein and 25 grams of fiber. It's really hard to overeat when you're eating those two. Both of them have been shown in study after study after study to kill appetite and cravings. And in our experiences, trainers working with lots of people, it's 100% true. It's also one that tends to be under-consumed when someone gets on a diet. Yes.

So if you eat a lot of boxed and packaged food that's, you know, added fiber into it, and then also you decide, okay, I'm going to go on a diet, I'm going to start trying to target whole foods, which I think is a great strategy and you should do. Many times people neglect to pay attention to how much their fiber intake gets reduced because they're no longer eating all these foods that have added fiber to it.

And that makes a big difference in that, just like you will, if you will be, and I would say women somewhere between 25 and 35 is like the bare minimum men 35 to 55 range, maybe Doug can double check. That's where I used to put my clients. Yeah, it's 25 was the minimum for everybody. That was the bare minimum that I would aim for. Yeah, that's, and what you'll see is a lot of times when someone goes right to like a whole foods type of diet, if they're not going after fruits and vegetables consistently, which sometimes we miss, I'm guilty of this, right?

I'm guilty of preparing my carbs and my proteins, so like my rice and my meat or whatever and cooking on a Sunday. A lot of times I don't like to eat my vegetables and four days later, after I cook them and reheat them, I normally like to do them fresh. Problem with that is what happens a lot of times is I don't account for how low a fiber am.

Where do you give me duct tape? Yeah, that's it, right? Yeah, right around the ring. Yeah, 25 to 35 is probably a good range for most people. Yeah, 25 was always the minimum though that I would say. Barra minimum you want. And think the best places and sources for that are like your, your berries are my favorite

because they're high in fiber. All berries, very high in fiber. All berries have been general, right? Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. All berries are high in fiber, high in antioxidants and low in calories. So it's an easy way to boost somebody's fiber without getting a bunch of additional calories and they taste good. So those are my favorite sources for you.

We should talk real quick. We didn't mention great sources of protein. Animal sources are the most bioavailable. They have the best value. However, if you're hitting the protein targets that we said, the protein type doesn't matter. So if you're hitting a gram of protein per pound of target body weight, it doesn't matter. If you get it from eggs, chicken, beef, plant, sources, it doesn't matter. If your protein is lower, animal sources become much more important.

Along those lines, and I don't even know why for say this matter so much, but when I was competing, I did some shows where I went 100% all-whole foods and then others where I use shakes and bars. And even though I still got in great shape, I noticed a difference in one was easier than the other. And then two, I felt like my body changed and looked different by getting whole foods. So when I coach clients, when we're trying

to hit our protein and take the goal, I would consider a perfect day is getting it all through whole foods. Doesn't mean that you can't have a shaker bar in there to hit your intake. If I had a choose whether you hit it or not hit it and then one of them is you eating a protein bar to hit it and you not hitting it is you not using it.

Of course, I'd rather you do that, but I always wanna teach my clients to try and get whole foods first and only use things like shakes and bars as a supplement to get to their protein and take as they missed it versus what I think a lot of, like the industry has promoted shakes and bars. Like it's a health food and that when you go on a diet,

you should put it in your diet versus... They're convenience foods. Yeah, the use it as a supplement that if I couldn't do it through whole foods, I use this. I don't like to have, and I've seen this before, where I have had a client and they're hitting all their protein take, and then I see, they're getting it through three shakes and bars

every single day, and for some reason, that client always tends to have a harder time losing the weight or changing their body composition than the person who I've got hitting whole food. It doesn't produce satiety the same as well. A shake will not produce the same fullness as whole naturalness.

And that's especially if you're trying to get lean, that is the most important thing you wanna look at. All right, so by the way, we're going in order of importance, okay? There's also one more thing to that because we didn't touch on it in this episode, even though we have other. The other factor that I think plays a role in that is that food labels are allowed to be 20, 25% off.

And so if you've got three of your sources of protein coming from packaged bars or shapes, that a rule applies even for health foods. of your sources of protein coming from packaged bars or shapes. Could be way off. That a rule applies even for health foods. It's not just for junk food. You got to think that companies that promote healthy foods are going to use that rule that FDA allows them to be 20 or 25% off on the label to benefit their selling point. Like if you are selling that you have a high protein bar, I might exaggerate by 15%. It has more protein than what it really does,

and I'm completely playing by the rules of the calories or they put in the labor the lower than the actual. That's right. And that's where I think this, why this is happening or in my experience, I just notice a difference when people get a lot of their protein from shakes and bars.

And so if you think that you're doing that two or three times a day, every day, and it has room of being 15 to 20% off all the time, that could be the difference of you not losing weight or not building the same muscle that you did if you went all through whole food. So just an important thing. Totally, okay, so like I said earlier,

we're doing these in order of importance. So we started with protein tracking, then we said protein and fiber. All right, the next step, now you're gonna track all of your macros, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Okay, proteins and fats are essential. So you should eat a minimum amount of fat, otherwise you, again, you won't thrive.

I never like to see anybody below around 60 grams of fat. Even that is really low for a lot of people. So for most people, 40 to 60 grams is what's considered minimum. I know you'll look on the internet and it'll say even less. My experience, people go below that. They start to notice negative side effects. Other than that, if you are calories or where they should be and you're eating high protein and you're eating your fiber targets, your fat and carbs can be very flexible. I mean, they can flip. You can go low carb, high fat, you can go low fat, higher carb.

It's really, I like to base this off of performance in the gym and how I feel and what foods I crave and enjoy the most. Personally speaking, a low to moderate low carb diet for me feels the best, it just does. But I've worked with people where that makes them feel sluggish and they need more carbohydrates and they enjoy eating them. And it doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter. So long as you hit those, those minimums and you're in the protein and fiber,

this is something that you can totally play with. And I suggest, you play with it. I suggest you track them and notice which one makes you feel how and I feel more sharp when I eat this way, but then when I need to want to do a hard workout, I eat this way. For example, if I'm going to do a really hard workout, I definitely tend to bump my carbs. If I'm going to be in here podcasting all day long or speaking in front of an audience, lower carbs tends to work better for me. So I like to start a client out by splitting it pretty even with their carbohydrates and fat.

So you focus on the protein like we said, hit your one-to-one ratio, you've got your total calories from that. The remainder of calories, you basically split those in half between carbs and fat to start with. So 50% of the calories from fat, 50% for carbs. Not the equal amount of grams. Because the number of fat grams are nine calories per gram, which is four.

Carbs are four, right? So calories is what you're dividing. Yes, thank you for that point. I know somebody's going to be like, oh cool, the equal. Yes, right. So I'm splitting the calorie difference by carbohydrates in fact, and that's just a start. And then I do exactly what you said. That's the same thing. and it's really going off how you feel. Some of my clients, you know, oddly would feel more energy on lower car. They just, they felt better and there was no blow. They didn't feel sluggish.

They didn't have crashes. They didn't have that mid afternoon. I fucking need to take a nap and they love the low car. Other clients I felt like said, oh my god, if I don't get carbohydrates, I just can't get up and go. I don't have any energy or my workouts God, if I don't get carbohydrates, I just can't get up and go. I don't have any energy or my workouts absolutely suck if I don't have carbons.

I feel this way. If I don't have enough carbohydrates in me for the day, my workouts just, I don't have good workouts. I feel flat in the workout. I don't push as hard. I don't feel as strong. So I like to split it down the middle and then I like to take that feedback from the client on how they're feeling

Do they and then based off of that? I'm gonna adjust it and I do love no matter how you whether you go I feel fine. I still like to play with it I don't we try this week and there's two reasons why I like to do this One they may not be aware that they will feel better by going higher carb or higher fat for the week. The other thing is it just breaks up monotonous eating the same way all the time. I've always found giving clients these like week to week type of goals and I do this with myself. It is easier to kind of like say, oh, just for the next seven days, I'm going to eat

this way. And then next week, I'm going to go and eat this way. When you break up the big, you the big goal over, you know, say, three, six months, whatever, it's gonna take you to get to where you're going, it gives you this ability to like focus in these small little milestones. So I enjoy it for that.

And then again, like the education reason of not realizing that, oh wow, I didn't realize that I felt a lot better on this lower carb, or oh, I didn't realize that I felt a lot better on this lower carb or, oh, I didn't realize I felt better on higher carb. Let's be very clear. This is a, yes, you're trying to get to a goal, but this is also a learning expedition. You're really understanding and figuring out your body and how foods affect you. That is so invaluable if this is a lifelong pursuit for you.

Like if you plan on getting leaner or becoming more fit and not going backwards afterwards, you're going to want to learn these things about your body and introducing novelty and switching things up will allow you to do that. Doing the same exact thing all the time, you're not going to understand how doing it the other way might make you feel. It's so important that you pay attention to the behaviors that are connected to this too. So I made the comment, my workouts just aren't as good when I'm lower carbohydrate. Well, you know what the benefit though, when I'm lower carbohydrate is I have less cravings. So depending on what I'm trying to accomplish at that time, I may shift that focus, right?

So if I'm in a bulk and I'm trying to build, I don't mind if I have cravings, I need to eat more calories. And so it's like doing a higher carb diet helps me with that. Well, when I'm in a cut, I'm trying to go the other direction, I tend to like a higher fat diet because then I'm not craving the food. So it's not just important to look at how you feel in performance, but also the behaviors that are attached with the different macro profiles of you. And again, I recommend always I have my clients do both where they go high fat for a while, low fat for a while, and they're playing with those to get an idea of the pros and cons for them.

And so they can learn for the in the future how to adjust that. I know you talk so a lot like you're so much sharper when you are when you don't have carbs. So if you have a profession, a job where you have to get up and present or you're on a talk. You do things where you want to be clear and sharp. You may adjust your fat and your carbohydrate. You take specifically for that within the context of still heading towards your weight loss goal or muscle building goal. Totally. 100%. All right.

So let's talk about how you would break this up. To be more specific, like, should you eat smaller meals throughout the day or should you eat larger meals? Now, first, I'll say this, ultimately, this doesn't make a big difference, except for the extremes, like for eating one massive meal every two or three days, probably not a good idea, or if you're eating 10 small meals a day, also probably not a good idea. But in the context of what's considered, I guess, normal, like, let's say, you know, between two to five meals.

Really the biggest thing you want to consider is which one you prefer doing. It really doesn't matter aside from that. Now, I will say this, here's where small meals becomes very valuable and also where maybe less frequent meals becomes valuable. To hit high protein targets, it's really hard to do it in few fewer and larger meals. If I'm trying, for me, my goals, I have to aim for about 200 grams of protein a day, maybe 210 grams of protein a day. It's really hard to do that in two meals. 100 grams of protein in two meals, it's just, I feel like I'm stuffing myself, I don't feel good, it's too much.

two meals. It's just, I feel like I'm stuffing myself. I don't feel good. It's too much. Four to five meals for me works better in that particular sense. So that's one major thing to consider. Here's the other thing. If you're trying to eat less calories, some people do better with fewer meals because they're less hungry. On the other hand, some people actually do better with smaller meals because they get to eat throughout the day. And that helps them with their hunger. What's the ultimate learning lesson here? You got to do what works best for you. It really doesn't make a huge difference whether or not you eat it and less meals or more meals.

And that's the answer to this is understanding yourself and paying attention to the behaviors around what it looks like when you get all your calories and two meals in a day, what does it look like behaviorally when you eat six meals a day? Because we know what the science says. There is no difference, metabolically, none of them are it, but it is important to recognize behaviorally what is different about you. I tend to put clients on the smaller meals. I just think that they have an easier time hitting their protein intake.

I also think it has they have an easier time hitting their protein intake. I also think they have an easier time combating hunger. There's because they're having, if you have six small meals a day, you're basically eating every two hours. So I have found that when clients go in these, where they only eat two meals a day, or sometimes even three meals a day, they have these extended period of time

when they don't eat, when that extended period of time when they don't eat, they tend to get the cravings kick up, and then it's harder for them to discipline themselves to make a good choice. How many times have you done that yourself where you skipped lunch because you were busy working and five, six hours went by and eat,

and now all you're thinking about on your way home, all the drive-throughs, right? Something you could drive through real quick and just eat. You're not thinking about going home and reheating your chicken and rice bowl that you have or worse going home and having to prepare and make all that. And just behaviorally speaking, sometimes it's more of a challenge for the client

to be disciplined, but as far as the science is concerned, it doesn't matter whether it's two meals or six meals, but where it does matter is the behaviors. So be aware of that. It's okay to have the flexibility where let's say you say, I'm going to eat six meals most of the time, but I'm not going to stress out when I have it in two meals, but recognize the difference in your behaviors that are attached to those different ways of eating. Yeah, and again, it could go the other direction. Some people hate the inconvenience of eating over two

hours, and they like to work, and they like to work through the day, and then eat the larger meal. Some people find it easier to structure themselves when they know they're not eating till a particular time. And it makes it easier for them. This is such, this is totally up to the individual preference. I can't stress that enough

and I've had clients on either end of the spectrum. There is no right answer, except for the one that works better for you. All right, lastly, and we've already made this point, but let's hammer it home. Whole foods rule, okay? I don't care what your goal is,

getting most, if not all of your macronutrients from whole natural foods is healthier, it's better for you, it's less expensive, it's more accurate, it's just gonna make things a lot easier. Using engineered or processed foods in your diet is gonna make things a lot easier. Using engineered or processed foods in your diet is gonna make things a lot more challenging. First off, they're engineered to make you overeat.

So that throws that signal off. As Adam said earlier, they can be off by as much as 20 to 25%. If you're trying to eat 2,000 calories a day, it could be 400 calories off. That's the difference between I gain body fat or I lost body fat, okay, that's massive. It's also, it's just, it's better for you. Whole natural foods, our bodies evolve with them.

They metabolize them better, they digest them better, they're better for our microbiomes. They're just better overall. Now, we're not super religious about this or zealots about this. The processed foods and packaged foods have their place and it's mainly around convenience, okay? It's not always easy to hit your targets

or you're on the go, you're on a plane or you're in a car or you're in a meeting. Those are the times I would say that those foods can play a great role. I personally use protein powders and I save them at the end of the day if I miss my targets. If I'm off by 30 or 40 grams, I can make up the difference at night with a protein shake. But other than that, if you could just try to stick to whole natural foods,

it will make this journey a million times easier. I find it extremely important at the beginning. I think that, like you said, we're not zealots about it. I have beef sticks. I use protein bars. I use shakes. I use, you know, processed high protein cereal. Like I utilize a lot of different process foods along the way of my overall health and fitness journey. But if I'm about to get on a kick and I have a very specific goal to change my body composition. At the very beginning, I'm very disciplined about eating all whole foods. Just because I wanna get a really good baseline,

that if I am gonna allow these packaged foods that have the ability to be off by 20%, 25% into the diet, I'm factoring that in as a possibility of why my body composition isn't changing or moving. Because, oh wow, well well I know when I'm hitting these exact targets eating whole foods my body is changing and this is the response from it when I allow even these healthy processed foods into my diet it stalls a little bit so there's a good chance I'm over consuming here or there or missing numbers here because

I'm eating packaged foods so I definitely think that starting off it's important and it's important that you weigh and measure at the beginning. So when we talked about that first two weeks of figuring out your macros, do not make the mistake of thinking that you can look at a food and then look at your macro app, my fitness pal or fat secret or whatever tool you use and go, oh yeah, that's six ounces of chicken or oh yeah, that's a small yum. Like, the way they categorize it in these apps are very general and generic.

I remember the first time that I found this out was actually sweet potatoes. And I had been tracking all my stuff. I've been doing this for like, I don't know, like a month or two and I could not figure out for the life of me. Why my progress was stalling and I'm like, I'm like, I don't know, like a month or two and I could not figure out for the life of me. Why my progress was stalling and I'm like, I'm eating so clean, I'm eating so healthy. But what I was doing was I was inputting my, my, my YAMM and I put it in as a large YAMM.

I had it not, you have an option in the app I was using back then, it was like, small medium or large. I mean, oh, this is a large YAMM. Okay, well, what exactly did it, well, when I dug deeper to find out what they constituted a large yum, it was like a certain amount of ounces, you know, I don't remember. You had a triple extra. Oh, it was three times. So, and I was eating yams at least two to three meals in every single day. Like another 800 calories. Yeah. So I was literally, and you know, of course, in my head,

I'm going, oh, this is a healthy food. So, and I wasn't really worried about it until I was literally, and of course in my head I'm going, oh this is a healthy food, so I wasn't really worried about it until I was stalling my progress so much. And then I thought, oh I was putting the largest one, so it must be accurate. Oh no, I was off by a few hundred calories and then I was doing that two or three times in a day, so I was massively off. And so at the beginning, it's important that you weigh all your foods, you measure your figure of the accurate.

Yeah, to get an accurate reading, to get an accurate baseline. Also, when talking about weighing your food, what I get asked a lot is like, do I weigh it before or after I cook it? We're splitting hairs on, you know, like how much, you know, protein is cooked off after you barbecue a chicken versus before. What's more important is your consistent.

I like the way after I'm done cooking. I don't like taking wet chicken breasts or wet meat and throwing it on the scale and making a mess. And so I don't care if that is, you know, a fraction off from what the actual app is, how the app uses it. You just need to be consistent. Just like you, how we talk about utilizing body fat testing tools, it's less important about what the body fat test said or what the exact, you know, weight of that is, it's that you consistently just use it the same way. If you're going to weigh it one way, then always then always pay way. That's what matters the most. What we could throw you off is if you sometimes

weigh your chicken before you cook it something the way it after other times, like those things could make a difference because you're inconsistent. So whatever way you decide to do it before or after, I have always recommended it after you cook the food to weigh it. Just be consistent with it.

Totally, I like to do it. I'll put the plate on the scale, subtract the plate, put the food on, and then boom, it's real easy. Look, if you liked this episode, if you like Mind Pump, go to MindPumpFree.com and check out our free guides. We have free fitness guides that can help you

with a lot of different goals. You can also find us on Instagram. Justin is not here, but you can find him on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump to Stefano, and you can find Instagram at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump De Stefano and you can find Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump

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