How to Track Macros and Beat Gym Anxiety as a Beginner

Nikkiey: Hey guys, I love so much that you're listening to this podcast. If you ever want the video version, which usually has more effects and all that good stuff for those of you who are visual learners, check out the WarriorBabe YouTube channel. Either way, keep enjoying the show.

I would walk into the gym. I would feel so scared. I would walk up the stairs and I would land on the cardio equipment, because I was in my own little bubble. I was on my own piece of equipment and I could stay there for an hour.

What's up, 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'm your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 72, where I want to share with you my biggest struggles as a beginner when it came to macronutrients: tracking macronutrients and understanding macronutrients.

Then I want to piggyback off of that and also talk about my biggest struggles as a beginner when it came to weight training. This is where I'm also going to give advice for someone, and maybe that's you, who has some anxiety walking into a gym. Because, man, I can totally resonate with that. I felt that same way when I first started out on my journey.

This was also a question that was dropped in my question box on IG a couple weeks ago. Periodically, I ask you guys what questions you want answered on the podcast, and you ask them in that box on my Instagram story. Specifically, I look for questions that are worthy of long answers that I can bring to this podcast. This was a great question, and I was super excited to see it and now be able to bring it to the podcast and answer it with you here.

Jot down the things that resonate with you, which I highly recommend. Anything that resonates with you on this podcast, write it down so you can refer back to it days, weeks or months after you've listened. I highly recommend you do that with everything that resonates, because there's a reason why it resonates with you. If you're driving, take mental notes and refer back to this when you can.

All right, let's dive into it. First, let's talk about a few of the biggest struggles I encountered when I was starting out tracking macronutrients. Other than pure frustration, pure confusion and pure overwhelm, the main things I struggled with came when I was applying macronutrients, in the action of trying to track them.

Let me just say that I failed multiple days, multiple weeks in a row when I first started tracking macronutrients. And let me remind you that I was in the bodybuilding world for three years when I first started my journey, and it was just me strictly following a meal plan. The same basic, boring meals over and over and over again for, yes, pretty much three years straight. I understood what macronutrients were, because it was protein, fats and carbs and I had them in my everyday routine. But I never understood the world of macronutrients and all of the food options I had right at my fingertips.

They were right there, and I never understood that whole world. As I transitioned, I wanted to know and understand, mainly because I was like, there's got to be more to this. It can't just be this. This isn't how people maintain their bodies or get the amazing results that they see. They understand this whole other world, and I had to understand this whole other world. So coming from somebody who felt like she knew what she was doing, trying to do this was a slap in the face multiple times.

Like I said, I failed multiple days, multiple weeks in a row when I first started to track macronutrients. I struggled more in the action of trying, which, let me tell you, is completely, 100% normal. When you're trying something new, I like to use the analogy of learning to ride a bike for the first time. You're going to hit some rocks, you're going to hit some potholes, and you may fall off that bike and get a couple scrapes and bruises.

And that is okay. That is not saying that you should give up. That is saying, let me get back on the bike and try again. In those moments, the main thing I was failing at was always, always, always... I have this vivid image in my brain right now of standing in the kitchen feeling so freaking defeated. I always, always went over my macros for the day, mainly because I was tracking as I went.

I know this resonates so hard for you, because I hear it time and time again from women inside of WarriorBabe who are trying to get this whole macro game down. The main thing they're struggling with is that they're always over. They have 50 grams of carbs left to hit, 20 grams of protein left, 10 grams of fat left, and it's the end of the day and they don't know how to whip up a meal that has exactly each of those things. I just feel that.

I totally feel that, because I remember standing in the kitchen at the end of the day, multiple days and weeks in a row, just doomed. Feeling so defeated because I had all of these things left to hit, and it was like 8 o'clock at night. I'm like, the weirdest meal concoctions are going to come from this right now, which happens. I was just defeated. I thought, there's got to be a better way, because I don't want to stuff my face with food right now. So I learned the hard way.

I learned by doing this multiple days and weeks in a row. I was like, this cannot be this hard. And what I realized was, okay, what if I pre-plan ahead of time? That means taking the time the night before to barcode scan things in my kitchen and play the game of Tetris in my brain to get all of my meals and numbers to fit. If I just take that time ahead of time, then guess what?

The more I did that, the more successful I was going into the following days, having already pre-planned my meals. And there it is. I open up MyFitnessPal and all of my meals are right there. The numbers at the top for my macros are within plus or minus five, because that's what I encourage: that you're plus or minus five in each of the categories, protein, fats and carbs. That's you successfully nailing your macros for the day.

Light bulbs went off. I was like, okay, so it's not a track-as-you-go type of deal. It's actually taking the time to log my meals. That could be the night before, or even the morning of. You sit down to have breakfast, you log your breakfast, and then you think, okay, this is what I'm having for lunch, for snack, pre-workout, post-workout and dinner. And guys, not only is it super successful for staying in line with your macros that day,

it's also an absolute game changer because you have the day planned. Now, when anybody comes into your space and says, oh, let's go get lunch, or let's go get X, Y and Z, you can actually say no, because you already have it all planned. You already have it all logged. Your meals, your plan, your strategy are right there in front of you, and it makes you feel so much more empowered to say no and stay in alignment with what you've planned.

Because the second you don't say no, you go off kilter with all the meals you have planned for the day.

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Honestly, this is what's going to happen. You go out to lunch with your friends, and you're like, oh, shit, what were my macros? Where am I at now? You have no idea, and then you throw away the rest of the day. I say that so confidently because this was another thing I struggled with when I was beginning to track macronutrients. I would easily cave to everybody around me who wanted to go grab lunch or dinner. Then I had no idea, because I didn't get to plan, look at menus or put it into MyFitnessPal.

I had no idea what that meal consisted of in terms of protein, fats and carbs, and at that point it was a wash. I just let everything else fall apart, and I let myself indulge in other things for the rest of the day. Then the next day came, and it's all narratives in your brain of self-sabotage. You suck. Why did you do that? Why didn't you follow the plan? Now you're off track. Now your progress isn't going to happen as quickly as you want. I can feel you guys going,

damn, this is me. This is me. This is me. Especially if you're at the beginning of your journey, you're probably struggling with these things. And let me tell you the biggest thing you could possibly do.

Hey, real quick. If you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand how that methodology can help you achieve your body composition goals and change 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. The link is in the description. Click on it after listening to the show today.

Spend the time ahead of time putting all of your meals into the tracking app you're using, and follow through. Follow through on what you have. That is your game plan right there. Okay?

Then, here's what I would recommend, because this is another thing I struggled with: well, I want to try different meals, I want to have a different lunch. Look, guys, like I mentioned in last week's podcast, eating the same thing may sound boring, but it removes so much thought.

Like, what are you going to eat? So instead of changing up your meals or trying something new every single day, which you will get advanced at doing eventually, at the beginning of your journey I highly encourage that you eat the same things for a week or two weeks at a time. Just copy that entire day in MyFitnessPal into the next day, and eat the same thing for the next two weeks. You will get used to that food.

Your body will get used to that food, and that will eliminate all of the thoughts of what should I eat, what can I eat, blah, blah, blah. Then in two weeks, you'll be able to cycle out one or two meals and keep three of the other meals the same. You'll get to try a different lunch or a different dinner, and this is how you'll get better at tracking macronutrients. I promise you, while it is hard at the beginning and you will struggle and feel frustrated, you will get faster at riding the bike of tracking macronutrients.

Six months to a year from now, you'll look back at day one and realize how much faster you've gotten at tracking macronutrients. To this day, I'm eight years in, but I can tell you that within a year of tracking macronutrients, I was able to go through my day of eating, get to about three o'clock in the afternoon, and then track all of the foods I'd had so far.

Then I could see, okay, this is what I have left for the rest of the day. And now it only takes me probably two minutes to track my entire day of food. So I get it. These are all the things I struggled with at the beginning too. You're not alone. You've just got to put in the time, put in the work and put in the consistency of doing this over and over again. And make it easier rather than harder for yourself, right?

Don't try to change all of your meals every single day. Don't log as you go. Eat the same things for the first two weeks, and take the time ahead of time to log your meals for the day. Okay? Those are a few of the things I struggled with when it came to macronutrients.

Now for weight training. Other than the fact that I had no idea what I was doing, let me remind you: when I first decided I wanted to make a change and see a difference in my body,

I would walk into the gym and feel so scared and so overwhelmed by the number of people. The way my first gym was set up, you walked in to the front desk and then a wide-open floor plan. There was a little walkway getting you to the locker room. Off to the right-hand side were all of the machines. Toward the turn of the walkway, heading to the back, there were steps going up to the cardio equipment.

Behind the steps, the machines on the first floor segued into the weight room: the free weights, the dumbbells, the barbells, the plate-loaded machines. That was the most intimidating space in the world to me at the beginning of my journey. So when I first started and wanted to create this change, I walked into the gym,

walked the little pathway to the back, walked up the stairs and landed on the cardio equipment, because I was in my own little bubble. I was on my own piece of equipment and I could stay there for an hour. That lasted until I realized it was not going to get me the body I wanted, and that I needed to get into the weight room. I needed to muster up the courage to go pick up that weight and do exercises in front of 15 men.

Okay. I had to do it. That's the way you change your body composition: those weights. And I had to get past what you might call gym anxiety, feeling intimidated or feeling insecure. And mind you, I had no idea what I was doing. When I started working with a coach and got a workout plan, that plan was just an email with a list of exercises I had to do.

No videos attached. None of what the beautiful apps give you nowadays, and what we give our VIP clients and even our Blueprint members, who have their own app. No videos attached. Okay? So this is what I did to help myself, and maybe it can help you too, though there are videos now and everybody has videos to follow. But maybe the second thing will help you get over gym anxiety, intimidation and insecurity when you walk into the gym. Basically, what I did to feel a little more confident and a little more secure with myself is that I YouTubed every single exercise I was supposed to do.

I did that before every single workout. The night before, I would open the email, look at the exercises in the next day's workout and YouTube all of them, because I didn't know how to do some of them. And for others, I wanted to look at the form in a video and see how to do it the right way, so that I could go into the gym feeling like I knew what I was doing.

Okay. And if I didn't do it the night before, which is kind of the same thing as tracking macros, right? Plan the night before. If I didn't do it the night before, I would sit in my car or in the locker room right before the workout and YouTube or Google all of those videos before actually going into the weight room. That way I felt like I knew what I was doing. I had just seen the video.

I had just seen the form, and I was like, okay, I can go replicate that for myself in the gym. That was about 50% of feeling more secure in myself: just knowing what the exercises were and how to do them, so I didn't look like a complete loser. Those are the things I felt, and I'm sure you feel them too. It's just part of the insecurity of going into something you've never done before.

It's normal. Totally normal. Okay. The second thing that helped me every single time I went into the gym when I first started my journey, and no joke, I think I still have this item to this day: I wore a hat. I don't know, it was just my thing. It was the thing that helped me the most to block out all of the people around me. I couldn't see them.

It was a Nike hat and I wore it every single day. I couldn't see anybody. It was like my blinders. That's what helped me feel more secure and more confident, and it helped with gym anxiety. I've told this story many times throughout my journey, and I know it has helped other women as well. If you feel this way, or feel like everybody's looking at you, just put on a hat. Put it on and you're going to feel so good. And by the way, let me remind you of something.

I learned this later, working out in the weight room. Everybody in the gym, especially the dudes in the weight room, only cares about what they are doing. They do not care about what you are doing. They only care about how they look in the mirror, how their muscles are popping, or how their body looks. They do not care what you are doing. So if you need a little boost in your step, just stay in your own lane.

Put the hat on. Block everybody out and just do the damn thing, girl. Do the damn thing. Okay? Do all the things that will set you up to feel the most confident and secure in the gym. Know what workout you're going to do. Know which exercises are part of that workout. Know what those exercises consist of and their form. Don't just go in and wing it. Because if you go in and wing it...

This is something I 100% did before I had a coach. Take a step back from what I just said about having the email and YouTubing. The whole year before I had a coach, I would walk into the gym and maybe 50% of the time it was a Pinterest workout, and 50% of the time I just went in and winged it. That's when I felt the most insecure: going in there and winging it. No idea what exercises I was doing. No idea if I was even doing them right.

I wanted to repeat the same exercises over and over again because I felt confident doing that one exercise. That wasn't getting me anywhere. That wasn't helping me. So know what you're doing when you walk into the gym. Have your plan. Have the exercises. Now you have a lot of videos you can pull up right before you do an exercise. While that's good, I wouldn't encourage it, because it could take away from your rest time. But just know what you're doing in the gym.

And if you have anxiety and want to walk up to the cardio equipment like I used to, put on a hat. Because you have to do the damn thing. You have to do the uncomfortable thing. You have to walk into the weight room with the guys who are in there and pick up a weight. You've got to pick up a dumbbell. You've got to get under the barbell. That's what's going to physically change your body for the good and the way you want it to: to build muscle, to be toned, to lose body fat. It's you and that weight. It's you and that dumbbell and you and that barbell that's going to do it. So you have to get past everything you're feeling.

The way you can do that is with everything I just said, to help you feel a little more confident. Okay, you guys. Those were most of the things I struggled with as a beginner, with tracking macros, with weight training, and with overcoming the anxiety I know a lot of you feel when you walk into the weight room. Everybody's watching me. I don't know what I'm doing. Prime yourself. Set yourself up. The thing that was most similar between macros and weight training is to plan ahead. Plan ahead, and it will be an absolute game changer for how you put in the work ethic,

stay consistent and take action. All right, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this podcast, and I'll see you in the next one.

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