My Experiences and Thoughts on Tracking Food
Today, I wanted to share some thoughts and reflections about my personal experiences tracking food.
Tracking food gets a lot of pushback (and some of it rightfully so!) due to the detailed nature of it. Yes, it can absolutely lead to obsessing around food intake, which is not healthy for anyone. For this reason, it may also not be right for individuals with a history of eating disorders.
However, for others, tracking food can be super beneficial in keeping us accountable and giving us a more accurate tool to help us reach our goals.
Let’s dive in, and you can decide for yourself if this is a strategy worth looking at for you!…
What is tracking food?
Tracking food, aka tracking macros, aka flexible dieting, revolves around weighing/measuring your complete food intake, with the goal of hitting certain calorie and macronutrient targets each day. This is typically done using an app like My Fitness Pal, or similar.
Quite literally, you log everything you eat into the app, and it does the math for you to figure out how many calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats you ate.
One might use this tracking strategy for a few reasons. You might track your food to:
Better understand what you’re eating and to check in with what your balance across macronutrients.
Allow for body composition shifts. With tracking, you can manipulate overall caloric intake to fit your goals and eat accordingly.
“Audit” your intake. You might track a day of food every once in a while to make sure you’re eating what you think you are.
Tracking can allow for increased awareness around how your food choices impact your body composition or performance. Not feeling energized enough in your workouts or over the course of the day? You can increase your intake and have the data to understand those adjustments.
Feeling super full all day long and not necessarily “using” the calories? You can adjust for that too.
Equally, being accurate with your tracking over a period of time allows for changes to be made that reflect what you’re seeing in your data points and goals.
Is tracking the only option for food accountability?
Certainly not.
And just like different people prefer different sleep schedules or various styles of workouts, tracking food may or may not be for you, and that’s TOTALLY OKAY. (If you want to explore other options, let me know and I’d be happy to talk about that too!)
However, I personally find it to be super helpful in allowing for all foods to be eaten as desired in a way that still fits with my overall goals. In other “diets” I’d experienced, there were no treats allowed, or no sugar, and those were just not possible for me. Like, sure, I could technically not eat cookies, but I would also then ONLY think about cookies all day long, which wasn’t helpful in the big picture. With this approach, I can mindfully include cookies, and also make sure I’m getting enough of the healthy foods/macros I need!
I also find it helpful with accountability and staying honest with myself and my coaches. Many times I’ve thought I was eating a little less, or that I was managing my treats, or that I was getting enough protein and I simply WASN’T. So, here too, this accuracy and honesty allow for real understanding of intake and clear direction for adjustments.
Why did I start tracking my food?
Let’s see… I started tracking food back in 2016 after reading an eBook about macronutrient distribution for athletes. It helped me to do some basic macro math and start tracking food to fit those macros.
I started tracking because I was becoming more and more competitive in the CrossFit space and wanted to make sure I was fueling my body appropriately for the many workouts I was doing each week.
Vanity was also a part of it and I wanted to “look better.” Okay, okay, I wanted abs. I had also been a swimmer in college and believed that after I graduated it was all downhill for me from there as far as body composition was concerned.
Boy am I glad that I shifted away from that “downhill” belief! Through fitness and food I have been able to feel and look better, and am still able to maintain that today to an appropriate degree. (This “better” designation is purely my own personal opinion. If you don’t agree, that’s okay!)
In retrospect, the initial macro numbers I created were probably too low for me, but it was a helpful entry point into better understanding nutrition and what’s possible in committing to a food plan.
When you track food, what do you have to do?
You pick an app that you want to use to track, specifically one with a large database of food nutrition information and with barcode scanning capabilities. My Fitness Pal, for example, is good for this.
From there, you enter your intake into the app as accurately as possible. Use a food scale if you have one, or measuring cups, etc.
For example, here’s today’s breakfast:
Yes, this process of tracking can be tedious, especially at first because you’re just figuring out how much of different things you eat, and what combination of foods can allow you to reach your goal numbers, etc. But after I while the app saves things for you so you don’t have to start from scratch with every entry, and it gets easier.
How do you figure it out what macros to aim for?
This is a good question. First of all, you might want to consider working with a trusted coach to get support with this because they can ask you a bunch of questions about your current experiences, preferences, goals, etc. to better understand your general caloric needs. (I can be that person for you, reach out!)
For most people, taking their current weight and multiplying by 12 can give you a ballpark calorie figure to start making adjustments from. But, please note, there are so many factors at play when we talk about calories and intake needs, and it is all very much a process of trial and error to figure out exact needs, so only use this as a starting point, and add or subtract calories based on your goals, your activity level, and past experiences with food intake.
From there, you can figure out your protein intake next by taking your current weight, or goal body weight and multiplying by 0.7 to get a daily protein intake goal. For example if I weigh 145 and multiply that by 0.7, I want to make sure I’m eating at least 101.5 grams of protein per day, and more than that if I’m trying to gain muscle mass or strength. Since there are 4 calories in every gram of protein, that accounts for 406 of the total calories.
From there, you can split the remainder of your calories between carbs and fats, and can adjust the percentage of each based on your own tastes. If you’re someone who prefers to eat more fats, then give yourself a higher percentage of them than carbs. Or vice versa. 1 gram of carbohydrates equates to 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories.
So, simply based on this math, here’s what we might end up with:
145 x 12 = 1740 calories
145 x 0.7 = 101.5 g protein
101.5 x 4 = 406 calories
1740 - 406 = 1334 calories remaining for fats and carbs
1334 / 2 = 667 calories for each fats and carbs
667 / 4 = 166 g carbs
667 / 9 = 74 g fats
Making these sample macros: 1740 calories, 101.5 g protein, 166 g carbs, and 74 g fats.
(Note: if this math was confusing, just message me at sara@nutritionforlifeproject.com and I’ll help you figure it out!)
Also note, this is SIMPLY a starting point for macro calculations. From this starting point, you’ll have to track your food and hit these numbers for 2-4 weeks and SEE WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS for you! Everyone’s bodies, needs, and experiences are different so this could end up being not enough food, or too much food, or just right, but you won’t know until you try it!
Is tracking food hard?
Eh, for some maybe, maybe not for others.
As I said before, it can be challenging at first to get all your typical foods into your app so you have them there.
Equally, depending on where you’re stating from and how close or how far your find yourself from your number goals, it may be challenging to adjust your intake to suit the numbers. For many people, they don’t get nearly as much protein as they need, so that can require shifting around meal priorities or snack choices, etc, to make them fit.
What is debatably challenging is the commitment to it. In order for this strategy to work, you have to actuallyyyyyy do it for an extended period of time. Like multiple weeks and months. No, a day off here or there will certainly not throw off your overall effort or progress, but half-assed tracking isn’t necessarily worth doing, as accuracy is pretty much the point. This is also why this approach is NOT right for everyone, and again, that’s okay!
How do you know when to make adjustments to your numbers?
First of all, if you’re gaining or losing more than 2 pounds per week, your numbers are likely too extreme. We want to be aiming for 0.5-1.5 pounds change per week, at most. More than that can be unsustainable long term… slower progress is best! If you find that you’re gaining or losing too much, adjust your overall calories accordingly and redo the protein/fat/carb math.
Secondly, you can adjust your numbers if you haven’t seen any changes towards your goals in at least 2 weeks. That means that in two weeks of actually tracking towards those numbers you see ZERO change in your data points or metrics. If that’s the case, then adjust the overall calories by a few and redo the macro math.
And lastly, you might adjust your numbers when you reach your goals! Once you hit your goals, you can adjust your numbers to more of a “maintenance” caloric level, or stop tracking all together.
How long do you track food for? When do you stop?
Look, it shouldn’t be anyone’s goal to track their food forever. We don’t want to be like 85 years old and consulting our MFP accounts to see if we can have some tea and cookies with a friend, or something like that.
So, you can track your food for as long as you need to reach your goals, OR, as long as it takes you to be able to “visualize” your food intake with some level of accuracy. Once you can eyeball 6oz of chicken, and 1/2 cup of rice, and 100g of carrots, then you can move forward with that level of awareness and not have to actually track it anymore. Once you understand what reasonable intake is for YOU, you can aim for it without an app.
You may also stop tracking if your goals shift. One reason I stopped tracking after that 2016 start was because I was moving away from being as competitive of an athlete as I once was and no longer felt the need to be that dialed in with my food. So, checking in periodically and making sure that tracking still fits your lifestyle and/or goals is huge!
As mentioned above, you may also audit your food intake. You may not be tracking every day anymore, but maybe once a month you’ll track a day so that you can make sure you’re still in a reasonable range, and actually eating what you think you’re eating!
With this all being said, if you commit to tracking food in the first place, I imagine you should commit for at least a few months to see how it goes for you and whether or not it is a viable option for you and your lifestyle. This is also approximately the amount of time it takes to see real and meaningful results.
When do you pick it back up again?
Another good question. And the answer to this question might also be, when things change for you… goals, situations, lifestyle, movement frequency, pandemics, etc.
I’ve told this story before, but during the pandemic and in all the changes that it brought to my life, my sedentary time was way up and my activity time was way lower, and I was eating the same things I had been for years, and I no longer “needed” that much food… and I gained about 10-12 pounds.
And I hated it. I hated my clothes not fitting well. Hated how I felt. Wasn’t sleeping as well. Was more stressed. All of it.
So, I decided to do something about it! I committed to the process and got myself a coach and start tracking again. And, once I committed, it was surprisingly easy to pick back up again… phew.
And here’s my weight graph from October 2021 through now, mid-February 2022:
I’ll take it! Just a few more pounds until I head to a maintenance/reverse diet phase, which is a whole other conversation too!
I feel so much better overall, am moving better in my workouts, am lifting heavier, and am way more confident in my skin! All wins, regardless of the actual number on the scale, which is just a data point after all!
What questions do you have about tracking food? Or, what else do you want to know about my experiences with it?
Please share in the comments!
Or, write me an email at sara@nutritionforlifeproject.com! I’d love to support you in your journey, help you do some macro math, or discuss other options for food accountability and reaching your goals WITHOUT tracking!
And if you found this post helpful, please subscribe or share with a friend!
xoxo,
Sara