How to Track Macros Without Obsessing Over Every Number

Nikkiey: All right, so let's get on the topic of macros.

Paula: Yes, my favorite thing to talk about.

Nikkiey: What's up, you guys? Welcome back to the show. Today is another special day. We have another freaking awesome guest here with us. You guys, this chick is one badass woman. Blunt, straight to the point, says-it-how-it-is type of human. I met her a few years back and we just instantly clicked. She's doing some awesome stuff in the fitness space with her Take Control Coaching crew, and I am just so stoked to have her here today so that you guys can witness some no-bullshit type of coaching all within this podcast. So let's get to it. Paula, welcome to the show, girl.

Paula: Thank you so much for having me on, and for such kind words. I remember very vividly the day that we met and clicking with you immediately. That was, I think, your first trip out to HQ with Taylor. And man, it was probably one of the fastest I'd ever clicked with somebody before. You know when it's just such an easy conversation and you're like, wow, you're just like me.

Nikkiey: Exactly. It's like instant vibe.

Paula: 100%. It's such a good feeling.

Nikkiey: It really is.

Paula: Yeah, it is. It's hard sometimes to find like-minded people, especially in the fitness industry. I find it can be tough to navigate. But thank you so much for having me on.

Nikkiey: Yeah, girl, I love it. Let's get to it. I know that you've been through it. You've shared being 20 pounds underweight, you've shared being 30 pounds overweight, and the all-or-nothing mindset, to now finding a totally simplified approach, which has made you so much happier with your physique, your health and your mindset. I personally want to hear more of your journey, and I know the listeners want to hear that as well. So can you take us along your journey and share with us why fitness is just so important to you?

Paula: For sure. Absolutely. I would say I got into fitness seriously when I was 20. People are always surprised to hear this: I did not play a sport growing up. I played one season of soccer when I was in middle school and it was far too much running. I don't know why I didn't anticipate that; there's a lot of running in soccer. But I was like, well, we're done with this. So I don't really qualify that as having played a sport. But my parents are former military, so my dad always had a home gym and he always lifted. That was kind of what I saw growing up. It was just lifting weights. My mom always did the at-home VHS workouts, like Buns of Steel, The Firm. So that was my intro when I was 16, 17.

But when I got to college, I really wanted to start lifting weights, because I would look at the pictures of Nicole Wilkins and Erin Stern and Alicia Marie and all the OGs in Oxygen magazine and Muscle & Fitness Hers, and I'd tear them out and put them up in my dorm room. I finally started learning how to lift weights, had a guy friend of mine take me around the weight room, and that was what made me fall in love with it.

And what's so crazy is that prior to getting into fitness, I never struggled with my weight. In my teen years, I never had a hard time staying thin. I was just naturally always thin. And I remember thinking, I'm very grateful I don't have to worry about that, because I had to worry about my skin. But getting into fitness was actually what created such a poor pattern of eating for so long, because it made me obsessed with food. I started learning to lift at 20, and at 21 I hired my first personal trainer because I wanted to do a figure show.

And it turns out I didn't actually want to compete in bodybuilding. I wanted to look like I did. And that's a very important distinction. When people ask, should I do a show, it's like, well, do you want to compete, or do you just want to look like you compete? Because you're going to have a dramatically different mental outcome if you're only getting into this because you want to look a certain way. That was me. I didn't really care about the competition piece. I just wanted to look like that.

But as my intro into the knowledge of how to eat, I went from eating Nutri-Grain bars to following a contest prep diet. So I always associated that with healthy eating. I thought, oh, this is what I have to do to lose weight. I was so emotionally attached to this contest prep diet for years, because I didn't know any other way to lose weight. So I fell into this horrible cycle of restricting for weeks and months on end. Then when I would mentally break, I would binge, and then I would mentally spiral into depression. And then I would get my shit together and go back into restricting again.

That's how I ended up either 20 pounds underweight or 30 pounds overweight. I didn't always dramatically shift that much in my weight, but I definitely was constantly in a state of yo-yoing. I was either gaining weight or losing weight. It was one or the other. And that was my entire twenties.

I got certified as a strength coach through the Poliquin Strength Institute. If you're familiar with Charles Poliquin, he passed away a few years ago, but his strength institute was in Rhode Island. I got certified there after I graduated, because I have a degree in art. I studied art in school, but as I fell in love with lifting, I thought, well, I want to learn as much as possible, because if I can cram as much information into my brain, then maybe I'll get shredded. That was my whole knowledge base: I'll just learn as much as I can.

And what's so ironic is that I was gaining all this knowledge. I had certification after certification, course after course and seminar after seminar, and I still couldn't figure out how to lose weight. I couldn't figure out how to get lean. No one ever taught me macros. Seriously, that's the key word. I was eating all the right foods. They say eat a handful of nuts for a snack, eat avocado, eat whole eggs, cook everything in coconut oil. All of those are fats, and fats are twice as calorically dense as carbs. At the time I wasn't even paying attention to that.

So I went from this diet plan to falling into the paleo thing. And all the while, the diet plan didn't teach me how to eat, because it's just, eat these things. It's not, here, learn what is in this. It's, go follow this plan. And then I became emotionally attached to it. After that it was paleo, because it's, as long as you eat healthy foods, you don't need to worry about how much you eat. Which is a lie, because eating for health and eating for weight loss are two totally different things. They need to be blended.

But it took me probably until I was 28 years old to figure that out, when someone finally said, you just need to track your macros, and all I want you to do is focus on your calories and your protein and let your carbs and fats fluctuate. That blew my mind, because for the longest time I was so obsessive about those numbers. What's the right number of carbs? What's the right number of fats? Surely that matters. I have to make sure all the numbers are perfect. I believed there was this magical formula and I hadn't cracked the code yet. And lo and behold, when I started tracking my calories and protein, letting my carbs and fats fluctuate and eating healthy food 90% of the time, it became really easy.

Let me tell you, and I know you understand this completely and probably a lot of listeners do as well: when you go through the wringer of trying every diet under the sun, keto, carb cycling, diet plans, paleo, and you finally get to, oh, just calories and protein. Surely that's not it.

Nikkiey: Yeah.

Paula: Surely it's more complicated. And it's really not. So I would say when I was 28, 29 is when it finally clicked and everything came together, because of that one last missing piece: the macros.

Nikkiey: The macros. Love that. There's a lot to unpack there. First of all, now I totally understand your personality a little bit more, knowing your upbringing in a military family.

Paula: Everyone says that.

Nikkiey: Yes, makes sense. Both of them. We learned that today. And before we dive into macros, because I feel like that is a heavy conversation that I want you and I to have, and I want the listeners to listen in on, and I want as many people to gain as much insight on macros as possible. But there was another thing that you said in there that I feel like a lot of women, and I, resonated so hard with. When a lot of women go into this type of journey, they always say, I want to look like a competitor. Maybe some of them want to compete. But can you share what you think the difference is between those two avenues, going to compete, because I know you competed, or just going to look like a competitor?

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Paula: Yeah. Social media creates this huge misconception of what a competitor at stage lean actually looks like. You know just as well as I do that when somebody is stage lean, they're tan, they're stage lean, they're dry. For anybody listening, that means they are essentially dehydrated so that they can look as lean as humanly possible. Their skin is as thin as they can get it. They're actually in quite an unhealthy state when they are on stage. They have been severely under-eating for a long period of time, and all kinds of things come with it. And for the record, I love the sport of bodybuilding. I respect it so much, and I think all of these things make sense in the confines of competition.

But when you see those photos on social media, it's easy to be like, ooh, I want to look like that. And when you see that person in real life on competition day, it's a completely different look than what it is in a photo. And I would say 99%, if not 100%, of the competitors I know, and I know competitors who've competed in the Olympia, and Candace, my business partner, is an IFBB pro, they all say they don't love how they look when they are stage lean. It's necessary for competition.

So that's the first thing: there's this misconception of what looking like a competitor actually means. I don't compete. My goal is to look like I compete without competing. That's what I always say about my physique. I just want to stay at a healthy level of lean. That's just my preference. And people at the gym, I train at Gold's, will ask, oh, when's your next show? And I'm like, I don't compete. I'm very flattered by that, but I don't. If I were to get tanned up right now and get on stage, I would look fat compared to everybody else up there, because I'm probably 10% body fat higher than what is stage lean.

So people need to understand that what you think that looks like isn't what it actually looks like, and what it requires to get there is not what most people want to do. It's necessary for competition, but a contest prep diet is not a lifestyle. They're two totally different paths. And what happens a lot is competitors get really lean, they see some success, they win some shows and they want to start coaching, which is totally fine. But if the only way they know how to coach people is the same manner they got stage-ready, and now they're teaching that to Sally and Susie who have no interest in competing and just want to look good, they can't follow that lifestyle. It's so far from what they're used to doing.

And I think that's what happened to me. Of course, I did tell my coach at the time I wanted to compete, and that's why she gave me that plan. But I went from no structure to my eating and no knowledge whatsoever to contest prep, which is quite a large leap. And when that happens to people, it creates a pretty bad relationship with food.

Nikkiey: 100%. Nutri-Grain bars to contest prep, I felt that. That's the same thing for me. I went from barely eating anything, sugar every single day because I love candy, to cold turkey, literally the next day, chicken, broccoli, rice, tilapia.

Paula: Tilapia is such a garbage fish too. And we ate so much of it.

Nikkiey: I know. So I love that you pointed that out. One thing that does resonate with people who want that type of body composition, like people who go up on stage and compete, and you're so good at sharing this on your social media right now, and I'm going to link everything beneath this in the description for you guys to go follow Paula, is the habits, right? The mentality. Going to a stage competition, the last few weeks, is a drastically different thing. But if you want to look that way, can you share some of the habits you take your crew through? What are some of the things they have to start embedding, getting the mental discipline down, all that jazz?

Paula: From a daily task standpoint: tracking the food, hitting your calories, hitting your protein. It's really the same structure of what you have to do to get to a lifestyle level of body fat and leanness, where people can just enjoy themselves and go on vacation, as contest prep. They're the same things. Contest prep just takes it to the extreme in all those avenues. That's really the primary difference. And again, that's where it gets confusing: they do this and they look like that, why don't I look like that? Well, you don't need to go to the extreme. And when people go to the extreme of their own volition, not with the help of a coach, not for contest prep, that's when issues arise.

But I am very habit-focused, because one of the biggest things I want to get through to women especially is that there are plenty of benefits to a healthy lifestyle independent of looking good. I would really love to make it a thing where people pursue this lifestyle because they want to feel better, because they want more energy, because they want to be proud of themselves for the work they're putting in, so they can see the beauty of their body getting stronger. I think building muscle is a beautiful thing, and it's seeing yourself accomplish those things that brings satisfaction. It's not looking a certain way.

And I'll say this, it might sound cocky and I don't mean for it to, but I have been able to see my abs for the last several years, and that gets old very quickly. You're excited the very first time you can finally see a six-pack, when you've been trying for over a decade, and you're like, oh my God, I did it, I'm there. The novelty of that wears off pretty quickly. And what you realize actually makes you happy is just living your life that way. It's a cool thing, because it doesn't take very long on that path for someone to start to feel the joy of living a new lifestyle. Everyone thinks, I'll be happy when I look that way, I'll be happy when I get lean. And that's really not it. I know women have heard this over and over, and they need to keep hearing it: just go for a walk every day, eat the right amount of calories, eat the right foods.

Candace and I do this thing with people where we challenge them to go 100% whole foods for 10 days and see how they feel. Just see if you can do it for 10 days. We try to really break things down for people in a simple manner and show them all of the processed foods they're eating. I got this from Candace; this is what she does with her clients, and I thought, that's brilliant, I'm going to start doing that. She'll pull their food log and say, okay, we're going to add up all the calories that come from processed foods in your diet, one at a time, even if it's only mildly processed. Then we divide that by the total calories you've eaten today, so we can see what percentage of your food comes from processed foods. And for most people it's 50 to 60%, even when they're really trying to eat better.

Nikkiey: Wow.

Paula: Yeah. And I started doing this with all my clients too, and I tell them we need no more than 10% of your total calorie consumption coming from processed foods. Realistically, it's really tough for people to go 100%. You can go 90, though. You can get to that point.

The point being, it's simple, the things you have to do to get to that result. So you asked about the habits I teach. Tracking your calories. I know you believe in the same thing. People say, oh, macros don't work for me. Yes, they do. You don't work for you. If you're not following the diet, that's why it doesn't work. It's one of the laws of thermodynamics: energy in versus energy out. You have to measure how much you're eating. It's no different than your bank account. If you're saying, well, I can't save money, are you looking at the price of things you buy from Target and seeing how much you spend? No? Well, that's why you can't save money. It's no different with food. I always relate it back to finances; I feel like people understand that better.

So: track your calories, get your protein. I tell people your carbs and fats can fluctuate. 90% of your food should come from whole foods. Get in at least 30 minutes of intentional movement. And I tell people start with what you like. If you don't like lifting weights, okay. This is for the everyday person. If you want to go do barre, I'm cool with that. If you want to go to F45, fine. Because my biggest concern in the beginning, with someone who's not exercising at all, is that you choose something you like. I'm not going to make you follow a training program. It might be the most optimal training program, but if they don't like it, they're not going to do it. So at least 30 minutes of whatever you want to do that makes you look forward to doing it. Because again, let's stop looking at exercise just for aesthetics. You're going to feel better when you move your body. You're going to be happier. Your body releases the right hormones. I'm a firm believer in living the way humans are meant to live, and humans are meant to move our bodies. We're meant to be outside. We're meant to get exposure to the sun. So I tell people to do all those things.

Here's the deal. Track your calories, get your protein. That's from the diet standpoint, numerically, the first step. 90% whole foods: that's usually something we have to stair-step most people to, making one swap at a time. 30 minutes of intentional movement. I tell them, go for a walk. I want you to go for a walk every day. And from a time standpoint, people will say there's no time. Just start working it in, and you're going to find the time when you realize how much better you feel. And it's so great for fat loss too. It's such a great form of cardio for fat loss. And drinking water: I say at least 100 ounces of water. I drink a gallon. Those are the daily things I have people do.

Nikkiey: Yes, I love that. And everything you're teaching them to do is a vote towards their future self, which is that James Clear, Atomic Habits idea. I get so excited when you say that.

Paula: That is one of my favorite things to tell people. Every action you put forth is a vote for your future self. And trying to get people to remember that in the moment is the tough part, because they're never in the best mindset when they want to open the bottle of wine and drink half of it. They're not necessarily thinking, is this a vote for the type of person I want to be? Conscious awareness in the moment is the hard part. Let's be honest, none of us are thinking, am I voting for the fucking person I want to be? So for that, what I tell people, again from James Clear, is just make that habit hard to do. Any habit you want to break, just make it hard to do.

Nikkiey: Put the wine in the upper cabinet above the fridge, lock it and throw the key out the fucking window.

Paula: Yes, absolutely. Just make it hard to do. And honestly, sometimes all it takes is for you not to see it. That's the cue. You see it and you're like, ooh, I want that. Cue, craving, response, reward are the four steps of how habits are built. You have a cue, then the craving. I crave the wine. But it's not really the wine you crave. It's the relaxation, the perception of relaxation that comes from the wine. So I tell people to just throw a wrench in it. You can replace it with something, because it's the hand-to-mouth thing. That's why I'm drinking coffee right now, even when it's cold. It's just there. It's the compulsion.

Nikkiey: 100%. Here's a good example, and I'm going to cut you off there. I treated myself to Insomnia Cookies over the weekend, and that shit was sitting on my freaking counter for the last two days. Just the sheer seeing it, wanting it, the taste of it. Same thing. Anything that's not supporting you in your house, I took that box, wasn't even finished, threw it right in the trash. That's the best way to do it. Get rid of it.

Paula: For sure. Nikkiey, I'm so happy you said that, because people need to hear it too. It doesn't matter how long you've been living this lifestyle, we all experience the exact same thing. It's not like I have some kind of will of steel. Yes, I do have a stronger will than someone who is in the practice of saying yes to everything. I'm simply in greater practice of saying no to things when I know I shouldn't have them. It's a repetition thing. It's no different than Tom Brady running the same play over and over and over. He gets good at it. If you're in the practice of saying no under certain circumstances, like going to a restaurant and saying no to the alcohol, just practice doing it. The more you're in that environment saying no, the better you get at it. So you're in greater practice, but it doesn't mean you don't still feel the same urge when you see it.

Nikkiey: 100%. Love that. It's not like we don't want those foods. I still have it, and I know it's going to make me feel like shit. And those cookies, there are so many off brands of them now, like Crumbl. There are so many variations. And I'll tell you what, I will literally feel like I have a hangover the next day.

Paula: 100%.

Nikkiey: Dude, I woke up puffy. I was so swollen just from having a fucking cookie and a half.

Paula: Let me ask you a question. Did you happen to weigh yourself the next day to see if the scale jumped?

Nikkiey: I didn't, but I should have.

Paula: Because I do, just out of curiosity. One time we went to the Texas State Fair, where everything is fried. I don't care if it's savory or sweet, it's all fried. Over the course of the day, I know I didn't even exceed 2,000 calories, so I wasn't even at maintenance. But at the fair I had two gumbo balls, which are like hush puppies with gumbo inside. For people who don't know, hush puppies are little fried balls. They were literally the size of golf balls, so they weren't big. Collectively they were probably 400 calories, let's just say that. And I had a tiny ice cream bar. That's all I ate. I was six pounds heavier the next day.

Nikkiey: Yo, I love that we're getting on this topic right now. You didn't gain six pounds of fat, because 3,500 calories equals one pound of fat. That clearly wasn't six pounds of fat. I can't do quick math, but that would be at least, what, over 10,000 calories? Where's my phone?

Paula: Man, we are the same person. I always have the same conversation with clients too. I tell them, listen, for you to gain one pound of fat, you'd have to hit your maintenance calories plus 3,500. So for me at 140 pounds, let's call maintenance 2,100 calories. Plus 3,500 calories, that would be about 6,000 calories I'd have to eat just to gain a pound of fat.

Nikkiey: So that ain't happening, my friends. You didn't gain six pounds of fat. So what is it? When people step on the scale and see it go up, they think it's fat. Let's explain all of the other factors that are coming into play when you step on that freaking scale.

Paula: All of them. We literally just did a live on this in my Facebook group last week about body weight fluctuations. We do it every single challenge for this reason. It's water. It's almost always water.

It could be intracellular water inside the muscle. Here's one factor. If you've been eating in a caloric deficit, you've been in a deficit from fuel sources, which are your carbs and fats. I tell people, when you're in a deficit, your fuel tank isn't at 100%, which would be maintenance. You're always at 75%. So we're just filling up the fuel tank to 75%. Well, if you have a day where you eat 100%, you just eat maintenance calories, the scale will be up the next day, because you've now got more of the carbohydrates that are stored inside the muscle cells, glycogen. The weight can go up from that alone. And when carbs are pulled into the cell, water comes with them as well. So that's a factor.

When you eat crappy food like I did, you experience intestinal inflammation and too much sodium, and your body pulls water into the cell. But it could also be subcutaneous bloat, which is what Nikkiey said, waking up puffy the next day. Subcutaneous means under the skin. Water is being held there as well, because you experience spillover, where there's not enough volume to hold the water inside the cell, so it spills over and you've got water under the skin. That's why you get puffy.

So it's crazy how much the scale can move because of that alone. People don't realize how dramatic it can be. They can be sticking to their diet perfectly, hitting their macros, and because of their hormonal cycle or one inflammatory food, they weigh themselves and they're up two pounds the next day. And they think, this shit doesn't work.

Nikkiey: Exactly. And how about the ones who weigh themselves in the morning and then weigh themselves at night?

Paula: Women always weigh ourselves in the morning. I will wake up naked, go to the bathroom, then weigh myself. If I forget to weigh myself and I take a shower and my hair is wet, forget about it. There's water in it.

Nikkiey: Exactly.

Paula: If I have my cup of coffee or my water and I'm like, oh shit, I didn't weigh myself today, I'm not weighing myself now. And then men all weigh themselves at night. They'll eat dinner, drink a pint of water and then step on the scale, because they're like, oh, look how heavy I am, look how full I am. It's all in the muscle.

Nikkiey: Yeah, exactly. It's so true. I love that we got on that topic, because women need to hear that about the scale. So many people rely on it so much.

Paula: Well, here's the thing. A lot of coaches, because of this, will say don't weigh yourself. And yes, there are some circumstances where I'll tell clients not to do it, just for a little bit until they start seeing progress. However, I will encourage them at some point to start weighing themselves every single day, for two reasons. Literally weigh yourself every day. The scale never lies, and hiding from it doesn't help us.

One, you will learn about these fluctuations, and you'll realize you can see a spike on the scale and it goes right back down. I have this perfect line graph from one of my clients from last Christmas. She diligently weighed herself every single day, and it creates a line graph of her weight over time from December 23rd to December 27th. There's this big spike in the middle, and it's Christmas. She literally goes up five pounds on December 26th, and then on the 28th, it comes right back down to exactly where it was before. I show all my clients that. I tell them, this is an inflammation spike. This is extra carbs. This is an inflammatory response from alcohol. That's super normal.

So weigh yourself every day to learn the fluctuations, but also to emotionally desensitize yourself. This is probably something I got from my military parents, but I'm a big believer in exposure therapy. The more you expose yourself to the things that activate or trigger you, the less activated you will be by them. And I tell them this will actually help you get better results, because the less emotionally derailed you are by the freaking scale, the easier it is to stick to the plan. It's a different experience to step on the scale and go, oh, it's three pounds up, all right, cool, I'm going to live my day as normal, versus, it's three pounds up, no, and then you order pizza because it's not even worth it.

Nikkiey: Dude, spot on. They're so emotionally attached to it. That's such a great way to deal with it. Like you said, desensitize yourself to that emotion and go on with your day. Cool, it's up, whatever. I'm used to it, it's going to fluctuate, that's normal.

Paula: Yeah. And actually, when I'm having consults with clients, I'll tell them, listen, I'm going to ask your goal weight, because knowing your current and your goal weight helps me set your macros appropriately. But I also want you to know that in reality, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have one goal weight, because you're always going to bounce back and forth between three to four pounds. If someone asks what I weigh, I'll say somewhere between 140 and 143, depending on the day. If Mike and I go out to dinner, 145. I bounce back and forth in that range. That's my maintenance. That's where I live. And I think that can bring a lot of peace of mind to women, to realize that if I fluctuate day by day while maintaining my weight, surely the same thing happens as I'm losing weight. It just bounces back and forth as it comes down.

Nikkiey: Spot on. And when people focus on stepping on the scale one day a week, they can weigh in on a day that they spiked and then freak out because they're not losing anything, yet the average of their entire week could be lower, could be a pound or two lower. I love that, because I'm the same way. At first, depending on the personality, I'll tell people when they can weigh in or when they need to weigh in. And the clients I still coach now, I'm like, do weigh every day, please, so I can see what's going on with your body, and so you can get used to knowing that this is a fluctuation. One of my clients went away to travel. She has a wedding coming up in a couple of weeks, and even after three years of coaching her, she was so nervous about not being ready after that travel. And I was like, dude, your body is so primed right now. She fluctuated up, and in a matter of four days after being home, went right back down to her average weight. So I love that we brought that up, because it's so important. It's a good tool, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

Paula: Yeah. And this is the biggest thing, and we keep saying women because I think it is mostly women, I only work with women as of now: we need to disassociate the scale from body fat, because the scale is not a representation of your body fat. It's a representation of your body weight. There are so many factors outside of body fat that dictate what that number says, but we're so trained and hardwired to think that if it changes, it must be fat. Usually it's not, because fat loss is gradual over time. That's in the background as you're in a deficit and that energy is being burned off as fuel, but the water weight can fluctuate.

I tell people, if you want to see less fluctuation day by day, get more consistent with your food choices, because it's literally like a science experiment. If your weight is variable X, we need to keep all the other variables as constant as possible. If that stresses you out, then stop eating different shit every single day. I'm a big believer in variety, but when you're making different recipes all the time and just choosing different things, I'm like, get consistent with your food choices and make them whole food choices. Then what you'll see is the body fat coming down. I really don't see super dramatic fluctuations day by day, because everything I do is the same. I'm sure it's probably the same for you too.

Nikkiey: 100%. But one thing you just said was the difference between fat loss and weight loss, which I think is huge, and it's one of my favorite topics. When people come in wanting to build muscle and change their body composition, which is a lot of the women in my audience, they really need to disassociate themselves from the number they're seeing on the scale. Some people could literally only lose three pounds, yet the inches are falling off. Their body composition is starting to change. And people have goal weights, right? When I first started, I was 140 pounds, but now, eight years later, I'm 150.

Paula: Uh-huh.

Nikkiey: So people need to understand that when they're losing weight, they're going to lose a little bit of everything. But when you're losing fat and you're eating your macros, as we'll get to, and you're focusing on your protein intake, which preserves that muscle, you're decreasing the body fat around it. So you may drop only a couple of pounds, but your body fat is going to drop, your measurements are going to drop, your body composition changes, and the mirror is going to look completely different.

Paula: For sure, especially as you get leaner. I would say about 50% of my clients are similar to yours. They're not trying to lose a ton of weight, they just want to change their body composition. So I have about half and half: half strictly weight loss, half body composition. And I always have this conversation with them: as you get leaner, it's even more important to take photos every single week, because you're going to see greater reflections in the photos and measurements than you will on the scale, especially the more petite they are. I have a couple of clients who are five foot tall, and I tell them, listen, the scale is not going to move dramatically for you. You don't have a ton of body fat to lose and you're short. So don't get frustrated if it's half a pound each week. That's totally okay. Let's take photos, because that's what's going to show the biggest difference for you. So I agree with that completely.

Nikkiey: Love that. All right, so let's get on the topic of macros.

Paula: Yes, my favorite thing to talk about.

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Nikkiey: So, why macros?

Paula: I think because I'm a big believer in data, and numbers don't lie. Yes, there are variables within the macros and food choice, and some people respond differently to different foods. But at the end of the day, you cannot manage what you don't measure. And when you're trying to, let's say, intuitively eat... I feel like social media has taken the concept of intuitive eating and turned it into something it's not, which is an allowance to eat whatever the fuck you want.

Nikkiey: I completely agree. There are women who come in and say, I want to learn how to eat intuitively. And I'm like, do you know what you're eating?

Paula: Exactly. Intuitive eating comes from years and years of tracking, when you know completely what's in the food you eat. Nikkiey, I'll bet you know off the top of your head what the macros are in two tablespoons of peanut butter.

Nikkiey: Hell yeah.

Paula: I bet you know a hundred grams of rice. I bet you know four ounces of chicken. You have all that shit memorized.

Nikkiey: I know my quick oats. How much is in a bowl. Literally always.

Paula: And when you start weighing things out and you're used to seeing a certain amount of food on your plate, it's easier for you to get the right amount when you're not weighing it.

Nikkiey: Dude, I love that you brought up the peanut butter, because I remember watching your story and thinking, oh my God, this is spot on. People will just take a spoonful of peanut butter and eat it. But what two tablespoons really look like in actuality, the measurement you're supposed to have for one serving...

Paula: It's depressing how small two tablespoons actually is, and how much is in two tablespoons. But here's the deal. I tell all my clients, I know all the shit you do, because I do the same shit and I have done all of it. Every time you tell me it's your period again when your check-in is due, I'm like, oh, it's your period again? I'm not a guy. I know when that happens. Are you still on it? Same thing with the peanut butter. You'll weigh out your two tablespoons, and then before you put the jar back, you've got to clean the outer edge of it, and then you've got to have one tiny little bite that doesn't matter. That shit adds up. All those little extra bites add up.

Nikkiey: Yeah. Just put the spoon underneath the water and wash it off. Don't lick it dry.

Paula: For sure, absolutely. You can get a whole extra tablespoon out of that. That's eight additional grams of fat, which doesn't seem like a big deal. But when you're going back into the jar multiple times per day... eight times nine is 72. Am I doing quick math like that? Look at me. I'm not that great at times tables when the numbers get too high, but that's almost an extra hundred calories right there.

Nikkiey: Yes, exactly.

Paula: And people will say, oh, it's only a hundred calories. But man, the line between being in a healthy deficit and maintenance is finer than people think.

Nikkiey: 100%.

Paula: Yes. That's where clients get super... it's so funny, we just did a Zoom on this last night. Ways you might be self-sabotaging and how to know when the calories actually do need to go down. We have five questions for clients to ask themselves. One, are you actually logging everything you eat? Condiments, drinks, everything. Are you logging all of it? Are you weighing it out? Because if you're just eyeballing your portions, you don't really get the luxury of eyeballing portions on every food, especially high-fat foods, until you've hit your goal and you're maintaining, and until you've been doing this long enough to accurately eyeball a measurement. If I tell my clients, just have a handful of nuts as a snack, well, that could be the difference between a hundred calories of nuts and 500 calories of nuts.

Nikkiey: Pretty big discrepancy.

Paula: How depressing is it to think that you can be following your diet to a T, and it could be the cashews that are preventing you from losing fat, because you have one too many cashews each day? It doesn't take a lot of cashews.

Nikkiey: 100%. I love that you're speaking to that, because it could literally just be that hundred-calorie difference that you may be licking off, or extra bites, or taking stuff from your kids' plates and finishing it off instead of just throwing it away. That shit adds up. The BLTs: bites, licks and tastes.

Paula: Bites, licks and tastes. That's hilarious. I've never heard that, but it's true. And what's really stressful as a coach is when you know that's the case and it's what's preventing them from hitting their goal, but they think the answer is to drop their calories to 1,200. And it's like, no, no, no. Just keep them where they're at and be accurate with everything. That's all I need you to do. You really shouldn't feel like you're dieting when you're in a healthy deficit. I tell them you're going to be a little hungry when your metabolism starts to pick up, but you shouldn't be starving. And they're like, this is actually really easy. And I'm like, yeah.

Nikkiey: I love that you just said that. Yes, you will be a little hungry, but you shouldn't feel like you're going to gnaw your hand off. When I started, I'd get excited: ooh, my metabolism is picking up, I'm starting to get a little hungry. I love that feeling.

Paula: Same. Like, the shit's working.

Nikkiey: Same. So, okay, macros. What can macros do for somebody? Even though we just talked about that a little bit. People say macros is a diet. It's not a diet. It's something that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Paula: I say it will set you free. That's what I always tell people: macros will literally set you free. Yes, 90% of your food choices should come from whole foods. And honestly, lately Candace and I have been saying, let's stop calling it whole foods. Let's call it food and fake food. Because we have this habit of calling it food and whole foods, and it's like, no, it's just food and fake food. So 90% of your calories should be coming from food, and only 10% from the bullshit, the processed, quick stuff like Pretzel Thins.

However, when you have a day where you want to go out to dinner with your spouse and you have that meal coming up, you can manipulate those numbers a little to your advantage. What I'll do is reserve most of my carbs and fats for dinner. Personally, I don't actually log that meal. I will if I'm seriously in a cut or in a challenge. Right now we're in a 30-day challenge and my partner and I are both doing it with our challengers, so I'm logging every single thing. But on an ordinary basis, if it's a casual cut or I'm maintaining, I don't really measure that meal. I think most people should, if they're learning to track, if you're actively in a deficit right now and trying to cut.

But you'll get to a point, similar to myself and I'm sure Nikkiey, where if you make the right choices and prepare yourself during the day, you can do this. I'll have mostly protein leading into that meal. I'll have carbs before and after my workout. I prefer training fasted, but I'll have some fruit on the way to the gym, and on a day like this I'll have my normal breakfast of oats and eggs after I train. My next two meals might be just chicken and vegetables, or beef and vegetables, or yogurt and some carrots or something. And then I reserve most of my carbs and fats for dinner.

So once you've been tracking consistently enough and eating consistently enough for a period of time to have a baseline set, and you're used to that lifestyle, you can do some manipulation, which sets you free to fit in things you wouldn't have all the time. You're like, you know what, tonight instead of potatoes at dinner, I kind of want Cheez-Its as my carbs. So I'll track my Cheez-Its instead, but I'll still have chicken and a salad kit, and then a little bowl of Cheez-Its or some popcorn or something. What's the saying? Have your cake and eat it too.

But this is one of those things I often hesitate to tell people on social media or out of the gate, because you give people an inch and they'll take a mile. I never want someone to think, well, I can just eat Twinkies every single day and track it, because Paula said I can. No. You still need to eat healthy, quality food the majority of the time, but you can still work in things that you like.

Nikkiey: Yeah, dude. 80%, 90% quality food. I have dark chocolate every night, two to four pieces, whatever fits in my macros, even when I'm in a cut. It just curbs my sweet tooth and my cravings, and I'm solid.

Paula: I have a question for you, actually. Do you have periods of time where you track and periods where you don't?

Nikkiey: 100%. Are you in my brain? Because I was going to ask you that question. For real, because I know a lot of people wonder that, and I had the same question for you. And yes, I do. For the last six to eight weeks I've been tracking, because I have travel coming up and my birthday is tomorrow.

Paula: Happy birthday.

Nikkiey: Thanks. So I want to feel good leading into it, all that jazz. So I put myself into a deficit and I track down to the T. I have to, because when you're in a cut, if I go a little bit over or don't measure something, it could put me back at my maintenance calories, where I don't want to be. So I really pay attention when I'm in a cut. But the majority of my time throughout the year now is living in maintenance, where I'm a little bit more lenient with it.

Paula: I'm the exact same. If I'm in a period where I want to put on a little bit of muscle or I want to cut, that's when I track. I tell people, when I'm actively pursuing a goal, a progression with my own fitness, that's when I track. If I'm just living life, I'm not tracking. However, the way we eat doesn't change.

Nikkiey: Exactly.

Paula: The foods I eat don't change, whether I'm losing weight, gaining weight or maintaining weight. It never changes. I always eat the same things.

Nikkiey: Exactly. Not tracking doesn't mean I'm going to go get Five Guys every freaking day and have ice cream for lunch every day.

Paula: I used to do that. I used to live like that. Back in my 20s, that's why I struggled so heavily. I was all or nothing. I was either dieting and following this meal plan, and this was before I knew anything about macros, before I knew I could actually fit those foods into my plan. I just believed I could never eat any of those things ever.

I had probably six or seven coaches throughout a 12-year period. Part of it was that I wanted to learn from different people. I want to learn what this person knows. I'd choose a coach based on that. I've had a powerlifting coach, I've had a CrossFit coach. I've done so many different styles of training and dieting, because I wanted to gain my own experience and see how they coached. I've had good coaches and bad coaches. I had a guy one time I texted, hey, can I put goat cheese on my salad? And he said, not if you want to get lean. So it just perpetuated the belief that I can't have goat cheese if I want to get lean. Damn, how am I supposed to live life? And I remember being depressed, thinking I can't eat anything.

My roommate at the time, who's one of my best friends, called it the Paula five food groups. This was about 10 years ago: egg whites, whole eggs, chicken, broccoli, sweet potatoes. That's all I ate. And I thought, this is what I have to eat. So I was either doing that diligently, which psychologically I could only stick to for 10 to 12 weeks, and then I'd mentally break and binge.

Nikkiey, I haven't talked about this a ton on social media, and it's not something I'm embarrassed to talk about by any means, but I used to binge and purge. There was a couple-year timeframe where I got into the purging thing, and that was paired with depression and a few other things I had going on that my therapist and I have worked through. I don't mind sharing this, because I feel people need to hear authorities in this space bring it up, so they know it's okay. If you're struggling with that, don't hide it. Go talk to a therapist. I assure you, you are not the worst they've ever heard. So don't be afraid to do that. I'm a huge believer in therapy, and it helped me overcome all those things.

But I can relate to that belief that if I ever eat these foods, it's going to keep me fat and I'm never going to be able to get lean. It's a perfect storm when you pair restricting yourself with calories and food choice for a very long period of time, only eating five foods or only 1,200 calories, like that contest prep diet. And then when you break, you have this primal urge to consume as many carbs and fats as possible. I remember reading this in Atomic Habits: the human brain hasn't changed in the last 50,000 years. 50,000 years ago, people were struggling to survive, and they didn't have an abundance of carbs and fats every day like we do now. Whenever you had that in front of you, you wanted to eat as much as you could. You had to. That's why the body adapted to store carbs in the muscle and fat on our body, to take us through periods of not having food. Survival. We don't have that anymore. We have food in abundance, but we still have that primal urge.

So if you've been restricting yourself for a long time and you break mentally, which you will at some point, you're going to binge. That happens to every person. Now throw in the factor that there are food scientists whose literal jobs are to figure out the best combination of sweet and salty, the best combination of crunchy and gooey, all the best combinations of the most palatable foods, to make it as addictive as humanly possible. So pair the primal urge to eat as much as you can in one sitting with foods designed to be addictive and food in abundance every day, and it's so hard for people to change their lifestyle.

Nikkiey: Damn.

Paula: Nothing about modern society is conducive to being healthy. It is conducive to laziness. Everything's delivered to us. Everything allows us to stay inside our homes. You can have every meal delivered, you can have groceries delivered, and I do take advantage of grocery delivery, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to demonize these services and say I don't use them. However, it does make it very easy to have a very chaotic life.

I would say 60% of my clients work from home, and they struggle way more than the people who go to an office, because people working from home spend all their time in their house. If you don't mind me talking about this briefly, because I think it's so important...

Nikkiey: No, I love it.

Paula: Think about how unnatural it is for humans to be in isolation indoors all the time with your spouse. Think back, not even 50,000 years, give it a few hundred years. We were living communally, in small villages and small towns. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Women all spent time with the women during the day, and then at night you spent time with your husband. The men went out and hunted, they went out and took care of things. Now you've got both spouses working from home. You are inside all day long, you never get exposure to the sun, so your circadian rhythm is off. You have shitty sleeping habits, you throw alcohol into the mix every single day, you have everything delivered to you, and you have no social life, because the social life for most adults comes from their work environment. If you're working from home, yes, you see people on Zoom calls, but that doesn't take the place of being social. So then your social life becomes eating and drinking out with your friends, which again is unhealthy. And the food is more addictive every time you go out to eat. Even if you go to a healthier restaurant and get a protein-based entree, it's for sure cooked in oil, and it's not going to be the healthiest. And you're spending all this extra money on it. Everything in modern society and our existence is conducive to being overweight, being unhealthy and being depressed.

Nikkiey: What's the percentage going to be in years to come? Obesity is just going to get worse.

Paula: It's terrifying, isn't it?

Nikkiey: I actually appreciate the communication. You're laying it out in a very easily understood manner.

Paula: Thanks, I appreciate that. I think people just need to understand. I truly believe that what I teach people to do is to live normally, because I don't limit my discussions with clients to just nutrition and training. We talk about everything. To circle back real quick: when you work from home, there's no structure. We've always had structure imposed on us since childhood. They say children need structure, right? You've heard that. Kids need structure. Well, that doesn't magically disappear. Adults need structure too, for our mental health. Our hormone production is on a clock. Everything needs structure.

So you work from home, you can start your day when you want, as long as you get your work done. You can live your day the way you want according to your plan. But no one's taught how to manage themselves. We don't have a class in college on how to manage the structure of your day. You have your parents, then your teachers, then your professors, then your boss at your internship, then your boss at your job, and then COVID hits and you work from home. What the fuck do you do now? You sleep in until you have to answer emails or until your first Zoom call. And you look like shit while you're doing it, because no one's going to see you. You keep your camera off, you don't dress well, and you sit on the couch. And guess what happens when you wear loose clothes every single day? You don't notice when you gain weight. I realized that back in my twenties when I was personal training. I was wearing leggings every single day, and I didn't notice I was gaining weight until I put jeans on and they wouldn't fit. And I was like, oh no, I'm gaining weight. I didn't realize it.

Nikkiey: And to that point, you don't realize the weight gain, but also with anxiety and depression, people are stuck in a house not seeing the sun. Huberman talks about this stuff, getting sunlight. Gary Brecka with 10X Health talks about this stuff, and it's just so true. You don't see light, so your circadian rhythm is messed up. And at the same time, with anxiety and depression, you wonder why, with everything everyone's been through, it's just getting worse.

Paula: Yeah. Everyone has ADHD at this point. I've always had depression on and off since I was a teenager. I have a family history of mental illness, so I kind of already knew I had that gene. It never really bothered me. I view it no differently than having an issue with my liver. I wanted to figure out a holistic way to help myself with my brain, and I live life in as healthy a manner as I can, and I still had this anxiety and depression. So, I want to say six months ago, I started taking Lexapro. I don't know if you're familiar with what it does. It's an SSRI. It helps your body have a level production of serotonin, so it corrects some of those issues, and it's been a godsend for me. But I feel like because of our lifestyle, because of our screens, because of being inside, because of social media, everyone's developing some form of depression and ADHD.

Nikkiey: Yeah. I think this would be a cool thing to switch over to, because I see you up in the morning at like 4:30. Share what your morning routine looks like, because I'm sure you've got one that's optimal for you, which is important. I love that we're talking about overall health. It's not just about body composition. It's more about the lifestyle, about living a healthy, long future. Longevity.

Paula: Absolutely, it is. That's really the evolution of my coaching philosophy. Yes, I help people with body composition. I've got plenty of clients, serious training clients, but I still have this discussion with them as well. What does your morning routine look like? Do you wake up at the same time every day? You don't have to wake up at four o'clock in the morning if you don't want to. But the reason I do is because I don't like waking up and starting my day with calls. I love my clients. I love having these calls. I do Zoom calls multiple times throughout the day and I look forward to them, but I want four hours to myself in the morning to be me.

I don't do a perfect morning routine every single day, but I have non-negotiables, like training in the morning. If I have a perfect morning routine, I will train, I'll read my 10 pages, I will pray and meditate. To me, those are kind of one and the same. I'll talk to God, I'll do my meditation, and I'll get ready for the day. Then I'll typically go to the office. I'm working from home today because I wanted a quiet environment for our podcast. But I go to the office because I know that having the transition from home to work is very important for my mental health. And then I'll come home again when the work day is done. I'm a big believer in the format of my day and the structure, and anytime that structure is thrown off, that's when other things can go into disarray as well.

So I have what I refer to as cornerstone habits. I explain to people that the cornerstone of an archway is the stone that holds it together. It's the one on the top. I got this concept not from Atomic Habits but from the one he references in that book, called The Power of Habit. I forget the name of the author, but it's the yellow book.

Nikkiey: Charles Duhigg, right?

Paula: Charles Duhigg. I almost said that. It was literally in my mind, but I thought, that's not it. He talked about cornerstone habits. It's the one thing that impacts everything else and creates this cascade effect. And I have learned that if I do not train in the morning, my day is not going to go the way I want. It'll be a fine day, surely, but it's not going to be exactly what I want it to be, if that makes sense. I just won't feel right. I've tried training in the afternoon. I've tried training at night. If I have to, I will, but I hate training in the evening.

Nikkiey: After noon, the likelihood goes downhill for sure. That's your signature.

Paula: Yeah. I would rather train on an empty stomach first thing in the morning and listen to my music. I have these rituals, and I can get a little woo-woo with this, but I condition myself to do things when I want to do them, if that makes sense. I have little rituals where, if I perform the ritual, the action will occur. In the morning, I make my coffee, I put my collagen in, I listen to this one playlist I listen to over and over that triggers me to get in the mood to train, and I go to the gym. Same thing every day.

Nikkiey: Nice. Love that. And that just sets you up prime for the rest of your day. We're coming up on time. We could keep going.

Paula: I know, we totally could keep going.

Nikkiey: I love all the things we discussed, and we're probably going to do a part two in months to come. I would love to bring you back on.

Paula: Yeah.

Nikkiey: I have some more questions I would love to ask. But for the sake of time, I think all of these conversations were really good, and I appreciate you being here on the show.

Paula: Hey, thanks for having me on.

Nikkiey: All great topics. I know the audience is really going to appreciate it. If you guys want to go follow Paula, you can check out all of our handles below, and we'll definitely bring you back on the show. That was a lot of fun.

Paula: Thanks. This was so much fun. I appreciate it.

Nikkiey: So thank you for being here, Paula. I appreciate you so much. Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. The only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.