How to Start Tracking Macros When You've Never Done It

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The first macronutrient, and this is what I would do for everyone, is just, hey, we've got to get you eating more protein. And you're like, well, how do I get more protein? And what do I eat? What foods consist of it? That was me at the beginning of my journey, you guys. I remember I had no idea what foods consisted of protein. I had no idea that chicken was considered protein. I had no idea that beef was considered protein. Trying to fit protein in doesn't mean you go grab the bars that have 10 grams of protein in them but 40 grams of carbs. It's really paying attention to the foods that are made up of lean sources of protein. Now we're about to open up your world to understanding how you get more protein in.

What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, or if this is one of your first episodes, welcome to the show. I am super stoked that you guys are here. 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 today's episode, episode 146, where I'm going to dive into a question that I get asked all of the time.

Recently I've been a guest on others' podcasts, and this question always comes up. And I thought, you know what? This is a great topic of discussion to bring to The WarriorBabe Show. I'm sure I've talked about the answer to this question in many, many episodes, but I don't think I've actually highlighted it. How have I not highlighted this answer as a topic of conversation on the podcast yet? It blew my mind. I was on a podcast yesterday and got asked this question, and I was lying on the couch relaxing last night and thought, that's a great question to bring to the podcast. So here we are today, diving into this answer that I want to bring to light for all of you that are listening.

The question I get all the time, even on every single podcast I've been on as a guest so far, is: what do you do with clients? Or if you're a client, you're like, I have no idea what macronutrients are. I've never tracked a macronutrient in my life. Where do I start? When I'm on podcasts, the hosts are always asking me, Nikkiey, how do you start your clients off with learning how to track macronutrients if they've never tracked one in their life and have no idea what they are? And I was like, this is such a good question.

The answer I'm going to give you is going to be elaborate, because it's really a journey that I and the WarriorBabe coaches take our clients on to get to the North Star of tracking the three macronutrients, or tracking macronutrients in general. Maybe I have this assumption, but I think many people believe that people come into the WarriorBabe ecosystem and they're tracking macros out of the gate. And that is not what happens.

I've also been asked in person, like when I'm at the dog park with Maverick. If you guys don't know who Maverick is, he's my three-year-old Doberman, and we go to the dog park very frequently. People always ask, what do you do? I talk about WarriorBabe, and they're like, wow, I have no idea what macronutrients are. And I'm like, cool, let's chat it up. They're like, well, how do I even track them? And I'm like, first, you don't even need to worry about the three of them.

Literally what I just said is that tracking the three macronutrients, or tracking macronutrients in general, is your North Star. Think of it like that. Where are you going? You're getting to the point of fully understanding what macronutrients are. Tactically, tracking the three of them, tracking them consistently, playing around with them and totally understanding them is your North Star.

Say you're coming into WarriorBabe at the start, or I'm talking to you in person, and you're like, I've never tracked macronutrients in my life. I have no idea what to do. Where do I even start? This is what we do. This is literally foolproof. It's also the best freaking way that I would guide anybody, and our coaches would guide anybody, along their journey.

So first of all, let's say you're coming into WarriorBabe. You've never tracked macros. You don't know what macros are. Cool. All that I and our coaches want to see for the first week is: how are you eating? What are you eating? We really encourage all of the clients coming into the program not to try to eat differently, because it's not realistic. People come into the program like, I want to switch my habits immediately, I've got this coach and she's watching, I've got to eat clean. And we're just like, dude, I just want to see how you eat.

It paints such a profound picture, a very, very accurate understanding of the human that we're working with. First of all, everyone's different. But secondly, after a week of tracking how you've normally been eating prior to starting any type of program, we see it all. Maybe it's fast food. Maybe you're eating on the go and stopping at Wawa or a convenience store and grabbing a protein bar. Or you don't eat and you hoard all your food for dinner. Or you eat first thing in the morning, but then you don't eat the rest of the day. Everybody is so uniquely different. But after a week's worth of that data, we're able to see what we're working with.

And typically, 90% of the time, humans are overconsuming carbs and fats and entirely under-eating protein. So the first macronutrient, and this is what I would do for everyone, is just, hey, we've got to get you eating more protein. And they're like, well, how do I get more protein? What do I eat? What foods consist of it?

Just a little pin here, a side note: that was me at the beginning of my journey, you guys. I've said this on every single podcast I've been a guest on. I remember I had no idea what foods consisted of protein. I had no idea that chicken was considered protein. I had no idea that beef was considered protein. I had no idea that trying to fit protein in doesn't mean you go grab the bars that have 10 grams of protein but 40 grams of carbs. It's really paying attention to the foods that are made up of lean sources of protein. I remember Googling what foods consisted of protein at the beginning of my journey. So if that's you, dude, totally fine. Now we're about to open up your world to understanding how you get more protein in, and it's some of those food sources I just mentioned. There are so many more, and I have other episodes on protein foods, but I want to keep this concept to the concept here.

So then we see that they're eating something like 60 grams of protein in a day, and I'm like, wowzers, we need to get this up. Like I said a second ago, the North Star is understanding macronutrients, tracking them consistently and paying attention to them. I'll step down from the North Star and bring it a little bit closer, maybe to the stratosphere, which is a closer reach than the North Star, right? That's the analogy I'm trying to pinpoint there.

A closer goal is this: typically, what I'm trying to get people to is their body weight in protein. Broadly speaking, it depends on your goal and on the human I'm working with. But broadly speaking, we're trying to get people to eat their body weight in protein in a day. That's part of the North Star of macronutrients.

But something a little bit closer is this. If you're eating 60 grams of protein and I want you to eat 150 grams of protein, when we explain that and educate our clients on what we want them to eat, their eyes are like, huh? You want me to eat how much protein? Sometimes that can feel too overwhelming, and we don't want to overwhelm our clients. We don't want to overwhelm you guys coming into the WarriorBabe ecosystem. We want to paint realistic, attainable goals for you to accomplish so that you feel like you can achieve them.

So instead of the North Star of 150 grams of protein, your body weight in a day, at the beginning it's, okay, let me just reach a little bit closer and focus on 100 grams of protein in a day. And even then, people are like, okay, well, how do I get that much protein?

Think about it like this. Easy number: 100 grams of protein is your goal. If you're eating, let's say, five meals in a day, then you want to have at least 20 grams of protein in each one of those meals. When you break it down a little more, it's more attainable to think about. Okay, 20 grams of protein is maybe one protein shake to start your day if you're going to work out. The second meal is 150 grams of egg whites. The third meal is maybe 200 grams of Greek yogurt. The fourth meal is maybe three ounces of chicken. And your last meal is whatever you're having for dinner, maybe three ounces of beef if you're doing tacos with your family. That's how you make it more attainable. But first you need to understand and educate yourself on what foods are made of protein, and then the portion sizes that will help you dose out your protein in a day.

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So that's typically what happens when people are like, I've never tracked macros before, where do I start? First, we have you log and track as you normally would. Open up MyFitnessPal. It's super easy to do. There's a bit of a learning curve, but not much, because there's an amazing feature inside MyFitnessPal that has a barcode scanner. You can go around, scan all the food that you're eating, and easily log it. We have our clients do that for the first seven days. Afterwards, we're able to look at it, assess it and understand what the metabolism has most likely adapted to through the months, years, possibly decades of this client eating this way.

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So then, out of that, we're like, okay, no idea what macronutrients are, no idea how to track them. Let's just dive into focusing on the protein aspect, as in those examples I just shared. We're just focusing on tracking protein and getting it in. If you want to start learning about macros, that is hands down, by far, one of the first steps I would have you focus on. It's also the most important of the three macronutrients to focus on.

Protein helps in so many ways. It helps curb your cravings. It helps you feel fuller for longer periods of time. It helps you build muscle, repair muscle and grow muscle. Honestly, it also has a thermic effect, which means that when you're consuming protein, you're actually burning calories in the digestive process. So what I like to say is it's the macronutrient king. Of all the macronutrients, it's one of the best ones.

I'm trying to think of more things to say about it. Protein is essential. Protein is so important. It's good for your skin, your hair and your nails. It's good for all the things. It's good for fat loss. It's good for muscle building. And it's good for overall health and longevity. So making sure you're getting enough protein into your day is first and foremost at the beginning of your journey. And honestly, no pun intended, it's the most digestible thing to focus on at the start of your journey.

So from there, we're focusing on that, and that's usually the navigation we go with for clients. We're like, this is it. That's all I want you to do. Like I just said, it's more digestible. We don't want the client to get overwhelmed. We don't want them to be like, oh my God, I'm trying to get all my numbers within plus or minus five on the protein, fats and carbs, and I want to pull my hair out because it's so freaking hard. That hardness, that story, that narrative, blocks people from wanting to move forward. We don't want to get there. We want to focus on easy things, attainable things, adjustable things. So that's the first point.

And no joke, guys, take this seriously. If you just focus on those things and actually apply them, and consistently follow through with exactly what I just said, which is understanding where you're at in terms of food, seeing that maybe protein is being under-eaten on a daily basis, and focusing on getting protein in and eating it, dude, just do that. Two, three, four weeks in, you're going to notice that cravings are subsiding. You're going to notice that you're feeling fuller longer throughout the day. You're going to notice that if you're giving your body what it needs in terms of protein throughout the day, you no longer have these insane cravings at the end of the day.

You know the scene: you're home from work, it's been a stressful day, you're about to sit down with your kids after dinner, and you're like, dude, I just ate dinner, but I'm still hungry. It's because you didn't give your body what it needed throughout the entire day. And that's where a lot of things happen: bingeing, emotional or stress eating, all those things. Stress may be a variable, but it's because you didn't consistently give your body the fuel it wanted, and that fuel comes from food throughout the day.

So just by doing those things, you will notice emotional, mood and psychological changes. You will feel those changes. You may even see the physical side of things starting to happen, and you may notice your strength improving inside the gym, just by doing what I just said.

Then just wait. When we get this down and you're nailing it, you're learning the importance of protein, you're paying attention to it and you're tracking it. That's where you would start, like I just said. But then you stack on the carbs and the fats, and you pay more attention to the portion sizes, the quantity and the quality of the carbs and fats. This may be a couple of weeks into your journey that you start really focusing on that.

You may be eating them already. Well, I hope you are. I hope you're not just eating protein in a day. Maybe I should specify that: please don't eat just protein in a day. Make sure you are actually eating carbs and fats. You're just not putting too much emphasis on them yet.

Then you're a couple of weeks in, you're doing all the things I just said, and you start layering in the carbs and the fats. Get ready for next-level energy, next-level thought processes, next-level strength inside the gym, and even the next-level results you want to see physically. Because at that point you're giving your body essentially exactly what it wants in terms of how many macros and how many calories you should be consuming. You're nailing it. You're dialing it in even more.

When you reach that level, it depends on how many carbs and how much fat you'll be consuming, but all three of them work together, and they work together in freaking magical ways. Without carbohydrates, protein wouldn't be able to fully do its job. Without protein, carbs wouldn't be able to 100% do their job. And vice versa all around. All three of them work together to make everything internally, the cells, the organs, all of it, work together and make you feel your best freaking self.

So the main thing I was saying there is that at the beginning, protein is sometimes the hardest thing to do. But you're able to break it down to that focus, and then you layer in the carbs and the fats a little later on. You're eating them in the beginning, but you're putting more emphasis on them when you get a couple of weeks into your journey. You're paying more attention to the numbers, and you're getting closer to that North Star.

Okay, that's more of the tactical side of things. The second concept I want to speak to is that at the beginning, if you've never tracked macros before, there are so many mental blocks happening for the people we work with, or that I've coached. They're always like, I don't want to track macros. Tracking macros is so time consuming. I'm too busy. I don't have time to track macros.

To me, in order for you to get a different result than what you have now, you have to use a strategy that's different from what you're doing now. It's that Einstein quote. If you're doing the same thing over and over again that you were doing before you came into a program, that is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So when people come to me with this mental barrier, these stories, these narratives, these thought processes holding them back, when I hear an excuse, I'm like, look, how bad do you really want said result? I've heard a plethora of different responses, and I can always tell by someone's tonality how bad they really want it, or whether they're just talking themselves into how bad they want it. And you've got to really want it. You've got to really want to make some type of change, physically and mentally, for yourself in order to get bought in that this concept works.

Because there's so much of, oh, if I eat more food, if I focus on X, Y and Z with the macronutrients, I'm going to get fat. And I'm like, what evidence, what data do you have that supports that eating macronutrients, or eating more carbs or more fats, is going to make you fat?

And let me remind you that our job as coaches, my job as a professional coach and our coaches' jobs, is not to make you fat. If we make you fat, we suck as coaches. Okay? And we've got a pretty good track record of not making people fat. I've had people increase their weight on the scale because they've gained more muscle. But I have never said, okay, I'm going to feed you this much and the goal here is to get you fat.

So what I'm saying with this concept, the mindset, is this: if you've never tracked macros but you want to, and you're wondering where to start, you have to get past these stories, these narratives, these beliefs you've been carrying for so freaking long. Break the paradigm those thoughts are living in, and allow yourself to embrace a new strategy, a new concept, and actually follow through on it and take action. And what we say is: trust us now, believe us later. Because when you allow yourself to take action on it, you're going to build evidence that actually supports the fact that this is the way to go if you want to reach said goal.

I also always like to say that if you're saying you're too busy, you're not making yourself or the goal a priority. However busy you are, there's somebody out there who is just as busy, if not busier than you, who is accomplishing and achieving the same goals you have in mind. So just let that sink in.

If you want to go down this path of learning how to eat better, learning how to eat more, tracking macronutrients and learning them, and getting into this world, I've said this on many podcasts too: why macronutrients? Because it's backed by science. It scientifically makes sense for how your body will optimally fuel itself, function well, and in turn get you the type of result you want, whether you're 250 pounds and want to lose weight or you're 150 pounds and want to tone up. It's scientifically proven, and until it's proven otherwise, this is what I will solely believe in.

So with all that being said, that is how I've taken people on the journey, and how our coaches have taken people on the journey, when they ask: I've never tracked macros, where do I start? Tactically, we talked about tracking for seven days, paying attention to it, logging how you normally would and eating how you normally would. Then we do an assessment, and then we focus on protein. And then we get to the North Star of the three, the whole macronutrient package.

Then there's the behavioral side. There's always the tactical and the behavioral. Behaviorally, it's: what mindset blocks do we have to get past? I'm happy to address these mindset blocks right here, right now with you, so we can get past them and you can get what you want faster. Because the mental side is definitely something that gets in a lot of people's way. Okay?

I hope you guys loved this podcast. I hope it was valuable and that it shed light on a topic you may have been wondering about: how to start tracking macronutrients, where to start, and so on. I hope you found it valuable, and I will see you in the next one. Peace out.

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