Can You Stop Tracking Macros and Still Keep Results?

Nikkiey: Real quick, if you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand that methodology on how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today.

"This is another diet I'm doing. I'm doing the macronutrient diet." I wouldn't focus on it as a diet. I would focus on it like: I am developing a better relationship with food. And by doing that, I am tracking my food to understand what I am eating, to understand what is going into my body, to understand how much I am eating throughout the day. And it just gives such a profound awareness to the amount of food that you are eating and what you are consuming on a daily basis versus you not knowing that. And a lot of people don't know that.

What's going on, you guys? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 74, where I'm going to share with you guys what living a healthy lifestyle means to me.

This was another question that was dropped in the question box that I place on my story every once in a while, asking you guys what questions you would love to hear answered on this podcast that are worthy of long answers to bring to the show. And this was one of them. I thought this was such a great question because this is personal to me and the journey that I have been on over the eight years of my fitness transformation, my fitness journey. Some of you guys may resonate with this, some of you guys may not, but I'm pretty sure that like 95% of you guys will resonate with this. So let's just dive right into it.

I just shared on my feed, I think it was like last week or a week and a half ago, my before and after picture of when I was in one extreme, back in 2018, to the whole opposite side of that, which is a more balanced approach. And I also feel like my whole journey and where I'm at now is just continuing to evolve even more.

So after this recent contemplation and thoughts of where I was in that one extreme, and I've shared this in recent podcasts, when I was hospitalized, it was backed behind this photo that is on my Instagram, and where I was in that time period of my life. It was just such an extreme measure to be taking with my body, striving towards the goal of being a competitor and stepping on stage. I won all the shows that I was a part of, I beat the pros, and I had this title of the number one natural women's physique athlete in the OSUB Federation in 2018. But dude, to get there, like I shared with you guys in that post and in recent podcasts, it was insane. I look back now, because my whole approach now is completely different. But that was one extreme.

And you know what, I'm grateful for that journey, because I was able to feel what that felt like and experience what that extreme was like. And I know that some of you guys may not be competitors, but have that type of extreme mentality, and you're doing it in other ways when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to your fitness journey. So I get it, and I resonate with it.

But now, contemplating more on this, what does a healthy lifestyle mean to me? What does a healthy life mean to me? Now I'm here, like five years later, and I have a way more balanced approach to my entire fitness and nutrition lifestyle. I am not as extreme. I am not pushing myself to go into the gym six days a week, to do two cardio sessions, and to eat 900 calories a day. I am now training four days a week, doing no-equipment cardio. I'm not getting on a treadmill or a StairMaster or an elliptical. I'm just focusing on getting out and doing walks every single day with my puppy Maverick and hitting over 10,000 steps a day. That's my main focus when it comes to cardio.

And then when it comes to nutrition, I've been on the whole eating-right thing for the last eight years, but when it comes to really focusing on macros, it's been about five, five and a half years. And I have learned so much in that time period on macronutrients. I've developed a skill set when it comes to looking at food and being able to know what it is, because of being so consistent with tracking macros for the first few years, really getting into that ballgame, and weighing my food, and knowing and learning portion sizes, and knowing and learning what is on my plate and what this food group consists of. This is protein. This is carb. This is a fat.

And now I'm at the stage of my journey where I don't need to track every single day. And I know this is an evolution in your journey too. I've shared this on my Instagram, so if you guys follow me, I've shared this, and inside of our WarriorBabe community. When you're first getting started, macronutrients is hands down the best thing that you could focus on. And I wouldn't focus on it as, "This is another diet I'm doing. I'm doing the macronutrient diet." I wouldn't focus on it as a diet. I would focus on it like: I am developing a better relationship with food. And by doing that, I am tracking my food to understand what I am eating, to understand what is going into my body, to understand how much I am eating throughout the day.

And it just gives such a profound awareness to the amount of food that you are eating and what you are consuming on a daily basis versus you not knowing that. And a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people come in saying, "I have no idea what I'm eating. I am not tracking. I eat this, this, this, and this." And I was there too at the beginning of my journey. I had to pull out a whole log for the coach when I first started getting into bodybuilding. And I thought I ate healthy, but I was not eating at all.

So getting into the world of macronutrients, it's not another diet. It's a skill set that can serve you for the rest of your life if you treat it as such. If you come in with that mentality and you live with that mentality as you are embarking on that journey of learning how to track macronutrients, and stop looking at it as a chore, or "I have to do this," or it's another diet. Looking at it like that is just going to set you up for failure.

So now, to this day, really only in the last year or so have I not tracked every single day. And this is the way I go about it. Maybe I track three or four days out of the seven days of the week, and I'm putting myself in a deficit during those days. But Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I am living in maintenance.

And guys, getting here, and remember, this is what a healthy lifestyle means to me, getting to this point, you have to do all of the things that I just said. You have to track macronutrients. You have to go down that journey for a couple of years until you really, really, really understand this world. Because you can't get to intuitive eating, in my opinion, without knowing food and knowing portion sizes, and being able to think, "Okay, in my brain, I've had upwards of X amount of protein today." And you can only get that by consistently tracking macros, by consistently weighing your food, by consistently looking at food. When you're weighing your food, your eyeball, your brain is looking at this and looking at the grams and you're learning. You're embedding into your brain that this is what this looks like. So where I'm at today, I wouldn't be able to do what I am doing right now successfully without all of these other steps.

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So when it comes to the three or four other days of the week, I am still thinking in my brain, "Okay, I've had X amount of protein." Or my meals are very similar to what I would be eating if I had been tracking. I really don't veer much off of my normal meals.

When I'm in that deficit, I am just way more consistent with the number that is on the scale. I am down to the gram. I'm down to the ounce. Because that's what is necessary when you are in a deficit, when you're trying to lose body fat. Now, I say that for you guys who are looking to lose body fat: you have to consistently track down to the gram. You have to be aware of that kind of stuff.

But for me, I live in maintenance the majority of my time. For maybe eight, nine, ten months out of the year, I am in maintenance. And maybe the other months I'm playing around with a little bit of a deficit to put myself into a mini cut. These are all things that I have learned years into my journey, you guys. So I don't want you guys going, "Oh, it's a mini cut. I want to go into a mini cut," when you're three months into your journey. No, it's not going to happen. Unless you're working with a coach who knows if this is the right place for you to go into, and you're strategically working together to do it.

I know my WarriorBabes are listening to me right now. And guys, listen, if you are one year into your journey, two years into your journey, this kind of stuff really doesn't apply to you until you have really mastered the art of macronutrients. I think of the babes I know. I can name off Ashley Hunter. I can name off Cheryl Beaver. I can name off Brandy McKibben. I can name off Lisa Brothers. I can name off so many women that have been doing this for years that could dabble in what I'm saying right now.

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Going back to where I'm at, living this healthy lifestyle, this is what it looks like to me. The majority of the time I am eating the same thing. It's just that maybe I'm not tracking, so I'm not as consistent with the number down to the gram on three or four days of the week. But when I do track, I'm down to the gram and I'm in a deficit. And so this is my world of maintenance, because I can intuitively eat, and then I can track, and then I can intuitively eat, and I can track. And this has really been a nice level for me to maintain my body, maintain my physique, maintain my leanness, and feel good that I don't have to worry about tracking every single day.

And I want every one of you guys listening to this podcast to be able to get to this level. This is the next level of your journey. And I know that my journey is just continuing to evolve from here. I know you guys are like, "I don't want to track for the rest of my life." You don't have to track for the rest of your life. But guess what? You have to put in the work to get to that point. And it's all the things I just said.

And then there was another story that I wanted to share with you guys, and this is all embodied in what a healthy lifestyle means to me. It's the Crumbl cookie story. You guys all know Crumbl. If you don't, it's a franchise store throughout the U.S., I think, and every single week they have a new menu of cookie flavors. And oh man, Crumbl just has a place in my heart. This is a genius invention.

So I was with a friend who was really trying to focus on only having clean foods day to day. And I'm like, dude, yeah, I totally support that. I've been there, done that. They're just trying to really develop the habit of eating healthy food every single day. And I'm like, go do your thing. But I am not personally aligned with that and how I see my relationship with food nowadays. This person is just trying to stop the overindulgences of eating late at night, or eating things that just aren't in alignment with where they are right now and what they're trying to do with their body. And I'm like, dude, I totally support that. But their thing is that they're trying to eat only healthy foods every single day and eliminating the sweets. And I'm personally aligned with this aspect of my journey where I am going to allow myself to have that food in moderation.

So at Crumbl there's an option where you can get one cookie, four cookies or six cookies. I didn't get it last week. I'm definitely going to get it this week. But prior to last week, I had it for the previous three weeks. The first week, it started off with one cookie, and I think I only ate half of that cookie and then I threw the rest away.

Then the second week, it was the four-pack of cookies. And guys, I felt sick. It's not that I ate too much, because I ended up throwing away a good majority of the cookies, but I indulged a little bit more than I should have. And I'm aware of that. I'm aware that this doesn't feel good to my body. This doesn't feel good, how I feel the next day. I'm slower. I can't think right.

And really, the moral of the story is, I am allowing myself to have these things without jeopardizing my results, without having to restrict foods from my everyday, from what I want. And I know a lot of you guys feel this way too, but you've got to be aware of these things. A lot of people are not consciously aware, when they go wanting some type of thing like a cookie or ice cream, of the level where it makes them feel uncomfortable or it's too much. Some people just keep going.

I always joke with my WarriorBabes, "Don't be an asshole." And what I mean by that is, don't eat until you're overly stuffed. You're not going to be able to do that 100% of the time, but some of the time you'll be able to recognize, "Oh, I'm starting to feel pretty full, so I don't need the rest of this." And like I said, you're not going to be like that 100% of the time. In that moment, I ate a little bit too much, but I ended up throwing away the rest of it.

And then the third week we got the six-pack, because my friend and I shared it. I had only half of a cookie the first night, and then I was allowing myself to have some pieces throughout the rest of the days.

And guys, I say this because I've talked to women who are also in this phase of their journey, where they either travel or they aren't tracking every single day, but they're eating things every single day that they feel like they could never have had before, and now they're overindulging in those things. This is a part of your journey where you just have to be so self-aware that finishing this full bag of chips just isn't what I would typically do. Just because it's there in front of you and you feel like now you can have it doesn't mean you should. This is where discipline really comes into play. It's like, "Okay, I'm only going to have a handful of this, because I'm thinking serving size. I'm intuitively aware of that, so I don't need the rest of it." You put it away.

This is another disciplinary act that you learn in this phase of your journey, because this is where intuitive eating can really get fucked up. And it's not intuitive eating. It's you just being an asshole and eating whatever the fuck you want. And then you're back to square one of your journey from X amount of years ago. So you can't allow those bad habits to resurface and take control. You need to form a better habit in the situation that you're in, one that still calls for a disciplinary action from you to stop eating when you know that you've had enough of X substance.

So with the cookies, I only had part of a cookie. My friend ended up eating one whole cookie, and we saw each other the next day and I was like, "Oh, I'm good." And he was like, "Oh man, I'm so foggy. I'm so blah, blah, blah. I'm so X, Y, and Z." And I'm like, "Well, how much of those cookies did you eat?" And they told me. And then I ended up only having another half of a cookie, and then I ended up throwing it away. We split the six, three and three, and I ended up not even eating one full cookie.

And so that's what a healthy lifestyle means to me. At this phase of my journey, I don't need to overindulge in things that maybe I haven't had since the beginning of my journey, or act the way I did before I started this entire journey, when I would overindulge, when I would eat whatever I wanted. And you guys know from listening to this entire podcast, and this is a perfect example, I love sweets. For a phase of my life and my journey, I cut those things out completely. And that's not the type of lifestyle that I want to live when it comes to my relationship with food.

And when it comes to thinking about what healthy living looks like for me at this moment, like I said, I feel it's continuing to evolve. There are some aspects I'm now recognizing in my journey, like, this has this amount of ingredients in it, and I actually don't want this because I can't read half of them. I've had this along my journey, but now it's just getting louder and louder. I can't read half of this shit. I want natural, clean. I have grass-fed, grass-finished meats that I get from ButcherBox now. So I'm becoming more aware of the contents of my food as well, the quality of my food, which I have spoken to before, but the majority of my food now is coming from that. And that's going to continue to evolve.

But just taking it back a notch, this is what healthy living looks like to me personally in this phase of my journey and where I'm at right now. I am allowing myself things that I would have had at the beginning of my journey, like these cookies every single week, but in a balanced respect, where I have the disciplinary action to say, "This is enough." And every single night, I've said this before, I have chocolate at the end of the night, every single night.

And this is what a balanced lifestyle means to me. This is what a healthy lifestyle means to me. And this is the respect of food. I think you guys understand it. That's just what it means to me. I'm not going to restrict things that I want. I'm not going to say no to the things that I want. I'm going to have them in a balanced, moderate way where I still know that I'm hitting my protein, know that I'm hitting my carbs on the days I'm intuitively eating, and know when to stop if I'm allowing myself to have treats.

And that's an evolution. Some of you guys are not there, and you're far away from being there, and that's okay. But let me tell you, where you're at right now and the journey that you are on, if you consistently keep working at things, that's your evolution. For me, the beginning of my journey was literally sweets, everything, barely eating during my day. Then I got into the extreme of bodybuilding and had such a regimented, strict meal plan, X, Y, and Z, where this is all I could eat throughout my day. Then it evolved into macros and tracking macros and being really diligent with tracking every single day and following that to a T, which I loved. And a lot of you guys think of that as a chore, and I'm like, no, I wanted to get to where I don't have to do that every single day. And now here I am, and I don't have to do that every single day.

And to me, it's such a beautiful evolution of the relationship that I have with food and how I know how to fuel my body. Being able to have that and being able to master that type of skill set is an absolute game changer for you, for your relationship with food, but also for your health and for the longevity of your body's lifespan. Think about that. I know how to eat right. I know that X, Y, and Z is good. I know how much I'm eating in a day, even if I'm not tracking. And I know that I can do this within the confines of allowing myself the food that I want, but also establishing how much I should be eating in a day and then working on top of that. And these two things come together for the longevity of my life. I am set. I am primed. I am golden. And now it's going to continue to evolve.

And that's with food. Exercise is another thing. I went from six days of extreme, two cardio sessions per day, six strength training sessions in a week, three times in the gym a day, to four days a week and 10K steps a day, 10 to 12K. And I'm maintaining my results. You guys follow me along my journey. My body has maintained so well, and I'm so proud of that, because all the things I've gone through and experienced and trial-and-errored with and explored, all the things I've tried, have led me to where I am today. And this is what it means to me.

The one thing I could get better at is stretching. I hope I made you guys laugh, because I know a lot of you can resonate with that one. Stretching is my nemesis. I don't do it as much as I should. And I know that it's a part of healthy joints, being flexible, mobility, all the things that are a pillar to the longevity of my body as well. I need to get better at that.

But all in all, I still do strength training. That is so important to me. You guys know that strength training, to fuel your muscles and to build your muscles and make them strong, muscle is the organ of longevity in your life. The more that you have, the stronger you're going to be. But stretching is a big component to that, so that needs to be added to my routine. And I know I've been saying that for a long time, and sometimes it happens. Sometimes you guys have been saying, "I know I need to eat better," and it takes three years for you to actually start doing that.

So this is all encompassing of what a healthy life means to me and where I'm at in my journey. And I know it's going to continue to evolve. I hope you guys enjoyed that. I hope you maybe resonated with some points. Maybe you're at that point. I know I've spoken to a couple of you guys who listen to this podcast, and you guys are there. It's just trusting that you can do what I just said. You totally can. It's just being able to trust that you can, and trial-and-erroring it. I'm not saying my intuitiveness was always prime. It is prime now because I've been doing it for a year or so, but there was trial and error at the beginning of that. Again, this is what a healthy lifestyle means to me. I hope that you guys enjoyed this podcast, and I will see you in the next one.

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