Meal plan or tracking macros.. which is better?

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

All right. Welcome back to another episode of Extreme Lifestyle Living Podcast. Now, today what I wanted to talk about was honestly. A lot about nutrition. I've been trying to, since I'm doing the video podcast, um, I find that I've been getting a lot of good feedback as to the impact behind the videos and how you get more kind of, just more context to the conversation just through seeing the video, seeing my energy, seeing me talk about certain things.'cause obviously audio you only take so much out of it. Um, but also there's a lot of people out there that say the audio just works best for them. So obviously, you know, whatever works best, keep that going. But I love the video and how it can be more impactful and organically, I've been doing more fitness. Related topics, they're not as exciting because it's more black or white, meaning it's either yes or no. You're doing it right or you're doing it wrong, and then there's a bunch of variables in between. But when it comes to nutrition, it's very, you gotta be putting, putting effort into it. And if you're not putting effort into it, you're just never gonna see success, period. So I wanted to talk a little bit about nutrition. The different ways we can kind of capitalize on the nutrition and just mindset perspectives on it. Because our mindset around nutrition, our relationship with food, um, all of those different things Lily plays is all, all of that plays the massive role in influence as to how we handle our nutrition, um, because our emotional response to nutrition. Is a big thing, like a lot of us are stressed, eat. A lot of us binge eat. A lot of us like don't have a healthy understanding of what food really is. So our relationship really is everything when it comes to food. The rest of it really comes down to what aligns with your lifestyle. What do you prefer as to how to eat when you eat, and certain things in that regard. But the premise of it is, you know, there's input versus output. All nutrition comes, comes down to the balancing of how much you're ingesting, inputting, eating, versus how much are you outputting, how much are you burning, how much are you moving your body, how much are you, are you exerting in terms of calories each day? Maintenance calories is clear even so let's say keep it easy. Let's say you burn 2000 calories a day just by wor working, going to the gym a little bit, getting some steps, and walking your dogs, whatever it may be, you gotta at least eat 2000 calories a day. Now how you eat those 2000 calories doesn't really matter, but the thing that's black or white is that you have to eat those many calories. Period. And then the other conversation comes down to macros, but we'll get that into a little bit. Um, but then nonetheless, regardless of how you feel about nutrition, regardless of what your education is with nutrition, regardless of what your relationship is with nutrition, you need to eat 2000 calories a day to at least maintain what you have right now. And then the question becomes, are you happy with maintaining what you have right now? Most of us aren't. So if you're not, that's when the conversation becomes, what can we do more with our nutrition that isn't an emotionally based'cause? If you have too much fat on you, then you have to go into a deficit and play with your protein period. If you're not, if you're not ready to handle what comes with going in a deficit, tracking your protein, learning about macros, then. Unfortunately, you gotta be happy with where you're at, you know, so like, again, 2000 calories, you wanna lose five, 10 pounds worth of fat. You have to be in a deficit, meaning you just burn 250 to 350 calories more a day, meaning that you're ingesting probably, let's say you ingest 2000 calories, but you want to burn five, five, uh, 10 pounds of fat. You're gonna go up to 2300 calories, burns, or you can subtract it from your food, whichever's best for your lifestyle. But the, I can, it can be very complicated and I can talk about it from different angles, but nonetheless. You have to eat your food. And even if you don't go to the gym, even if you don't have a performance goal, even if you don't wanna do high rocks or bodybuilding show or anything like that, like you have to eat enough food to just have enough nutrient dense, um, uh, just have energy. Sorry, just to have fucking energy move. Like literally even me and, uh, Emma talk about her parents and our grandparents and our family members, even my brother and his, my niece and my nephews, it's like, you gotta eat. You gotta move. It is what it is. It's no different than with your car. Want to drive your car, you gotta put gas in it. So if you wanna move your body, you gotta, uh, um, eat accordingly. And the big thing with nutrition is that we, like I said, when it comes to an emotional standpoint, we all are just all over the place with it. So if I was. To completely start over and get control over my nutrition. What I would do at the beginning is understand what it is that I want with my goals.'cause like I said, if you wanna lose fat, you have to be willing to be in a deficit, learn about protein, and learn about what it takes to lose fat. If you want to gain muscle and gain weight, it's the same thing. How to be in a surplus, eat more calories and you, you're burning. And then, you know, learning about macros to make sure that the percentage of the weight you're gaining is muscle versus fat. Like if you wanna do these things, you have. To fucking do the work for them. It's no different. Like with your education, if you want a master's degree, you want a PhD, you want a bachelor's of something, you're going to go to school and put in the fucking work. If you want money from a job, you're gonna go clock in at work, put in the work clock out, get paid for it. It's the same fucking context with nutrition. So if I was to start completely override, I asked what my goal was. If my goal is to lose fat, I gotta be in a deficit. If my goal is to gain muscle and gain weight, I have to be in a surplus. If I'm happy with where I'm at, I'd stay exactly where I'm at. But if I also wanna progress with by, I'm happy with where I'm at. I still wanna progress. I'd learn about macros, you know, but the big thing when it comes to emotional with the food, what I would get on immediately is remove emotions behind it and understand it's a purpose thing. You don't have an emotional state or emotional response when you had to put gas in your car. No one likes putting gas in your car. but it's not like you're gonna sit there and fucking have a bitch fit. If you have to get gas in your car before work, you're gonna shut the fuck up and do it. Is it gonna piss you off? Of course it's gonna piss you off.'cause no one wants to fucking get off any gas. What if it's raining? What if it's snowing? What if it's fucking cold? What if you're late for work? All these different variables, but you're gonna do it anyways. So you gotta adopt that same mindset when nutrition, where you gotta do it anyways. And it's not about. Pleasure. We're not eating for pleasure. We're not eating. Every meal is not supposed to be a fucking chef's kiss meal where it's gourmet. You're feeling good. You gotta understand if you want a goal and a goal takes X, you gotta do X. So. Purpose food, you gotta understand that you gotta eat for purpose. So breakfast, dinner, lunch, and two snacks is what I always say to every single person. You have your breakfast before you leave the house, you have your lunch when you're at work and your break, and then you have your dinner time at nighttime. If you get those three stable meals in every single fucking day, I can promise you nine times outta 10, you are gonna be within one to two snacks or even one small meal away from hitting your macro. So prime example for me, I eat my breakfast, breakfast, which is oatmeal. I have my post-workout meal, which is rice and chicken and um, a couple other things. And then before bed, I usually have a steak, potatoes, or some type of ground beef. Those three meals there every single fucking day get me to about 160 to 180 grams of protein. I don't meal plan, I don't track macros. That's just my foundation for having a good nutrition base.'cause I understand for purpose. So regardless of my emotional state around it, I know that gives me a good position for my macros. So then I have one or two snacks. One snack is post gym.'cause my gym's 30 minutes away, I'll have a protein shake and I'll have a banana. There's my extra 25, 30 grams of protein. Um, between my. A chicken rice meal and my steak meal at nighttime, I have usually one snack, which is usually some fruit that fills in the rest of my carbs and the rest of my macros. So by the time I go to bed, I'm exactly where I need to be, and I'm in a bodybuilding prep show right now. So I'm 13 weeks out from my show and I'm already down to a 12 pounds. Being down 12 pounds was just adjusting the macros and the calories. Going from 3,500 calories down to 2,800, down to 2300, progressively over the last past two and a half months. Do you know what I mean? So my emotional state around it is non-existent because I'm purely looking at it for purpose. And you know, obviously I get emotional around it where I want to eat certain foods and I crave certain foods. That's normal. Every single human out there, regardless of your goals, you're gonna wanna crave certain foods. I love Doritos. I love chips. I love burgers and fries. I love fucking pizza. I love pasta. I love all those things. So half of it is making sure I incorporate that in the cat, in the, in the foods that I'm eating, because again. You can eat the food that you want to enjoy and still see results. Which is why, again, you gotta remove your emotions.'cause if you look at it from a tactical standpoint, you're gonna look at it from a factual standpoint and just do the facts, remove your emotions, and do what you gotta do to get to your, your goals. And I'm not saying. The relationship with food. I'm not saying emotions aren't heavy. They're fucking crazy heavy. Like I know me and Emma joke all the time, like sometimes you're almost borderline crying'cause you just want some food so bad and you're so tired of staying on regimen, uh, staying on your regimen and eating the same foods all the time. But again, it's just that balance of how bad do you want the life that you're not living right now to come true? AKA, your goals versus how much do you wanna stay with where you're at right now? But that's bigger than just nutrition. Like that's your relationship with your goals. That's your relationship with your savings, that's relationship with anything else that's going on in life. Are you willing to put in the work that you need to do to get to where you want to go? You have to create boundaries in your relationship to get it better. Do you have to save more money to get the future that you want? Do you gotta get a better job to make more money that you want? Do you know what I mean? So it's the same context with relationships and emotions, with the nutrition, but you just gotta remove the emotional bias behind it and get to the tactical facts, what it is that you want, what it is that you need to do, and are you willing to do it? So when it comes to nutrition, it's the same way. You know what I mean? So again, if I was starting from scratch, that's what I would do to get started, and then I would just find what works best for me. Do. Tracking macros and eating freely work for me or just sticking to a meal plan and, you know, following something more concrete helped me stay in rhythm. When I first started wholeheartedly, was the meal plan. The meal plan gave me structure. I knew if I followed that I would be guaranteed my success through that, showing up and eating a meal plan. The benefit of that, in my opinion, is you, you get really good regularity day-to-day, week to week, month to month as to when you meal prep, what groceries you buy, how you feel with certain foods. I do recommend everyone doing some type of meal plan in the beginning to get a base as to what is gonna give you the optimal results.'cause if you, if the one downside a tracking your macros. Is if you don't have a good base already going into your macros, you're not going to eat like on a, on a routine or a schedule. You're just gonna kind of eat whenever you're hungry and you're gonna try to fill in your macros, meaning that you're not gonna really put 110% in, uh, um, intention into them as you could be. Sometimes that is one fail thing. One, one thing that tends to fail people tracking macros. But the other thing with meal plan is sometimes we get too institutionalized to these meal plans where we then fail to learn what we're eating, why we're eating, and what. The intention is behind it. Prime example, people on meal plans, let's say for example, your meal plan says you gotta have 200 grams of rice. Let's say that day you don't have rice. Is that meal plan gonna cause you to have a spiral and a fucking bad day because you don't have 200 grams of rice and you don't know how to chase, swap out those carbs? That's the thing that meal plans can, can potentially do, and then you get institutionalized, like I said, to the meal plan. Where you think you're only ever gonna see success eating these foods, which is true to a degree because again, like my, theoretically speaking, let's say, let's say my way I eating out is a meal plan. I have my pre-workout oats, my um, rice and chicken meal post-workout, and then I have my, um, either my steak dinner at nighttime. Those three things I eat every single day. So technically. Theoretically speaking, I could say that is my meal plan. And then if it fits, your macros is where I bridge the gap of my snacks. But again, I eat the same snacks each day. Both of'em are serving the fruit and it's some protein. So it's like that technically is my meal plan. But for me personally, the meal plan is like 80% to 90% of what I follow because they eat the same things each day. But my success isn't defined by the meal plan. That's where I don't really agree with meal plans, because then you do get institutionalized to it. You don't really have freedom to enjoy life. And if you don't feel like you have that freedom, you feel restricted. And that's where a lot of other emotions come into it. Right? That's why the emotional response with food is such a high thing.'cause once we feel restricted, we're cooked. The same thing with workouts, right? That's why a lot of people don't commit to a coach or getting a, um, a regimen or program for certain movements because they don't want to necessarily do certain things. Do you know what I mean? Like certain movements, like, you know, I know a lot of people, me, me included. A lot of my exercises have to be tailored to how my body is with the injuries and everything I've been through. So some exercises I really don't wanna do. But I have to do them because I understand the bigger picture, you know? So I'm willing to do the shit I don't wanna do because I understand the impact it has. And it's the same concept with nutrition and like I said, with life elsewhere. But again, I would either do a meal plan or do fit my macros. I would, I would, I would balance them both. I would use a meal plan to build structure so you know, what you're doing currently isn't capable of giving you the results you want because why? The reason why I say that most of us, we. Start our finish journeys aren't eating breakfast. We're not eating lunch, we're not eating dinner. We're not even really meal prepping appropriately. We're eating, you know, some whole foods because we're eating chicken brass, we're eating red meat, eating steak. We're doing things intentionally that is gonna give us, let's say, success and just put us ahead to compared to where we were. But if you really wanna take it to that next level, you're gonna have to learn about macros. You're gonna have to learn about micros, you're gonna have to learn about protein and all these different things. So I would say start off with a meal plan.'cause then you're gonna see how often you need to eat. You know, get someone to build you a meal plan or get like a nutritionist or like a coach to build you a meal plan to see what it would be like in your life and where it could plug in. For me personally, what I do for meal plans is I send a whole different questionnaire so you fill it out based on your lifestyle, your day, your commitments, and I give you a mock meal plan as if I was living your life. So let's say theoretically speaking, you work nine to five and you gave me all the food you like and you don't like, I'll give you what I would eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and my snacks when I would do it when you're going to the gym. So I help you with that.'cause again. I don't want you to get institutionalized to a meal plan, but having a meal plan will put that mirror up to where you are now and be like, this is what you need to do. Once you start eating enough and start eating, uh, routinely where you don't have to. Like prime example, when you start following the meal plan so much, you don't even check the meal plan. You know you're eating the same food every day. You know you're getting the calories and the macros and the micros, all these different things'cause you've been so consistent. You have to learn why that works. You have to learn what that's doing because the next step after that is how do you continue to progress? If you can't learn about how your body responds to nutrition, when your metabolism's speeding up, then you're gonna eventually burn out.'cause you're not giving yourself enough calories. You know, if you're always continuously cutting you, you're always in a deficit, you're gonna burn yourself out on the other end as well. So the, the big thing with the meal plan is that it has its place. But it's not a forever type of thing. You know, the biggest thing, if you wanna have success long term and really take control of your relationship and understand, you know, the, like your, um, just the success around it in general, you have to commit to it long term, which is why I think it's more beneficial to learn about macros, micros, and how you can play those in, because then you have the balance. You know, like let's say theoretical, like I said, like what if you run outta rice? Do you want that to be the reason why you hate your fucking life? Like no rice is, 200 grams of rice is like 50, 60 grams of carbs. Yes, the type of carbs it is may differ depending on what you need to get for your goals. But swapping that out, fruit, potatoes, or pasta or any other carbs source isn't gonna be detrimental to your success. Do you know what I mean? So the good thing about meal plans, tons of structure, the bad plan is that the bad side of it is you get stuck to it. Whereas if you fall off of that meal plan, sometimes you tend to feel like shit and you start a whole spiral. Do you know what I mean? So, and if you were to completely do just my, um, like fitting your macros in, again, if you don't have a base on it already with high standards for breakfast, dinner, or lunch and, uh, snack here and there, then you know, fit your macros, you're gonna be eating junk food just to fill in those macros. And then that's a whole other conversation about micronutrient density, vitamins, minerals, and things like that, because. You know, let's say 2000, 2000 calories of Whole Foods is significantly different than 2000 calories of McDonald's in fucking junk food. You know, can you still see success if you fit your macros and eat those foods? A hundred percent, you can. Will the quality of that success be as good as you? Deserve to get the results because you're putting in the work by, by no a hundred percent, no. 10 times net. Always meal planning with whole foods and like tracking your macros with whole Foods will work every single time. But again, uh, macros sometimes gives you a little bit too much freedom where you just play around too much. They, even, me personally, like I remember last year, I fit like a bag of burritos in my macros every single day for like fucking almost two weeks. Like, I still seen success still felt good and for, for the most part. But again, is that ideally what I want to be doing? You know what I mean? I'd much rather have one bag of chips once a week and indulge a little bit versus kind of spreading it out all the time. Right? Because, uh, again, that does have its effect negatively too. So, um, you know, I don't really have a, I don't really have anything concrete to say this is what you guys should do in nutrition or whatever it may be, but I just figured I wanted to talk about it just out loud. This is the same conversation I have with a lot of my clients.'cause again, it's always nutrition, it's always gonna be subjective to your opinion as to what works for you and what doesn't. If you feel like you're fucking absolutely on fire with a meal plan and you're showing up and you're seeing a ton of success, why would you ever change that? If you feel like you're tracking your macros, you understand your proteins, your carbs and fats, and you know, your, your, your deficit, your surplus and everything, and you know how to manage those and you're eating healthy whole foods, you know, feel resistance. Do that. Do you know what I mean? The biggest thing, like I said at the beginning is, what is your goal? And if you're not actively moving towards that goal from a nutrition standpoint, then you need to fix something, period. Whether it's a bulk, whether it's a cut, whether it's maintenance, whether you're not learning. Anyone can give a meal plan. Anyone can prescribe anything. But if you don't know how to apply that to your life, learn about it and then, you know, teach somebody else about it.'cause it's not about teaching. Again, if you wanna be a coach, that's, that's relevant. But again, you as a person wanting to adapt this skillset, like you go to school to get education, to make better money for the rest of your life. So you invest into nutrition to have a better relationship with nutrition and success for the rest of your life, you know, so. A meal plan is not that, where you just get, like, same with your certificate, you get, you get a certificate for your job. That's not the only reason why you're successful. Do you know what I mean? So I do think everyone should benefit from learning macros, micros, and everything in between. But again, I, I would start at the beginning is what is your number one goal? What do you want? Do you want to, uh, build muscle and gain weight? Do you wanna lose fat? Do you wanna lose fat and build muscle at the same time? All three of those have different macro calorie goals and movement goals. Do you know what I mean? So then once you figure those next levels up, then you're gonna figure out which route you should go. And then each route come presents its own options, whether it's a meal plan, macros, whatever it may be. But if you don't know what you're doing in the beginning, you're never gonna, you're always gonna be emotional to your food. Do you know what I mean? But. Uh, other than that, that's pretty much it. You know, the rest of it, I, I could get into proteins, carbs, fats, get into calories and all those different things. But again, this is already like 15 minutes long and I don't wanna be it too longwinded about nutrition. That would just be the relationship with food and what you need to kind of understand from a mental perspective to get your nutrition handled. Protein, fats, carbs, we can talk about that. You gotta get your protein in.'cause at the end of the day, how much protein you get is how much muscle mass you're gonna have in your body. Your carbs. If you're not eating carbs, it's just like the gas in your car. So if you want to fucking drive 200 kilometers away from where you are right now, you gotta have 200 kilometers of gas. So if you work out every single day, and it's, let's say, theoretically speaking, it's 200 kilometers worth of energy you give out, hitting your fucking workouts. You need to eat that many calories to maintain, and if surplus, more deficit, less, et cetera, et cetera. Um. And then with fats, you gotta get good healthy fats and for cognitive function and making sure your tennis ligaments and joints stay healthy and everything in that regard. But, um, I hope you guys got a lot, a lot of takeaways from that.'cause nutrition can be very daunting. I used to be a big binge eater. I used to grow up with my grandparents eating junk food all the fucking time. So I had no idea what good food was, what bad food was, anything in between. So to be where I'm at now, I'm super grateful, but it takes a lot of fucking work day in and day out. And I've been doing this literally, I'm 31 now. Over 10 years and I feel like the last two, three years I finally started to get into rhythm with my nutrition. 110%. So that's me putting five plus years in the game before I was a hundred percent good. It may, it's not gonna take you that long, but again, you gotta ask yourself what is that you want? What is it that you want? And are you willing to put in the work that gets it done, that's gonna get that done? There's no other way around it, especially with nutrition. So I hope you guys got some takeaways. Um, then other than that, keep leading from the front like you guys always do. Appreciate you all and let's Balkan go.