8 Food Tracking Mistakes That Might Be Duping You Out of Your Caloric Deficit

First of all, why is it even important to be tracking your food accurately?

Well, it might not be. If you’re just trying to “get a decent idea” of what you consume per day, it might not be worth it to you to weigh-out every single morsel of food you consume.

If that’s you, take this article with a grain of salt and remember that it’s not always a worthwhile trade-off to be tracking meticulously 24/7.

On the other hand, if you do have a serious fat loss or body recomposition goal, these really are things you should probably be paying attention to in terms of your tracking accuracy - especially if you’re currently paying a coach your hard-earned cash for their week-to-week macronutrient adjustments.

This article is for you.

I promise you don’t want to be the person who swears they’re eating 1,500 calories when really they’re crushing upwards of 2,000 per day.

So, let’s get into it.

Mistake #1: You’re using measuring cups instead of a food scale.

This is by far the most common error I see.

The classic example of this is peanut butter.

If you’re still measuring a tablespoon of peanut butter with an actual spoon, you’re really setting yourself up for inaccuracy due to the large degree of error you introduce when you opt for plastic utensils rather than your food scale.

In fact, since peanut butter is so calorically dense, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people were actually serving themselves twice the recommended serving size, which could result in an additional 190-200 calories from one simple mistake.

When it comes to eating below your needs for fat loss, those extra 200 calories alone could kick some people out of their daily deficit.

So, plop that jar on the scale, zero it out, and remove 16g of peanut butter if you’re serious about tracking your one tablespoon accurately.

Here are a few other awkward items that emphasize the point:

• Spinach - A serving of spinach in the bags I buy is 3 cups. What does that even mean? How do you put spinach in a cup? How hard am I supposed to squish in the spinach?

  • Although I don’t think weighing your greens to the gram is necessary in most cases, the point stands.

• Berries - Again, how do I measure non-liquid items in cups? Are the berries allowed to go above the rim of the cup? What if one berry is awkwardly shaped and creates a lot of free space in the cup?

  • This is the same idea as the spinach example.

And you get the idea.

Takeaway: Measure your foods in grams or ounces on your food scale for the greatest tracking accuracy.

If you need help figuring out which food scale to buy, I really like the Coffee Gator Coffee Scale. Even though I’m pretty sure this thing was designed to help you weigh your coffee grounds to the tenth of the gram, I’ve found it to be an amazing tool for body recomposition. I use it literally every day in order to weigh out my oats, berries, bananas, hemp seeds, soy milk, and protein powder.

Mistake #2: You’re weighing certain things cooked when you should be weighing them dry.

The most common culprits of this are rice, pasta, and quinoa.

Be sure to weigh these items dry, log them into MyFitnessPal, and then cook them in water.

For example, if you’re weighing cooked rice by the dry weight on the box, you’re actually going to be under-eating by quite a bit.

Don’t do that to yourself - especially if the true serving size would already have had you in a deficit.

Make the quick adjustment and keep your tracking on point.

Takeaway: Weigh and log your rices, pastas, and quinoa dry before cooking them unless you already know the conversion equation.

Pro Tip: If you’re thinking, “Well, wait. What if I want to make it in bulk?” then I recommend doing an experiment to figure out the conversion. For example, the way I make rice, one cup of dried rice comes out to about 135g of cooked rice. Once you have that conversion, you’ll be set for every future meal your prepare that contains rice the way you make it.

Some food tracking apps can actually do this well for you. For example, I use Cronometer and frequently use the “steamed white rice” or “quinoa, cooked” option and experience reliable results.

Mistake #3: You think you are much better at finding your favorite eat-out equivalents in MyFitnessPal than you really are.

For example, if you go out to a local place to get a double cheeseburger slathered in BBQ sauce and mayonnaise and wind up logging the McDonald’s double cheeseburger because that “should be close,” you’re being a silly rabbit and probably just looking for an excuse to smash some extra calories because you “didn’t know any better.” Give me a break, Spongebob.

The burger you consumed could have twice the amount of calories than the version you found in MyFitnessPal, which could easily wipe away your target deficit for the day in a single blow.

For that reason, it’s probably best to limit eating out when it’s really time to get serious about tracking accuracy. Is that inconvenient? Totally.

But, sometimes it’s the price you pay for having a serious body recomposition goal.

And, remember, it’s temporary. There will time for you to enjoy a relaxed, untracked meal of a black bean burger and fries once you’ve reach your goal and are back to maintenance or surplus eating.

Takeaway: Don’t be naive about trying to find calorically equivalent items in MyFitnessPal for food items that are just frankly impossible to track.

Mistake #4: You’re weighing and logging your meats incorrectly.

When you cook meats, their weight goes down.

Keep in mind that when you scan the code on the chicken breasts you bought, that information is logging into MyFitnessPal as the raw weight, which isn’t the same as cooked weight.

Each lean meat has a slightly different raw to cooked ratio, but in my meat-eating days I found that 4:3 was a decent rule of thumb to use - at least for chicken. That means that four ounces of chicken usually cooks down to around three ounces.

If you need practical help on the math side of things, multiply your cooked weight by 1.333 in MyFitnessPal if you’re using the raw meat macros to log.

So, if you put four ounces of cooked chicken on your homemade burrito, log that as 4x1.333, which equals about 5.3 ounces of raw chicken.

Is it perfect? No, but it’s about as close as we can get, and your consistency over time will level out the minor inaccuracies on a meal to meal basis.

Also, I always take the opportunity to use this platform to raise awareness around the benefits of eating a plant-predominant diet.

So if there’s any part of you that is “plant-curious” or tired of being encouraged to eat a ton of meat to support your body recomposition goals, click here to read about the meals I personally eat to build muscle on a completely plant-based diet.

Mistake #5: You’re forgetting about butters and oils and dressings.

Just because you go to Addison’s and get the steamed broccoli on the side doesn’t mean your boy in the back didn’t bathe your broccoli in butter or oil.

Remember, chefs don’t care about your fat loss goals. They care about food tasting good so they don’t get fired.

Another culprit? Oils in pastas and on fish like salmon.

Olive oil, although widely touted as a healthy fat, is one of the most calorically dense foods on the planet. Just one tablespoon packs 14g of fat.

And, if you need context to make sense of that number, know that I’m a 185-pound male and eat around 60g of total fat per day when dieting for fat loss. Just two tablespoons of olive oil would account for 46% of my daily needs.

But this is no reason to be afraid of olive oil. It just means you should be educated about olive oil.

The same mistake can be made with something simple like a Cobb salad, which plenty of people order thinking they’re making the “healthy choice.”

And really, they’re not technically wrong. Most of the foods in a salad are technically healthy, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to support your fat loss goal. Why?

Because Cobb salads typically come with bacon, avocado, egg, cheese, and dressing, which are all high-calorie tack-ons to keep your tastebuds happy.

If those portion sizes get loose at all, you’re looking at a 1,500+ calorie salad, which is what plenty of my female clients eat in an entire day to support their fat loss efforts.

Worth it? Maybe, but I doubt it unless you really like Cobb salads.

Takeaway: Don’t be a noob when it comes to being oblivious about butters, oils, and dressings - especially when you’re not preparing your own food or eating out. When in doubt, pass on unnecessary high-fat add-ons or limit yourself to one modestly-portioned, plant-based fat source like avocado.

Mistake #6: You’re putting too much faith in the caloric numbers some companies put on their menus or online nutrition guides.

Think about it.

How can some nutrition expert at Chipotle headquarters guarantee that every random bro working the burrito line is going to give you the exact serving size of steak, black beans, rice, and guac to make that 700-calorie burrito bowl you designed on their website exactly 700 calories?

That burrito that the website technically says is 700 calories could easily be 1,000 or more - especially if fat sources like cheese and sour cream are involved.

And, what about the chips and queso?

What if you get the guy with tiny hands versus the girl with huge hands? Or the guy who is feeling generous versus the girl who shorts you so bad you ask to speak to the manager?

The caloric differences can be massive.

Takeaway: Again, don’t be green. Just because the website says what you ordered is 700 calories, keep in mind that it could be 500 or 1,000 calories (or anywhere in between) depending on which random college kid happened to be working that day.

Mistake #7: You aren’t tracking alcohol.⠀

I don’t know why this happens so much, but a lot of people just don’t track their booze.

Alcohol has quite a few calories, so if you’re not tracking them you’re really doing yourself a disservice.

Personally, my favorite fat loss friendly beverages are either gin and tonics or diet sodas with a bit of rum or whiskey.

You’ll find my two favorite combos below with accompanying moods:

• Diet Sprite and Malibu (if I feel like listening to Taylor Swift by the pool)

• Diet Coke and Whiskey (if I feel like pressing into masculine stereotypes)

• Alcoholic seltzers like Truly or White Claw can be low-calorie options as well.

Booze to be careful with

You’ll probably want to be careful with wines and beers (especially IPAs or stouts) as they tend to pack a hefty caloric punch.

“But, I thought red wine was good for you?”

Maybe it is, but it still has a boat-load of calories if you and the girls starting getting wily with your pours during The Bachelor premier.

And for the beer drinkers, even just two cans of your favorite IPA can contain nearly 500 calories - and, let’s be honest, that’s just the beginning for some people on the weekends.

Takeaway: Track your booze, and make sure you craft enough space in your diet for them if you’re passionate about enjoying an alcoholic beverage from time to time.

Mistake #8: You justify going hog wild with your calories when you’re away from your food scale.

For some people, life falls apart when they don’t have their scale, which means on the weekends they go bananas when out with friends.

Let me encourage you not to do that. Those extra calories really do matter.

It’s like being a good kid during the week and then throwing a total banger of a house party on Friday night and burning your parents’ place down in true Project X fashion.

Fat loss is pretty similar. Even though one “bad day” probably won’t ruin the consistency of weeks and months, it can certainly slow down the fat loss process and leave some people feeling set back and discouraged.

And, to be fair enough, if you go hard enough on the weekend, you can absolutely undo an entire week’s worth of disciplined dieting toward your gal.

My opinion? Try to strike a balance and rely on good habits when you’re separated from your food scale.

If you need something concrete, here are some strategies I implement:

• Prioritize whole foods.

• Focus on consuming plenty of vegetables and fruits.

• Try to get your fats from healthy sources (or keep them to a minimum).

• Enjoy one modestly-portioned sweet treat if you really want to participate and enjoy the moment.

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So there you go! Hopefully highlighting these easy-to-make mistakes will help you tidy up your food tracking methods and get the results you want.

As always, thank you for engaging with my content! If you feel like this blog was helpful, I would love it if you sent it to a friend who might be struggling to make sense of all this calorie talk. It can certainly be overwhelming.

Lastly, I want to disclose that I do earn from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.

Later, friends.

-Andrew

Why "Doing Fitness" Is Easier When You're Rich (and How I Would Personally Go About It)

Over the last few months I’ve come to a semi-unfortunate realization.

Getting into incredible shape really is much easier if you’ve got a lot of money to throw at the cause.

But, before all of our non-millionaire Joes and Janes throw in their physique towels due to their “average” bank accounts, I want to be clear that you can, of course, get into phenomenal shape at pretty much any level of socioeconomic status - it just might take more planning, strategy, and effort if your finances are tight at the moment.

Why though?

Why is it easier to get lean if you’re rich and willing to spend your money on your goal?

I’m glad you asked.

Reason 1: You can buy the most convenient, high-quality, and macronutrient appropriate foods available without stress.

As someone who specializes in fat loss, believe me when I tell you that your overall caloric intake is the number one thing you should be prioritizing when it comes to losing body fat.

It’s the biggest thing people fail to understand when it comes to a successful body recomposition effort.

Because of that, one huge obstacle for a lot people is simply being able to purchase, prepare, and consume nutrient-dense, high-protein meals multiple times per day that fit into their prescribed caloric targets on a sustainable basis.

And, guess what?

I totally get it. It can be a bit of a chore to execute a grocery haul each Sunday with enough foresight to ensure you’re going to be able to hit your protein and caloric targets everyday for the coming week.

On top of that, it’s no secret that eating higher-quality, healthier foods can be more expensive than eating their ultra-processed or fast food equivalents, which creates a troublesome combination of inconvenience and financial stress.

Well, “being rich” eliminates the inconvenience and stress of eating the right foods for three reasons:

1. You either have more money in the food budget in the month to buy and prepare high-quality foods yourself (if you’re a good cook and enjoy making your own food), or…

2. You use a high-quality, physique friendly meal delivery service like Trifecta, or…

3. You hire your own personal chef that prepares meals tailored specifically to your goals and you never have to think about it.

So, if you’re wondering how I personally would do the food portion of my physique pursuits if I had a money tree in my backyard, this is exactly what it would look like:

I would have a plant-based meal service on speed dial.

Seriously, if I were rich, I’d be eating a minimum of 21 pre-packaged meals per week centered around lean proteins, nutrient-dense carbohydrates, healthy fats, and plenty of well-seasoned vegetables.

If you’re serious about your body recomposition goals and you have the money in the bank to support it, using a macro-friendly meal delivery service is an absolute no-brainer in my opinion.

My quick note to rich folks who are unhappy in their own skin?

Open up your refrigerator, throw out the junk foods, and restock it with your first round of delivered meals to kickstart the fat loss process.

Reason 2: You could literally hire your own highly-personalized physique coach to be your best friend 24/7.

If you’re rolling in the dough, it’s no problem at all if you have no idea where to start when it comes to getting jacked and lean because you can pay for someone to show you the way.

But, if you’re not able to afford a coach, you’re left to figure it out for yourself, Sherlock.

I say this because one of the reasons I personally spun my wheels for years when it came to my physique was due to the fact that I just couldn’t afford to put any money toward a coach.

As a result, I was left to the internet - a place mostly known for its fitness mythology and hyper-scammy marketing deception - and the tabloid-esque claims got the best of me for the majority of my twenties.

You don’t have to be that person when you’re loaded.

As I like to say, the ambiguity of exactly what you should be doing is offloaded completely when you have a personal coach.

And, you have the freedom to execute your diet and training plan without thought-fatigue, which is monumentally important when it comes to long-term adherence.

The reality is that we all only have so much energy to give, which means the task of researching how to create an intelligent diet and training program, then actually creating an evidence-based diet and training program, and then executing that diet and training program sustainably while making the appropriate adjustments along the way due to your body’s response can become overwhelming in approximately five nanoseconds.

With a coach, you just do what you’re told and learn along the way.

Could it be any easier?

If that sounds appealing, apply for coaching with us.

Reason 3: You can afford the best gyms (and maybe even your own home gym).

For some people, the cost of membership to a well-equipped gym can be a financial obstacle (or even out of the question completely).

Fortunately, you can still get a great workout at-home even if you’re limited to your own bodyweight and a few creative objects around the house, so there’s no real excuse per se.

But, having access to the best gym in town does give you the ability to overload your muscles through all planes of motion via traditional and newer-age machine movements.

There’s no question about that.

And, since quality training is the catalyst for muscle growth, that makes having access to great equipment a pretty big deal when it comes to pursuing a goal of getting leaner and more muscular.

Some people might even be able to afford their own home gym set-up, which adds another level of convenience to the mix.

When you think about it, going to the gym presents its own unique set of friction points that could potentially pose as a detriment to your physique goal.

The Downsides of Not Having Your Own Home Gym

• Firstly, you have to drive to the gym.

  • Obviously, that’s not a huge deal, but it does take time, effort, and planning that could be spent in other valuable ways if you’re a driven and successful person.

• You have to share the equipment with other gym goers.

  • If you’re forced to go to the gym at peak hours, this really can be a detriment to your workout both physically and mentally.

    • If you’ve been progressing week to week on the hack squat, but you walk in and see two or three people waiting to use the hack squat machine, that’s a problem. If you really care about overload, you’d be best to wait for the machine, but what if you only have 45 minutes to workout? In this case, you’d be better to substitute another exercise for the sake of maximizing your work output. In other words, it just wouldn’t make sense to waste 20 precious minutes of your time slot being legalistic about your workout. But, it’s still a bummer and certainly not ideal.

    • And, what about the mental aspect? Fighting for equipment is stressful and discouraging, which can absolutely ruin the vibe of a workout you were looking forward to all day.

As you can imagine, having a home gym eliminates all of these issues because your equipment is onsite and exclusive to your private use and pace.

As a bonus, you can even customize the littler things like which genre of music is playing in the background and the temperature in your lifting space.

All in all, having plenty of money in the bank allows you to optimize your exercise experience in ways other people can’t enjoy.

Reason 4: You can afford regular physical luxuries like deep tissue massage therapy.

I know for a fact that if I had the money, I would probably get 2-4 deep tissue massages per month.

The fact of the matter is this…

When you’re training toward a body recomposition goal, you’re going to develop some muscle tightness, aches, and pains along the way if you’re training as intensely as you should be.

And, if you can afford to have someone release the tension a few times a month (maybe even in the luxury of your own home), you’re going to have a slight edge over any regular Joe that has to “play through the pain” and be a bit more disciplined with his own stretching and foam rolling routine.

“Healing up” through massage from time to time is probably going to keep your body performing at its best while preventing acute and chronic injury - another luxury not everyone is blessed enough to enjoy.

As a side note, if you live in Columbia, Missouri and are looking for a top notch deep tissue massage experience, I highly recommend visiting Liz at Iron Muscle Massage. The woman has hands of fire and brimstone and I promise you will not be disappointed.

And, no, she is not paying us to say that, she is just that good.

A Quick Recap

1. Being wealthy allows you to buy the foods you need to support your goal without inconvenience or unnecessary stress.

2. Being wealthy allows you to hire your own fitness and physique coach.

3. Being wealthy allows you to workout in the best gyms with the best equipment - some of which may even be a part of your private at-home gym set-up.

4. Being wealthy allows you to take care of your body long-term through massage and other therapeutic services.

How Exactly I Would Do Fitness If I Were Wealthy

Nothing would make me happier than for someone to read this final piece of the blog and awkwardly whisper to themselves, “I could actually do exactly what he’s saying. What have I been waiting for? I literally have no excuse.”

And, that’s kind of the point I’m trying to make here.

The more disposable income you have, the fewer excuses you have when it comes to your body recomposition goals - it’s just that simple.

But anyway, this is how I would do it personally:

1. I’d hop on a plant-based meal delivery service and buy my first week of meals and make it a regular habit.

2. I wouldn’t hire a coach right now because I’m really enjoying the experimental freedom I have with both my nutrition and my training, but at some point I would hire someone just to learn from their years of experience and success.

   • But, if I were loaded and needed quick help getting lean and jacked, I’d hire a full-time trainer to support me in my goals 24/7. This could be anywhere from $200-1,000 per month or more depending on your needs and preference of online versus in-person.

3. I’d make sure I have access to my favorite gym in town.

4. I’d buy a few sweet pieces of equipment for my home set-up immediately: a treadmill, leg press, hack squat, Pit Shark, machine bench press, assisted pull-up machine, and a rack of dumbbells up to 100 just to start. Don’t get me wrong though, that would be a pretty penny.

5. I’d get a 90-minute deep tissue massage once a week from Liz.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

How to Leverage Walking to Your Fat Loss Advantage

When it comes to walking and its relationship to fat loss, we’re all looking for a quick and easy answer to one particular million dollar question:

Exactly how much should I be walking to lose fat and get lean?

To be honest with you, I’ve found that one of the biggest problems with trying to put out information regarding body recomposition in general is that individuality almost always gets lost in favor of one conservative (yet heavily nuanced) take-home point for the masses.

Walking is no different, but let me do my best.

What’s the magic amount of walking we need to get summer shredded?

As much as I hate to tell you this, there is no specific amount of walking we could prescribe to any given person if the goal is to leverage walking as a tool for fat loss.

Sorry, folks. I know that would be much easier than wading through another duly nuanced write-up about the inner-workings of body recomposition, but that's just not how it works for one simple reason: Every single person embodies a uniquely different combination of lifestyle factors that affects their body’s immediate “walking requirement” for fat loss.

In my experience, those lifestyle factors include your caloric intake, your daily activity levels, whether or not you resistance train (and how much if you do), and the current state of your metabolism, but what all of this really comes down to is getting yourself into a caloric deficit.

And because of that, there is no “one size fits all” recommendation unless you want to be a moron and recommend we all do two hours on the treadmill everyday (and even that might not “work” if you’re not monitoring your caloric consumption).

Let’s take a few examples.

I’m personally losing fat on 13K steps a day at the moment, but I have a client losing on 10K and another on 8K. So, what gives?

Again, when it comes to walking, the amount you need for fat loss is simply “whatever it takes” given the remaining context of your life.

Therefore, what it takes for me might not be what it takes for you or anyone else for that matter.

So, if you’re not losing body fat living the lifestyle you’re currently living, the answer to how much you need to be walking is just “more.”

But, how much more?

Practically speaking, I would recommend walking sustainably more.

In other words, don’t get overeager and say, “Alright, I’m going to walk 20K steps a day until the fat is gone.” It’s unlikely you’d be able to stick to that for more than a day or two. In fact, you’d probably get to 16K the first day and then fall off the wagon all to have gained nothing but discouragement and frustration when you could have made a more conservation and long-term move in the first place.

Instead, it’s probably a better idea to increase your daily step count average by 1,000 steps per day as a starting point.

How i coach my clients toward walking more

This is how I usually guide my clients in their first weeks with me.

• For the first two weeks, I will tell them to live life normally and track steps accordingly.

  • This is helpful because it gives us a baseline. Just as an example, let’s say they track their steps without altering their behavior for 14 days to reveal that they average around 5,389 steps per day.

• As simple as this sounds, I’ll most often just prescribe a new weekly average of 6,000+ with the caveat that I don’t want them exceeding that on purpose.

  • You might be wondering why, and I would be happy to explain.

    • One huge problem that I see time and time again in the body recomposition space is that people will fail to get more out of less. If I had to give it a name, I might call it the “Go Hard or Go Home Fallacy.”

    • It’s the idea that you must be doing as much as humanly possible in order to get the desired results. And, as the name suggests, it’s a fallacy.

    • In other words, I would rather see my clients sustainably walk more and more in a progressive fashion until it’s no longer suitable for their lifestyle rather than jump straight to something unnecessarily aggressive.

    • This way we’re able to accumulate weeks and weeks of increased walking habits, which inevitably leads to fat loss when paired strategically with the right amount of calorie consumption and other lifestyle factors.

    • An ideal progression might look like this:

      • Week 1: 6,000 steps on average

      • Week 2: 7,000 steps on average

      • Week 3: 8,000 steps on average

      • Week 4, 9,000 steps on average

      • Week 5: 10,000 steps on average

      • Week 6: Just live life normally as a deload.

How to Walk Sustainably More

If you’re up for tracking your steps with a Fitbit or even your iPhone like I do, this is super easy.

Using that ideal progression I mentioned above, consider the following:

Assuming you keep all other lifestyle factors steady from the prior week (most importantly your caloric intake), you’ll know if that each daily step average is sufficient for fat loss if you see a slight dip in your morning weigh-ins.

But the trick here is consistency and control of data collection.

So, let me be clear when I say this: You cannot look to a step goal to be your fat loss saving grace if you are being willy nilly with your caloric intake.

This is why I cannot recommend tracking both your caloric intake and your daily step count consistently if you are serious about achieving predictable fat loss results.

But, if you’re not up for tracking your steps, you’ll probably have to create structure in a different way. For example, you could say, “I’ll walk for 20 extra minutes each day over my lunch break.”

Now, that sounds like a lovely behavior for the broader category of overall physical well-being, but the problem with this way of going about things is that you’re still a bit subject to “seeing what happens” because you still don’t really have any hard data on your current energy balance (calories in versus calories out).

Plus, we’re talking about getting leaner here - not just being a bit more active because your doctor said so.

Those are two very different things.

If you walk for 20 extra minutes a day over lunch but you’re otherwise lazier throughout the day, then you haven’t netted any extra calories out to ignite the fat loss you’re after.

Or, on an ever more realistic level, if you walk for 20 extra minutes but you went to a social gathering and had some pizza, two glasses of wine, and split an ice cream brownie with your friend, you’ve probably way overcompensated for the few extra calories you burned over lunch with the calories you consumed while socializing.

Does that make sense?

At the end of the day, leveraging walking for fat loss outcomes is all about math.

In Summary

So, let me wrap this all up as concisely as I can.

1. Before you even think about implementing walking as a fat loss strategy, make sure to get your calories and protein in check first. You can absolutely start walking more for general health, but there’s no guarantee of fat loss until all of the variables are accounted for.

2. We didn’t touch on this much in the article, but resistance training is what gives most people that hard, lean look a lot of us are longing for deep down. But you don’t have to train with weights to lose body fat, it just tends to improve your body composition outcomes when matched with a proper diet plan.

3. Once your calories, protein, and training are in order, pick a daily step goal and stick to it using a Fitbit or even just an iPhone you can carry in your pocket all day. Remember, consistency is key.

4. Monitor your bodyweight a few times a week if possible and take note of any downward trends. If you’re losing scale weight, chances are you’re losing body fat due to your self-imposed caloric deficit. If not, you’ll either need to lower your calories or increase your steps.

5. If you choose to increase your steps, do so in a sustainable manner. Think 1,000 step increases in daily averages across a week of time.

And that’s the gist of it.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

What Should You Order at Las Margaritas (or Any Mexican Restaurant) for Fat Loss?

Summer is right around the corner, which means we’ll all be sipping margaritas and stuffing our faces with chips and queso before we know it.

The question is: Is it possible to eat at your favorite Mexican restaurant and still stay on track with your physique or fat loss goals?

Well, it’s definitely possible, but I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth.

If you think you can order the jumbo peach margarita, smash two baskets of tortilla chips drenched in queso, and then move on to demolish the Franzia Special (which is a plate of rice and chicken soaked in even more queso) as a part of an effective fat loss plan, you just might be dreaming.

In fact, I would argue that eating at a Mexican restaurant while trying to lose body fat is kind of like trying to play soccer in a mine field. But don’t let that scare you away.

It can be done, but how?

Let’s cut to the chase.

The chicken fajitas are probably your best bet - especially if you’re willing to omit a high fat option from the side plate like sour cream. If you’re really tight on calories, you could even pass on a carbohydrate source (or two) like Mexican rice, beans, or the tortillas.

In my personal opinion, this is the way to go for a host of reasons. But really, the “power” in chicken fajitas is simply the fact that they’re a low calorie, high protein option that is likely to leave you feeling full without food baby bloat and an intense bout of caloric regret a few hours later.

Now, if you just crash-landed on this blog wanting the quick answer of ordering the chicken fajitas, there you have it. But, if you’re interested in knowing the why behind it, I highly encourage you to keep reading.

The reasons might be eyeopening.

Why the Chicken Fajitas Might Be Your Saving Grace for Fat Loss

We’ll get back to the specificity of the chicken fajitas later, but I want to start from ground zero when it comes to thinking about the entire dining experience at most Mexican joints.

The whole experience is set up for your fat loss failure, and here’s why:

1. The calories start accumulating in chip and dip fashion from the moment you walk in the door.

As soon as you sit down, you’re presented with a lovely basket of Mexican chips. Chips seem harmless, right? Totally! Except they aren’t harmless.

Some chips can have up to 150 calories and 7g of fat per seven-chip portion size. Oof, that’s literally a gram of fat per chip.

I don't know about you, but I can think back on plenty of occasions when I smashed at least a full basket myself - not to mention the queso. And I’m fairly certain there were more than seven chips.

Oh, and then there’s the queso, which is another high fat add-on. Remember, each gram of fat has 9 calories, so the chips and queso duo can be a calorically catastrophic start to your dinner out if you’re not careful.

Let me show you an example.

As you’ll see below, the non-large serving of chips and white queso from Chipotle packs a brutal 780 calories and 43g of fat. If you’re not familiar with calorie and fat talk, that’s quite a bit of both.

If you order the large chips and large queso, it jumps up to 1290 calories and 75g of fat. That’s more fat than I personally eat in an entire day as a six-foot, 185-pound male.

My approach? I skip the chips altogether because I know that once I get going I just won’t stop.

If, however, you’re set on eating the chips, consider opting for the salsa since salsa usually only has around 10 calories per two tablespoon serving, which is much more fat loss friendly than her Cousin Queso.

You can even see that demonstrated in the Chipotle graphics above.

Some of you might be wondering, “But, how does this relate back to the chicken fajitas?”

Well, it’s simple. The chicken fajitas are probably going to be the lowest calorie (yet still high in protein) option on the menu. Keeping your entree low calorie gives you the best chance of walking out having eaten between 500-800 calories instead of 2,000+ in a lot of cases.

2. Margaritas and beer can be caloric explosions.

What do you get to drink at a Mexican place? The margaritas! Or maybe a beer if that’s more your style.

The problem with margaritas is that they are absolute sugar bombs. Now, I’m not against sugar for sugar’s sake, but I am skeptical of blowing 500-1,000 calories on a peach flavored drink before my actual entree even arrives. They might look light and dainty, but calorically they sure aren’t.

Fortunately, beer isn’t nearly as calorically dense if you stick to light varieties. Most light beers have around 100 calories, but a local IPA or heavier beer can carry up to 240 calories or more per can. Drink if you want to, but be wary of the caloric cost.

My approach? I drink water. Boring? Maybe, but water is the most obvious beverage option for anyone with a fat loss goal, and my fat loss goal matters more to me personally than a little salt and lemon on my tongue. I’ll just chomp on the ice cubes for fun.

3. Portion sizes at most Mexican places are out of control, which means the calories are out of control.

So we’ve conquered the chips and the drinks and now it’s time to order the “real” food.

If you haven’t noticed, most menus at Mexican restaurants are essentially unnecessarily long lists of about a thousand different shapes and combinations of the same basic foods: beans, rice, meats, lettuce, pico, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and tortillas.

And the portion sizes are typically huge.

Now, it’s not that beans and rice and tortillas and guacamole are inherently terrible for you, it’s just that when you eat anything in enormous portions you’re going to accumulate quite a few calories. And unfortunately, excess calories beyond what your body needs to maintain your current bodyweight are what lead to unwanted fat gain.

Practically speaking, one small to medium-sized tortilla is probably around 75-150 calories. Two would be 150-300, and three would be 225-450. Do that same math with additional servings of everything on your plate, and the calories continue to pile up.

So, the tip here is this: If you don’t want to waste food by limiting your portion sizes, just order a lower calorie option to begin with.

If you’re not excited about the chicken fajitas, consider a fish taco option with the dressing brought on the side.

4. The sour cream and guacamole in particular can wreck your daily caloric intake.

Ideally, at this point you still haven’t ordered (unless you’ve already committed to the chicken fajitas), so it’s the perfect time to discuss sour cream and guacamole briefly - two frequent add-ons to plenty of Mexican dishes you’ll be perusing on the menu.

Sour cream is basically pure fat. Guacamole is basically pure fat.

To be clear, I’m not against fat by any means, but when you eat a lot of fat (even nutrient-dense fats), the calories skyrocket because a gram of fat contains more calories than a gram of carbohydrates or a gram of protein. In some sense, you get a better bang for your caloric buck when you opt for carbohydrates or proteins instead.

For example, two tablespoons of sour cream tend to pack around 5g of fat while two ounces of guac are about 100 calories and 9g of fat.

But again, when is the last time you stuck to that portion size?

Be careful with ordering dishes that you know will be bombed with sour cream or guac.

5. You’re probably getting duped by cooking oils and you don’t even realize it.

Oils are one of those things people rarely consider because they doesn’t come burbling and gurgling in a side cup when they bring out the rest of your entree.

Basically, we can’t really see it so we don’t really think about it. Invisible calories shouldn’t count, right?

Unfortunately, oil is extremely calorically dense, and most cooks of popular restaurants care way more about you liking the food, paying for that food happily, and coming back a few days later than they do your waistline. Their job depends on the satisfaction of your palate - not the crispness of your abdominal crevices.

In fact, just one tablespoon of olive oil has about 140 calories and 14g of fat, and you know the cooks aren’t back there measuring things meticulously for you so you can pop it into MyFitnessPal later.

So, what happens? A lot of your meats and veggies are going to be soaked in high fat oils, which can very easily sabotage your caloric target for the day.

Don’t get duped by oils.

The Takeaway

So, the takeaway here is this: Chicken fajitas are low in calories, high in protein, and you can easily omit a few of the add-ons if they’re typically served with a side plate of beans, rice, pico, and sour cream, which make them a wonderful pick while dieting for fat loss.

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Thanks for reading! If you feel like this blog was helpful, we would love it if you sent it to someone you know who might benefit from it as well! You (and your friends) don’t have to be sidelined from your fat loss endeavors because of one uninformed night out to your favorite Mexican place.

And, of course, we encourage you to take the time to flip through some of our other recent posts for additional content.

Finally, if this is your first time interacting with evidence-based fat loss and you’re thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know fat loss was actually that simple”, we do have coaching slots open for the summer months and it’s not too late to apply. Josh and I really can guide you into a non-fad diet journey toward a leaner, more muscular version of yourself.

You just have to be brave enough to send the first email. Seriously, you’ll thank yourself later. Just do it.

Happy summer shredding, everyone.

-Andrew

11 Things You're Getting the "Most Wrong" about Fat Loss

1: You’re dismissing the importance of overall calories in search of a quick-fix diet with a sexy name.

As obvious as it becomes once you’re following the right crowd of experts in the fitness industry, the simplicity of getting into a caloric deficit for fat loss really feels like a tabloid’s best-kept secret.

But to be fair, the marketing for these diets like keto and carnivore and even the IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) movement is so good that most well-intentioned people fall prey to the quick-fix claims of “shedding 16 pounds of body fat in one week by switching to the (fill in the blank) diet!”

That’s just not how it works.

But, I promised myself I’d keep this blog short and sweet: Your fat loss results depend almost solely on your ability to eat a little bit less than you currently need while supplementing that lowered food intake with strategic training and exercise to expedite the process.

Let me encourage you to quit diet-hopping and become a student of energy - a student of calories and how those calories (both consumed and burned) dictate whether or not you lose the body fat you want to.

2: You don’t realize how important eating an adequate amount of protein is for maintaining muscle mass while losing fat.

This one speaks for itself, and there’s no use beating a dead horse because that’s a terrible expression in the first place.

Looking back on my own dieting history, I bet there were seasons of life when I was eating less than 50g of protein per day while trying to “get huge” because I thought training was all that mattered.

And although your training is certainly the most important aspect of improving your body composition, your nutrition is extremely important as well - particularly when it comes to protein.

Nowadays, I eat about 150g of plant protein per day, and that makes a big difference for someone trying to optimize their body composition.

Some of my favorite sources are soy milk, Ezekiel bread, chickpea pasta, tofu, tempeh, seitan, plant-based protein powders, and hemp seeds.

If you need guidance on figuring out your own protein needs, click here.

3: You think that carbs “make you fat.”

Carbs don’t make you fat. Too many calories relative to your current metabolic needs make you “fat.”

Eating too many carbs can certainly make you “fat,” but carbs are not an evil fat-gaining entity all by themselves.

You could “get fat” eating nut butters or guzzling beer just as easily.

4: You think that lemon juice “makes you skinny.”

Lemon juice doesn't make you skinny, but if you trade your typical breakfast sandwich and choco-mocha-frappa-latte with 27 pumps of honey and a tower of whipped cream from Starbucks for a glass of tap water with lemon juice (all else being equal), you just might lose some body fat.

Why?

Well, you’d be consuming way fewer calories in that scenario.

Again, your ability to stay in a caloric deficit matters most when it comes to losing body fat, which means your attention to your overall caloric intake is paramount.

Yes, I said paramount.

Lemon juice may have some unique health benefits, but the only “fat-burning power” it has in its superhero repertoire is the fact that it’s essentially zero-calorie.

5: You think that intermittent fasting was invented by magical fat loss leprechauns.

I definitely like intermittent fasting as a fat loss strategy, but I’ve personally not seen any super compelling evidence that something on a Disney level of magical is happening when you skip breakfast.

Does it help a lot of people get into a caloric deficit? Totally.

Have tons of people had fat loss success incorporating intermittent fasting? Absolutely.

Have I personally had success with it in the past? Yes!

Is there even some emerging research on the potential benefits of extended longevity? Apparently!

But it isn’t magical in the sense that it’s automatic.

You can absolutely out-eat your restricted eating window by smashing pizza and beer.

Intermittent fasting worked for me because it more easily allowed me to eat within an overall caloric deficit.

6: You’re unaware that walking can get you shredded.

Setting a step goal is probably the second most powerful bit of methodology you could apply to a fat loss goal.

And yes, I would rank walking above actually lifting heavy weights in the gym. Do I have your attention now?

Better yet, walking can be done doing everyday life tasks like parking farther away from your destination on purpose, taking the stairs, or even setting an alarm on your phone to get up and walk every two hours or so.

Sometimes my wife and I even walk the stairs a few times before bed just to hit our step goal for the day because we know that walking is a powerful tool for fat loss.

If you want further data on that, I encourage you to read the blog I put out revealing my exact numbers for Summer Shredding 2020.

Walking - and no, I don’t mean on a treadmill - was a huge part of the reason I was so easily able to lose my first 10 pounds.

And for an even deeper dive on the powerful benefits of walking, check out this article I wrote called How to Leverage Walking to Your Fat Loss Advantage.

7: You’re convinced you have to lift weights to lose fat.

You don’t.

Obviously, I lift weights and do CrossFit because I enjoy that kind of exercise and have physique goals centered around building muscle, but I realize that’s not for everyone. And it doesn’t have to be!

You don’t even have to go to the gym period to lose body fat.

Don’t overhype lifting weights for fat loss if you don’t like lifting weights.

Keep in mind, however, that you do have to lift weights if you want to build muscle, and it will certainly boost your metabolism over time as you continue to put on lean tissue.

Walking alone won’t be able to accomplish that aspect of the mission for you, but it can be implemented powerfully for fat loss.

8: You think that high-intensity exercise and “lots of cardio” are non-negotiables for getting diced.

They aren’t.

Before I started doing CrossFit, I hated both of those things, but I still lost 31 pounds of fat while obtaining the best physique of my life.

Pretty cool, right? You don’t have to do cardio or HIIT (high-intensity interval training) to get leaner.

Now, does doing a bit of cardio-based exercise for the sake of promoting a healthy heart do a person good? Of course!

To be honest with you, I think just about the healthiest life you can live is one that mixes a predominantly plant-based diet with CrossFit training systems, but this article is about fat loss.

And we’re not talking about general health here. If you’re thinking to yourself right now, “Aren’t being healthy and looking good pretty much the same thing"?” let me point you to another article I wrote called Are Being Healthy and “Looking Hot” the Same Thing?

Here we’re just talking about what it takes to lose body fat, and doing formal cardio just doesn’t have to make the list if you don’t want it to.

9: You’re convinced you can target reduce your belly fat or underarm flab if you do crunches and tricep pushdowns.

Friends, this idea that you can target fat loss from any specific area of your body is not true, and it’s probably one of the most misleading and widely-believed fitness myths out there.

If you want to make your arms a little less flabby, you’re going to have to do the same thing as someone who wants to get a six-pack or a less jiggly bum: Get into a caloric deficit either by reducing your food intake or increasing your energy expenditure.

As depressing as this may be, everyone has a different genetic predisposition to hold and distribute body fat in different areas and different amounts.

This is why being “genetically blessed” is very much a term in the fitness space.

Some people simply hold their body fat in more visually appealing ways.

For example, my body fat likes to hang out on my love handles. Do you think I would choose for it to be that way if I could pick? Probably not.

But it is what it is, and I just have to be patient with the process and know that the squishiness on my sides is going to be one of the last places for the chub to fall off. I can’t change my genetics (as far as I know) and neither can you.

The good news, however, is that getting lean is the great equalizer, so if you’re bummed out about your flabby arms - just keep losing body fat!

Eventually, you will be lean, and if you’ve been training with weights and eating an adequate amount of protein while eating an otherwise healthful diet, chances are you’ll be sporting a strong, aesthetically-pleasing frame underneath it all once the hard work is done.

10: You think fat loss happens a lot faster than it really does.

I was very guilty of thinking this for a long time.

In college, I literally thought I could get lean in probably two weeks, but the reality is that a true fat loss phase should probably last anywhere between 8-16 weeks when you lose at expert-recommended rates of 0.5-2 pounds per week.

Think about that. Using those numbers, it could take you up to 20 weeks to lose 10 pounds when done properly and sustainably.

Are you willing to be that patient?

Long story short, it takes commitment, consistency, and patience to get leaner, and this is why so many people give up on their fat loss goals.

They just don’t give their bodies enough time to change.

11: You’re not aware that your metabolism is adaptable.

This one is complex, but it’s important for you to know that your metabolism can be up-regulated or down-regulated depending on a host of factors including your muscle mass, caloric intake, exercise habits, sleep/recovery, and stress levels.

So, try not to be the person that wields their “terrible metabolism” as an uneducated excuse for an unhealthy lifestyle unless you’ve been diagnosed by a medical professional with a legitimate medical condition.

Summary

So, there you have it! These are my top eleven picks for the most common ways we’ve been wrong about fat loss.

Have you been caught being wrong about any of these things?

If so, don’t sweat it. I was wrong about literally all of these things at one point or another in our early twenties. In fact, it’s a huge reason we launched IVRY in the first place.

We wanted to help honest people achieve exciting body recomposition goals without all of the fitness mythology and fat loss lore we fell prey to for years.

So, just learn and move on like we did.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

Collecting Data to Improve Body Composition

A Wrong First Impression

I can remember being in college with little tent-pole legs sticking out of my shorts absolutely despising that guy at the gym who jotted things down into his little miniature notebook.

In fact, I can still almost picture one particular jacked guy with great posture walking around like whatever was written on that tiny notepad held the key to eternal life (or gains) while I was over in my own corner just thinking about what I was going to eat on my Chipotle burrito later that day.

Naturally, I didn't have a great initial experience with all of those guys that would fill out their workouts on little notepads. It all seemed like something professional athletes were supposed to do, and I was pretty sure none of these guys were professional athletes.

I remember thinking “it wasn’t for me” or that I wasn’t knowledgeable or capable enough to create a workout program.

But now that I think back, I was at the gym just for the sake of being at the gym.

I thought, “Well, as long as I'm here, something has to happen, right? If I go push a couple of heavy-ish things around and get a nice sweat in, surely I'll be looking like Arnold in no time.”

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong, and that guy I had originally judged for being a “meathead with a logbook” was years ahead of me in terms of utilizing the benefits of data collection for the sake of achieving a physique goal.

The Case for Data Collection

The best businesses in the world that seek to grow and surpass any of their wildest dreams all rely heavily on data to influence their decisions. Since I also currently teach math, I was recently reading a few articles on data collection and this quote from Carly Fiorina (former Hewlett-Packard CEO and a 2016 Republican presidential nomination) came up that I thought was relevant not only for business, but for our purposes also:

"The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight."

- Carly Fiorina

Hyper-successful people like Carly clearly use information and data to drive nearly all of their decisions. Now collecting data and information is not a direct indicator of success, but more successful people than not use data-driven ideas to drive their work.

What if we applied these ideas to our body composition goals as well?

Why Should I Collect Data to Improve Body Composition?

We use data and information to drive our decisions all of the time - even in ways we usually don't think about - because our brains do it almost automatically.

For example, say you tell a joke to a couple of friends and they find it extremely funny. We note their responses as important information such as, “my joke is funny, I should tell that again.”

Then we later tell that joke to some other friends and they also laugh. One of the best ways to see if we have a funny joke is to tell people and measure their responses, but we never really think about the process of telling a joke as a data driven solution - in some aspect, it just is!

Why then, do so many people refuse to let data drive their goals of body composition? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Can you still reach your goals without taking down any hard data or tracking anything? Sure. But, that's also like trying to walk from Columbia, Missouri to Mesa, Arizona without using the hundreds of map apps you could easily be accessing on your phone, which begs the question: If you could avoid all the wrong turns and setbacks, wouldn’t you prefer that? If I told you, “You can get to Arizona one of two ways. You either start walking with no resources or you start walking with a handful of helpful resources,” which would you pick?

What Do I Track?

As you may have noticed if you follow us on Instagram, Andrew and I are always posting little tidbits surrounding our habits of tracking calories, macros, workouts, steps, sleep quality and a host of other things, and this is why: Data is a friend of anyone pursuing a physique-related goal.

From here on, I’m going to talk mainly about my own process and things I'm personally doing.

I was very slow to join the tracking movement as you could tell by my initial response to people tracking in the gym, but clearly I was missing something. So I began to learn and practice all of these ideas about how to eat healthier, make better gains, and optimize rest and performance. My thought was: If I have all of these tools, why not try to use them to my advantage? Especially if the work to track some data points seems to be minimal.

Here are some of the (nearly) daily things I track:

• Steps

• Total Calories

• Macros

• Sleep Quality

• Sodium Intake

• Scale Weight

• My Workouts

Some of these things are easier than others to track, like entering my scale weight into a spreadsheet versus guessing my sleep quality based on how I feel when I wake up. One is straight forward, and the other is pretty subjective since I can’t measure the quality directly.

Here is what it looks like for me on my spreadsheet:

Examples of Why Tracking Has Been Useful for My Personal Fat Loss Goals

Weight Spikes

Occasionally my weight will spike up randomly, and you can even see that happen a few times on my sheet. Specifically near the end of the first week in the image, we can see a fluctuation of bodyweight. Without tracking anything, I probably have no idea what happened, or I could maybe at least incorrectly blame something.

With tracking however, I knew that I had eaten deep dish pizza for a special occasion on April 23 and a couple of other food items high in sodium. That was the only large meal I had eaten that day aside from a couple of other small snacks, so I know I kept my calories low (just didn’t report them for some reason). So why the weight gain? Sodium levels. Any time you eat out or make a dish that is high in sodium, even if you keep a lock on calories and macro numbers, you still might end up with a higher number on the scale the next morning because sodium causes us to hold a little bit of water, skewing your numbers a little bit.

Tracking As a Road Map for When You Get Lost

At some point in the cutting or gaining process, what you were doing before stops working. This is completely reasonable and logical because a lot of things about your body are changing as you gain and lose weight, so naturally it makes sense that the things that we need to do will slightly change.

This year it happened way earlier in the cutting process, and I have written a lot about it in several past social media posts, but essentially what happened was that I was struggling to lose weight early based on what worked for me last year and how I was implementing the diet this year. If I am a type of person that doesn’t track any of the categories listed above, I would probably be clueless about how to progress

However, with this data, I was able to manipulate a few things very easily and started to see results. I personally decided to increase my step count while also trying to better limit the fat consumption in my diet, and it worked!

Trying to Diagnose the Reason for a Poor Workout

This example has a little more nuance than the others, but it is something that has still been helpful for me when tracking. Several weeks ago I went to the [garage] gym and had a memorably horrible day; I felt sluggish, and asleep at the wheel with no motivation or strength to get anything done. I got in a few movements to justify being there and then left, albeit a bit puzzled.

The date I referenced was April 21, and if you peep the logbook picture above, you will see that my sleep quality from the previous night was listed as bad. I remember that night. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep? Again, this may make sense to most people… obviously my workouts suffered because my sleep was poor. Sometimes I have horrible sleep and then go into the best workouts of my life, so sleep may not always tell the entire story.

Another factor could’ve been that I had around 2,300 calories the day before as well (this was at a time when I was eating close to 2,700 cals), so the two could have compounded to provide the perfect storm for a poor workout.

How Much Work Does Tracking Data Take?

Tracking is one of the easiest and potentially most life changing investments you can make on your fitness journey.

I do almost all of my tracking (outside of entering my food into MyFitnessPal) in the mornings. My morning routine is almost always this:

• Wake up

• Use the restroom

• Weigh myself

• Enter bodyweight for that day, then sleep quality, total steps, sodium intake, calories, and macros from the day before into my spreadsheet.

Entering these things takes me maybe a maximum of five minutes if you move slow in the mornings like me, but realistically it only takes a couple minutes of transferring some numbers over into a spreadsheet and you’re done!

What you will probably find when you start is that it isn’t necessarily hard to input the data, but it can be hard to be consistent about tracking if you don’t have a routine for doing so. I mentioned my routine above, but that doesn’t have to be yours. I’d suggest to find a time to update your spreadsheet as often as possible (ideally daily), and start making that a habit!

Conclusion

Hopefully from the information laid out here, you can see why we value tracking data with our own programs, but also why we generally ask clients to track these sorts of things.

The more information we have at our disposal, the more informed decisions we can make. If building a healthy lifestyle and a better body composition is something that you are wanting to work hard for, or you are already working hard for it, then consider tracking some of the things listed in the article to give you a better chance at achieving the composition that you want.

To clarify, data isn’t the only tool we use at IVRY to help our clients, and like I’ve said already: if it’s easy to track this data and it’s easily accessible, it would be silly not to let those numbers help inform decisions along with other important factors.

I encourage you as you continue on with your body composition journey to start using data as a friend and a guide, and to let us know how it goes!

If you found this post helpful or are interested in learning more or having some personal coaching, we are currently adding new clients to our roster! Just click here to learn more!

My Hot Take on the Trending Sexiness of Intuitive Eating in Context of Body Recomposition

It’s a big question in the fitness space: Intuitive eating or counting macros? Which approach is really better for helping you achieve you body composition goals? Let’s set the scene.

For the purposes of this write-up, I’ll be using the phrase “intuitive eating" exclusively in context of those who are implementing it as a strategy for systematic fat loss or muscle gain, which means I’m not talking about it for anyone who is simply looking for a dietary approach that "works for them.” On the other hand, the second term I’ll be considering in-depth is a dietary approach commonly known as the “If It Fits Your Macros” movement (IIFYM), which favors a less intuitive and more calculated methodology to physique improvement that involves eating a certain amount of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats per day within a given caloric window. Another apparent perk of IIFYM? You can eat “whatever you want” (even the “unhealthy foods”) to hit those macronutrient targets. But, there are pros and cons of both.

Let’s break it down even a bit further.

DEFINING THE TERMS

Intuitive eating, as I see it, is a culture of eating that says, “Eat what you want and when you want according to your hunger cues.” Simply put, eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied. It seems simple and to the point, and it is.

Counting your macros, however, urges its users to eat within a certain caloric and macronutrient range on a daily or weekly basis with little to no consideration of hunger cues or any natural inclination of when to eat.

Are you starting to see the trend? As their names suggest, one promotes fluidity while the other favors systematic calculation.

As the title suggests, however, intuitive eating (at least for the time being) has certainly stolen the cultural spotlight for many people - and for good reason. If you think about it, the idea really is quite sexy. It’s natural and seemingly casual. It’s loose and fluid - carefree and maybe even a bit rebellious.

Now, since this is a hot take, I’m probably going to reveal some bias in this write-up, but that doesn’t mean I’m saying one is inherently better than the other, nor does it mean I think you should or shouldn’t do one or the other. That choice is 100% up to you. These are just my thoughts and opinions, and I want to make that very clear throughout.

In thinking about this, I’ve developed an analogy called the “Jacked Guy In a Grocery Store” analogy.

MY “JACKED GUY IN A GROCERY STORE” ANALOGY

Imagine walking through the grocery store and noticing a man in his early 30’s with a phenomenally fit and attractive shape. Being a curious kitten, you muster the courage to ask him “what his secret is,” and he responds with something like this: “I just listen to my body actually. If I’m hungry, I eat. And I always stop when I’m satiated. It works great for me and it keeps me looking the way I want to.”

Sexy, right? You’d be instantly drawn to the effortlessness in his voice, and the mystery of its simplicity would be fascinating.

Now, imagine the exact same scenario, but he offers you this response instead: “I’m actually really meticulous about the amount of calories I consume, and I tailor them according to my current goals. I eat between 3-5 meals a day, and I always design my meals around a high-quality protein source supplemented with a vegetable and a carb source like potatoes or rice since I workout quite a bit. If I’m trying to build muscle I eat a bit more and when I’m trying to trim up I reduce my portion sizes. But generally I eat the same whole foods and try to minimize the junk. Oh, and I eat plenty of fruits and veggies.”

And you think in your head something like this, “Well, that actually makes a lot of sense.” Why?

Because his answer was boring. I’d even be willing to bet you’d be a bit disappointed. No secret remedy? Just an honest application of a bunch of stuff that makes pretty good logical sense?

However, I’m not saying that the guy in our first scenario is a complete unicorn. For those with favorable genetics for physique development, it’s quite possible to look really good while putting little thought into your diet. In fact, those people are all over Instagram. As I’ve heard it said many times, plenty of people look amazing in spite of their poor practices. They are the genetically “blessed” - the ones who can “get away with it.

But this is certainly not the norm, and it’s certainly not a plausible reality for too many people who are just embarking on their fitness journeys - especially if you’re setting sail because you’re currently 30 pounds overweight. After all, if you were already genetically blessed, would you really be asking people in the grocery store for their secret remedy? Probably not. You’d have a remedy of your own with little interest in what happened to be working for someone else.

Having said that, let’s get into the practical applications.

I THINK MOST OF US ARE HOLDING OUT FOR A QUICK-FIX SOLUTION.

In the online coaching space, hundreds and thousands of people are finding coaches online, engaging with them, and hiring them to help them achieve their body composition goals. It’s also worth mentioning that there are plenty of people out there who, despite not being able to afford an online coach, are doing their best to implement the “right kind” of diet and exercise to either drop body fat or muscle-up for beach season. So in this case we’re considering two major populations of people placing a value of either money, time, or other resources into their body composition: the people who have already hired coaches and those who are basically trying to coach themselves to save a buck.

And yet one thing I have found to be the case with many of these people when they talk to me about “losing weight” or “getting jacked” is that they just don’t want to track their calories or count their macros. In fact, as soon as I tell people I track my macros, I can almost always sense an immediate and unmistakable disinterest in continuing the conversation. Why? Because I don’t have the secret remedy they’ve been searching for. There’s nothing sexy about tracking your macros to achieve your physique goals just like there’s nothing sexy about a university student studying for weeks on end to pass their chemistry exam. 

If I heard that my friend had passed his final with flying colors and asked him how he did it, what do you imagine he would say? He’d probably tell you that he attended class attentively, took detailed notes, compiled a study guide, and then studied those materials meticulously. And in that case, what sense would it make for me to be - dare I say - disappointed in that answer? None at all! In fact, I doubt anyone would be naive enough to offer any other answer but just some good and honest hard work.

But just for fun, let’s talk about what many of us would rather hear him say. “Oh, I just went to class when I felt like it, took notes when I felt like it, and studied when I felt like it. And it was awesome. It all just kind of happened casually and I got an A. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever took notes.” (insert casual chuckle)

In my experience, a lot of people only get interested when they become convinced that getting the physique of their dreams is easily achievable. And let’s be honest, eating intuitively will always be easier than counting your macronutrient intake, which is why I think people are so eager to kick a more meticulous approach to the curb.

Now, here’s where things might get a little spicy.

I have to admit that I get a bit miffed when people seem to want to achieve a physique goal without counting their macros, and here’s why: For a lot of people, intuitive eating is exactly what led them to hire a body composition coach in the first place. And, to be fair, if your intuitive eating had actually been working well for you up until this point, we’d probably be discussing something like sports or the weather instead of your muffin top right now. Yikes! Maybe that stings, but I can’t help but be honest in thinking that’s the truth of it.

At the very same time, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a muffin top. I have personally had a muffin top of my own in certain seasons of life.

Maybe your significant other adores your muffin top and you feel like a king among men accentuating your waistline accomplishment. Good on you! I really say that without sarcasm because I never want to pretend like we all have to have the same idea of what’s attractive or desirable in terms of body shape. If you are healthy and feeling amazing in your own body, press on.

Do you see my bigger point though? How silly is it to approach a coach while 20-30+ pounds overweight and insist on an approach that continues to allow you to eat intuitively?

In some sense I’d even be tempted to tell someone that they’ve "lost their privilege" of eating intuitively, but that really makes you sound like a super villain. You had a good thing (intuitive eating) and it became a bad thing (overeating to the point of unhealthy weight gain), and now we’re going to try a different thing if (and that’s a big if) you’re telling me you have serious goals about changing your body shape. 

It's kind of like an sixteen year-old kid being given a cool sports car from his parents just because they wanted to gift him something special for being their son. But sooner than later he starts breaking curfew because he’s out drinking booze and smooching on Sally Sue on the weekends, and his grades start to suffer. At the end of the semester he’s sitting on a report card of two F’s, a D+, and an A+ for irresponsibility. The car gets yanked and mom starts driving him around again until he’s proven he can correct his behavior.

“If the food habits you’ve been practicing for years have led you into unwanted weight gain, it might be time to consider a more intensive approach - even if it means sacrificing a bit of convenience. ”

so, you’re saying intuitive eating is bad?

Of course not. Intuitive eating can be bad just like counting your macros can be bad, but here’s the real equalizer:

The same physiological principles have to be applied when aiming to lose body fat whether you are counting your macros or not. To be clear, your body doesn’t know whether you’re eating intuitively or counting your macros. It just knows how many calories you are consuming on a regular basis. Maybe the science-y crowd would say, “It only recognizes overall energy balance.”

All I’m really saying here is that you will lose body fat if you are in a caloric deficit. Whether you are counting those calories on your finger or implementing another strategy altogether is meaningless.

The problem is that most people cannot intuitively eat in a caloric deficit.

Therefore, the only way I could possibly recommend an intuitive eating approach as your coach is if you could intuitively eat in a caloric deficit, which - in all fairness - is possible. Sadly, however, I might argue that for 99% of people, that would be individually impossible. Why?

Because, again, you have proven that eating intuitively has not worked for you. It is, in fact, primarily responsible for your current unwanted body shape. By very definition of the word intuitive, it has to be eliminated as a viable strategy moving forward because your intuition is skewed. Your diet can be anything but intuitive. And I don’t say this to “be mean” or anything - I say it to provide the groundwork for a real solution that can lead to a healthier and shapelier body for anyone struggling with this.

IS THERE A MIDDLE GROUND?

I think so. The next best approach (for those adamantly opposed to tracking macros), however, would be to consider what some are calling a “mindful eating approach,” but even this comes with great limitation. 

Mindful eating is probably best defined as a somewhat guided approach to eating, without counting calories or macros, that does its best to serve a desired outcome of physical recomposition. But I didn’t pull that from the Oxford library - I’m just saying this is how I think most people in the fitness space are thinking about it.

When I think of mindful eating, I think of a plate that is made up of half protein, a quarter of vegetables, and a quarter “healthy carbs.” In short, you’re paying a bit more attention to what you’re eating and doing your best to control your portions. It’s not totally Freestyle Friday, but you’re not weighing things on scales and popping data points into MyFitnessPal.

But the problem even with mindful eating for physique-related pursuits is that you still have little to no knowledge of your caloric consumption, and at the end of the day, calories are king when it comes to fat loss. As a result, the ambiguity in both intuitive and mindful approaches becomes limiting for a coach since one of our biggest cards to play in the greater game of fat loss is the card of regulated and strategic calorie consumption.

That would kind of be like buying the Chicago Bulls back in ‘96 and telling the GM you want a championship, but there’s one catch: You want Jordan on the bench because, well, you guys don’t really get along that well. He’s healthy and ready to lace up, but you’re not willing to put him in the game.

Is that the right move?

LET’S WRAP IT UP

As you can see, I’ve personally not been wooed by the trending sexiness of intuitive eating for those looking to make significant implements in their body composition. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, it would be this: I just really believe that the specificity of data you can accrue through the habits within intelligently structuring and counting your macronutrients are far too valuable to leave to the potential inconsistencies of intuitive eating if you’re serious about attaining physique-related goals in a predictable, systematic way.

But again, I can’t stress enough, though, how important it is that you realize this is just my opinion - just one guy in a world of a lot of guys and gals.

If you prefer a lifestyle of intuitive eating while attempting to achieve your physique goal, you should by all means pursue that route! I mean that sincerely. It’s 100% your life and your diet, which means you have all the power to make those decisions for yourself.

If you want to banter more, hit us up on Instagram! I genuinely always welcome a good conversation from a stranger about all things fitness and food.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

5 Really Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before Embarking on a "Fitness Journey"

Question 1: Have you clearly identified your goal to the point that you could write it down on a napkin?

First of all, is your goal a performance-based goal or a body recomposition goal?

Obviously, I coach people toward body recomposition goals, but there is, of course, an enormous population of people that care much more about accomplishing something performance-based rather than just building aesthetic confidence. .

A performance goal would be something like, “I want to run a marathon,” or, “I want to start doing CrossFit because it looks fun and I really want to learn to move better and develop a greater sense of functional strength.”

Physique or body recomposition goals, on the other hand, are pursuits that are centered around appearance – around looking differently – and they usually involve some combination of building muscle and losing body fat.

For these goals, let’s call it what it is: You want to look better naked.

The problem, however, is that too many people are afraid to identify their goal for what it really is.

For example, I get really skeptical when I hear people say something like, “I just want to get back to a healthy bodyweight.” 

Maybe you do!

Those people are certainly out there, but is that really what you want? Because to be fair, you could be considered a “healthy bodyweight” without a trace of abdominal definition or any evidence you’ve ever lifted a dumbbell in your life.

I could be wrong, but my guess is that most of us aren’t quite so noble. Given the choice, most people would prefer to be healthy and look incredible all in the same endeavor, right?

So, at the risk of making your grandmother blush, is your goal about “getting healthy” or “getting hotter?”

There’s no right or wrong answer here, but I do think it’s important to be honest with yourself. Once you’ve landed on a genuine, well thought-out pursuit, write it down.

If I were doing this for myself at the moment, my napkin would look like this:

“My goal is to get below 175 pounds while maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. And yeah, I want to look pretty diced by the time it’s all over.”

What would yours say?

I sincerely challenge you to get a napkin, write down your goal, snap a picture of it, and save it to your phone for future nostalgia.

Question 2: Have you done the research to know exactly what it’s going to take to achieve your goal?

Now, at the expense of my own dignity, I’m going to use an example from my past to illustrate this next point.

Are you ready for it?

For a long time, my goal was to look like Brad Pitt from Troy.

To me, he was the perfection combination of size, aesthetics, and swagger.

Laugh all you want, but at least I had nailed down the goal part of things (or at least I thought I had). The problem is that I neglected to take the next most obvious step.

As ridiculous as it may sound, I never even googled “brad pitt training program troy” or “brad pitt troy diet.” How silly is that?

What’s even funnier about this particular example is that googling “how to look like brad pitt from troy” probably would have been a terrible way to go about “doing research” given the over-saturation of scammy clickbait articles in the fitness industry.

I can see the article now: How Brad REALLY Got Into Shape for His Role as Achilles in Troy (NOT WHAT YOU THINK), but at least it would have been an attempt - a step in the right direction - an evidence of real intent.

And yet I never did it.

Do you see the problem with that?

How did I ever think that I could achieve a goal without looking into what it would require to actually achieve it?

Well, when I think about it now, the answer is quite obvious. The fact of the matter is, my obvious lack of research and planning was proof that my “goal” to look like Brad Pitt was never really a goal at all. It was nothing more than a momentary fascination.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t think I’m alone in this sort of nonsensical mentality.

A lot of us ebb and flow between different “fitness goals,” but really we’re just daydreaming. And, to be fair, this sort of thinking is certainly not confined to goals within the fitness realm. It’s no different than driving by a beautiful home and saying, “I’d love to live in a house like that someday.” I’m sure you would, but that’s not a very helpful thing to say if you’re merely hoping aimlessly in the breeze, is it?

Now, if you’ve got a plan to launch a financially lucrative entrepreneurial endeavor you’ve been working on for months, that’s a completely different story.

It’s also a different story if you’re really just trying to say that you like that particular house but have no intentions of pursuing what it might take to live in. Again, that’s fine!

What I’m more trying to say here is that it’s important to test the realness of your goal by educating yourself on the process.

Another way I like to think of this sort of thing is to consider it in context of a travel analogy. Wanting to look like Brad Pitt without doing the research surrounding an appropriate training and nutrition regimen is like “planning” a trip to New York without ever getting online to peruse the available flights - much less book one. 

Frankly, it makes no sense, and it’s why most people never wind up achieving a lean and muscular physique.

Question 3: What’s your motivation?

I’ll keep this one short and sweet, but it’s obviously very important to consider.

To expose my own motives a bit, I can fully admit that my primary motivation for getting very lean in 2020 was to further motivate both current and future clients of the IVRY brand.

I wanted to thoroughly document the process for those who are curious about "how I did it” despite the unforeseen limitations of life as we now know it in quarantine - to share that information openly with people who want the same results for themselves.

And, of course, I want the transformation photos as further confirmation that as a coach, I can lead you confidently and intelligently toward the greatest physique you’ve ever had.

For me, that was a very powerful motivation.

So, what’s your motivation? And is it deep enough to withstand all the adversity you might experience along the way?

• Do you need to lose weight so you can be more active with your kids?

• Do you want to prove it to yourself that you can become a CrossFitter?

• Or maybe you’re just excited about the idea of looking jacked and lean on the beach this summer because you’re sick of being the “fat friend?”

The list of motivations is endless.

I challenge you to search yourself deeply and meaningfully for something strong enough to carry you across the finish line.

Question 4: What’s the first step you need to take?

What is the very first thing you need to do to start making this happen right now?

If your goal is to lose 30 and you know for a fact you have absolutely no idea how to do that, hire a coach.

Stop making bologna sandwich excuses and invest in yourself.

If you don’t trust us enough yet with that endeavor, that is totally fine! Your trust should be earned and handled with care. We’re not the only coaches in the business doing quality work.

Maybe you’ve been following some other fitness personality on social media that you secretly idolize for their impressive physique.

You might be thinking, “Yeah, there is this one guy/gal I’ve always wanted to work with.”

Go to their site and apply for coaching. Believe it or not, we actually care more about you doing what’s best for you than you being an IVRY client.

“But I just don’t have the money to do that right now.”

Then let’s redefine the first step.

Start saving. How much is coaching? Start saving.

Maybe you’re spending more than you think on some little vice in your life. Coffees at Starbucks? A few too many drinks at the bar on the weekends? Buying new clothes you don’t really need? Slash the purchases that are getting in the way of your fitness goal, and put that saved money toward what you know you need to make it happen.

What I’ve found is that if you really want something in life, you’ll figure out a way to make it happen. Similarly, if you’re more interested in finding excuses that reasons to “get it done,” you’ll find those too. Which kind of person are you going to be? Only you can decide.

If your goal is to start CrossFit, start a new tab in your web browser right now and look up all the CrossFit gyms in your area.

Peruse their websites. Read the reviews. Figure out which one is the best. Do you know any friends who do CrossFit? Text them right now. Where do they go? Do you need to buy some equipment to get started? Get on Amazon and bag the gear. Once you’ve done that, walk into that gym literally tomorrow and get started. I don’t care if your shoes haven’t arrived yet. Go to the gym.

Otherwise you won’t do it - I promise.

You absolutely will not do it. The reason I know that is because you’re still reading this article right now and you have yet to act on that one little thing in the back of your mind that you’d love to accomplish - you just haven’t taken the first step.

Take the first step.  

Q5: Are you prepared to “do the thing” every single day until the goal is accomplished?

Achieving any meaningful goal doesn’t happen overnight, so the bigger question here is: Are you going to be able to keep your foot on the pedal for the duration of the ride?

You’re sitting their holding your napkin in your hand - the napkin with your goal scribbled on it in Sharpie.

You’ve done the research about what it’s going to take.

You’ve identified your motivation.

You know what your first step needs to be and you’re prepared to take it.

Now you just have to stay committed until the deed has been done.

An extremely powerful way to hold yourself accountable to this is to set a deadline for your goal.

For some goals, this comes inherently. If you’re going to run a marathon, chances are you’ve already signed up for the race. The date is on the calendar. There are going to be people running a marathon on that day whether you’re there or not. The show goes on with or without you. If you’re like me, you love that sort of thing because it’s a reminder that there’s a bigger story beyond your personal goal.

If your goal is to look like shredded wheat for your wedding, that wedding date is on the calendar and you’re going to be taking tanned selfies in Cabo whether or not the ab squad is out to play.

If the nature of your goal doesn’t impose an automatic deadline (like wanting to lose 15 pounds in a healthy and sustainable way), talk to someone who can create a realistic timeline for you and then do the same: set a deadline.

Once the deadline is set, work backwards from the deadline and plan as much as you can. Just don’t let the main push of inspiration live and die in a matter of a week or less. Launch your effort and maintain the effort until the effort accomplishes the goal.

And there you have it, my friends. Those are the five most important questions I believe anyone could ask themselves before starting their own fitness or body recomposition-related journey!

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If you’ve enjoyed this blog, consider sharing it with another fitness-minded friend or maybe someone who has been dragging their feet for a bit too long.

You know that one gal who’s always complaining about her weight at work? Give her a kick in the pants and shoot her a text.

And, of course, take the time to flip through some of our other recent posts for additional content! I often recommend this article as your next read if you found this one thought-inducing.

Lastly, we do have coaching slots available for people looking to transform their bodies.

It is not too late, but someday it will be too late, so don’t sleep on an incredible opportunity to be the most confident version of yourself you’ve been in a long time.

Oh, and we might even let you eat pizza a few times while shedding body fat. Are you in yet?

Learn more by clicking here!

-Andrew

How I Plan For Pizza While Cutting

What You Should Know First

When I am cutting, I keep to one simple, basic rule: be in a caloric deficit, or, burn more calories than I consume. I guess there would be tiers of rules that follow that basic one, but that will have to be for a different post. In the next tier, my personal goal is to eat enough protein, which is about 200* grams in my case. There are a few other goals or landmarks that I try to follow while cutting, but those are the two big ones.

So the question is: If I am someone who is trying to lose weight thoughtfully, how can pizza be a part of my diet to accomplish that goal? It truly all goes back to the idea of being in a caloric deficit. Technically speaking you could probably eat pizza every day and still lose weight (though I don’t think you’d feel too hot). The best way to eat the foods you enjoy that may not be the most “healthy” or macro-friendly is to plan ahead for those foods. I will gladly take the extra few minutes in my day to plan a few meals out just so I can fit something like pizza into my diet from time to time.

How I Manipulated My Diet

Regular day of cutting (in quarantine): I try to get about 10,000 steps in on a hike in the morning, then fast until about noon or so. I will then eat a meal with 50g of protein, and get my workout in shortly after. I will then eat another “meal” (snack really) that has another 50g of protein and get some work done.. or watch a movie. I will then go for another short walk before dinner and then have another 50g of protein with dinner. I usually relax in the evenings, may go for another walk, but get in another meal an hour or so before bed with another 50g of protein.

I wanted to set up a normal day just to refer back to, but also to be open about when and what I’m eating. Going into yesterday I knew I was going to have pizza, so I planned out what I wanted to eat earlier in the day to be able to fit pizza happily into my diet for the day. It really is easy to do if you’re willing to put in a few minutes of effort to plan! I essentially just fasted a few hours longer (thank you, coffee), ate smaller, high-protein meals in the afternoon, and then had that one big meal with my pizza in the evening.

Some people think of this planning as being boring, and people accuse me of not enjoying myself or “living life,” but I care enough about trying to reach my goals, and if I can still do that while eating the foods I love, the quick planning is a no-brainer to get there. 

One thing you may have to accept when trying to squeeze other foods into your diet is the fact that your macronutrient distribution at the end of the day may not be as perfect as your aiming for, but as long as you are still eating at a caloric deficit, the makeup of the calories doesn’t matter AS much. This isn’t to be confused with the IIFYM movement (eating anything if it fits your macros); planning a healthy diet and occasionally fitting in some “treats” is a very rational and successful way of dieting.

Macro Breakdown for Regular and Pizza Days

Normal Day of Cutting:

Protein: 210 grams*

Carbs: 280 grams

Fats: 70 grams

Total Calories: 2,600**

On pizza day, this was my breakdown:

Protein: 205 grams*

Carbs: 209 grams

Fats: 119 grams

Calories: 2,681**

My calorie goal is currently a max of 2,700 calories, but I aim for about 2,600** for my day. Clearly there are some big differences there, but overall, my caloric goal was met, and I met my protein numbers. Having this flexibility in a diet is awesome; there is something powerful about knowing that you are in control of your diet and that you can still lose weight while eating pizza occasionally. What a world!

"Why Am I Gaining Weight While Quarantined?"

I’m not sure how many of you ended up in the same boat as me, but as I said in one of our posts, I gained five pounds in two days. The only real lifestyle difference was a reduction of how active I was during the day (easiest to measure by tracking daily steps). When I saw what was happening on the scale it was a very shocking moment for me, but then when I think about how many steps I was taking before being quarantined versus now, it makes a ton of sense. 

If you change how active you are in your daily life and do not change anything about your nutrition, you will most likely gain weight. 

There is nothing profound about that statement, and it probably makes sense to most of us. This is one of those things though that sort of sneaks up on people when they have so many other things changing in their lives, and most of us won’t even register how our personal health and wellness is changing. Needless to say, one of the easiest things we can all do during this time is to better monitor food and alcohol consumption.

A big problem with being quarantined is that there seems to be this natural tendency to be a bit lazier when stuck at home (at least for me there is!), and then things sort of snowball from there….

“Ordering takeout sounds nice because I’d hate to mess the kitchen up again…”

“Is 1:00 PM too early for an alcoholic beverage?” 

“I’m hungry again, but I just ate!”

I bet some of these statements sound familiar, and I think a lot of this boils down to boredom. A lot of people tend to eat or pour a drink when they get bored, and a lot more people are currently bored due to sitting at home most of the day. 

So a practical way to try and maintain a healthy lifestyle would be to try to keep track of all of the snacking you are doing, and drinks you are enjoying and ask yourself, “Do I need all of these snacks and drinks?” It’s a pretty simple question, but don’t hear what I’m not saying: I am not telling you to eat one meal a day and completely cut out alcohol from your diet, I am just encouraging you to be mindful about how much food and alcohol you are consuming and maybe consider limiting it a bit.

The scientific reasoning for this is that your calorie intake is probably now going to be much higher than your calories burned given these changes, so extra snacks and alcoholic beverages are going to increase your overall caloric intake. Paired with this idea, if you choose (or are forced) to limit your physical activity as well, expect to see the number on the scale to go up. Health and well-being are certainly more than a number on a scale, but the scale can be a nice indicator of how you are treating your body!

For me personally, as I mentioned in a separate post, since the difference in the number of steps (calories burned) had dropped so dramatically, I’ve had to purposefully arrange to go on a few more walks to burn some calories. I’ve also had to decrease the number of calories I am consuming daily. Doing those two things has gotten me back on track to complete my goal of trying to lose weight and get “shredded” for the summer. 

Cheers

"Can I Go Out to Eat?"

Everyone has such different schedules and has a different relationship with food in regards to being healthy, eating out, and cooking at home. There is no one size fits all approach when talking about diets and how to implement nutrition into your daily routine, but we think it’s important to understand what you are getting yourself into, nutritionally, when you eat out.

After diligently tracking food for well over a year now, I’ve come to realize that almost every entree a restaurant provides has an excess of fat, even the “healthy” or “low calorie” options. Now, no matter if your goal is one of fat loss, or lean mass gain, fat levels are generally recommended to be low or moderate. Most people are just generally unaware of the amount of fat content in the entree’s they order when eating out, or have never really cared or thought to look up the foods they might order at the restaurant, but our hope here is that you at least become aware of what you’re ordering!

I grew up in a family where my dad loved to cook and would cook when he had the time, but there were many seasons growing up where both of my parents were busy at work and my siblings and I had sports and activities we had to get to, so we ate out frequently. Since one’s upbringing has an impact on the decisions they make as they get older, I integrated a similar ratio of cooking to eating out when I got to college.

More recently, now that I’ve started trying to live a healthier lifestyle, I’ve cut back on eating out as much as possible. Don’t get me wrong, there is almost always an option that won’t be too detrimental to your goals at every restaurant, but the options are few and generally not as tasty as all of those other items on the menu that are begging to be eaten. My self-control can be inconsistent at times, so now I just try to limit the amount of times I eat out, or at least try to have a plan before I arrive at a restaurant. I know the last sentence can sound silly, or that I’m being really picky, but nutrition has such a huge impact on your fitness and lifestyle goals that I tend to take it very seriously.

I recently went to a restaurant with my family that we would go to all the time when I was growing up. It’s a small regional chain that is a bar and grill type of setting where they have a wide variety of entree options. So a few weeks ago my family decided we were going to head there for dinner. Now that I check the nutrition facts before I eat at a restaurant, I hopped online to check them out, and to my surprise almost every entree had a minimum of 40-50 grams of fat. My mind was blown. I would venture to say the average fat content per entree was around 60 grams of fat. I would eat some meals at this place and consume god-awful amounts of calories and grams of fat, and I had no idea. Some of those entrees were even entrees you might think were “healthy.” I don’t bring this up to scare anyone, but I think this anecdote is relevant for those that have started tracking nutrition themselves.

Hopefully that knowledge is enough for you to at least think more about what you are eating when you go out, but I wanted to leave you with some recommendations for how to approach eating out.

Option 1: Never eat out. Obviously this option is very restrictive, impractical, and probably not very realistic for most people. However, if you commit to this, you will always be in control of what you are consuming, and you can easily figure out the composition of the macronutrients in your food.

Option 2: Eating out when necessary or to be social. This option is probably the most optimal option for most people out there. The idea here is that you cook and prep as many of your meals as you can, but then eat out when you run out of time due to an unexpected project at work, or when you have three kids trying to make it to three different practices in one evening. Life happens, and we have to be realistic! We are also social creatures, and so no one wants to be the lame one not spending time with friends and family just because they are going out to eat. The best advice for this option is to plan ahead of time and try to find something healthier to eat at the restaurant.

Option 3: Eat out whenever you want. This option would definitely not be recommended, but it is the least restrictive yet also the least optimal for nutrition goals. If you take this approach, there is little work in cooking and food prep that needs to be done, but I guarantee you will miss your nutrition targets again and again if you take this approach.

Again, everyone’s lifestyle is different, but in general we think option 2 is the best to fit most people’s needs. We also recommend that if you do eat out, try and limit the times you eat at fast food establishments versus an actual restaurant because often times the fast food quality is a step down from a restaurant.

Cheers,

Josh