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Tracking Your Nutrients

  Tracking your macro nutrients consists of setting your total daily calories in a deficit, maintenance, or surplus by using an online calorie or macro nutrient calculator. Being in a caloric deficit helps with fat loss, maintenance is the place to be if you want to measure where your body is and how it responds, and a surplus will help you gain weight. Then, you must track what they eat after it is calculated. The macro nutrients you need to worry about are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Protein and carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram and fats contain 9 calories per gram, meaning they are higher in calories than the other two macro nutrients. As long as you track your macro nutrients each day and reach your targets, you can be successful in your fitness journey without meal plans. One must never forget that nutrition is a tool, not a restraint. Pick the foods you like while reaching your body composition goals with this method by tracking your macro nutrients a
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Sixth Step: Macro Cheat Sheet

To get an idea of macro-nutrient foods that can help you reach your targets, here is a cheat sheet. The cheat sheet provides examples of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Now remember, these aren't necessarily "clean foods" per say, but foods that are macro-nutrient dense. These macro-nutrient dense foods will keep you fuller for longer. For example, a poptart won't keep you as full due to the fast digesting carbohydrates (sugars) in it versus oatmeal, rice or potatoes. The overall principle is that you can choose to eat the poptart, as long as it fits into your macro-nutrient targets that we calculated. Keep in mind though, that poptart won't keep you as full for the rest of the day or night and once you hit your targets for the day, you won't be consuming any other food. Included in the diagram below are general food timing suggestions that can help boost your workouts. http://www.truehealthtrifecta.com/macronutrient-cheat-sheet/  Posted: March
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Fifth Step: High Protein Ideas

For many people, getting enough protein in the day is the toughest challenge. The following linked resource and pictures provide an idea of how to get this macro-nutrient in easier. The images provide a variety of foods that will help you reach your goal every day while tracking your calories and macro-nutrients. I find that if I have a list of foods that I enjoy eating and are macro-nutrient dense, I am able to hit my targets for the day and won't be stressed out thinking about what to eat. I tend to make many recipes that are high in protein and the images below are ways in which you can increase your protein intake. https://www.wellnessresources.com/health-topics Posted: March 17, 2:15pm.
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Fourth Step: Tracking Progress

The fourth step on this journey is tracking progress. A weight scale is one way of tracking progress, it won't always be reliable as our weight fluctuates everyday based on a variety of human functions. It is one tool in tracking progress and we need to consider other options to get a well-rounded idea of how much progress we are making or not making. Taking progress photos are a great way of doing this as well as using a body scanner that measures the amount of water in the body,  percentage of body fat, and total muscle mass. Pictured below is an InBody Scanner I use at a local supplement shop that gives me a report on where I'm currently at versus the month before. Posted: March 17, 2018. 2:01pm.
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Third Step: Workout Splits

When it comes to workout splits, I generally stick to a few options and change it up every 8 to 12 weeks. Depending on how many days you can make it to the gym and how long you've been working out for, depends on the workout split you should try. I generally like either a Full-Body Split 3 days a week, an Upper Body / Lower Body Split 4 days a week, or a Push / Pull / Legs split 6 days a week. This all is based on how long you've been lifting, although you can try any one of these as long as you don't feel too exhausted throughout the week. Below is a sample of the Upper / Lower Split I follow 4 times a week because of how often I can get into the gym. Posted: March 17, 2018. 1:45pm.
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Second Step: Macro Calculator

Continuing on in our journey to calculate what our body needs, click the link below to get started on finding your macro nutrient targets. I have decided to choose the "maintenance" calorie option as I'd like to maintain my current body weight. With this in mind, I calculated 2,400 calories that I should consume each day to maintain my size. By using this Macro calculator, my results came out to 270g Carbohydrates, 180g Protein, and 66g Fat per day that I need to eat. How I get to those numbers is up to me, based on the foods I consume. A general rule of thumb is to keep "junk" foods to about 20-30% of your daily caloric intake. In the case of flexible dieting, "junk foods" consist of foods that offer little or no macro nutrient benefit to your body. This is where it gets the name "flexible dieting" because most of the foods you consume each day should be of a higher macro nutrient dense foods and the rest can be up to your choosing. Down bel
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First Step: Calorie Calculator

Since you have an overview of what the general principles of flexible dieting are, let's start with this link and setup your daily caloric intake. Calorie Calculator The idea here is to get a sense of where you will be on a day-to-day basis. We will have to look at how much energy your body uses in order to support it with the needed calories to reach your goal. Enter your age, gender, weight, height, exercise level, and press calculate. Your maintenance and fat loss calories will be calculated. If your goal is to gain weight and eventually muscle, add 250-500 calories and taper up calories depending on how your body responds in three to four weeks time. In the next post, we will be using the macro nutrient calculator to finally find the targets of what you are able to eat every day. Post: February 4th, 2018. 9:50pm.
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