your guide to your first week of tracking

Emily Field (00:00:00) – Welcome to episode 23 of the Macros Made Easy podcast, and today we are taking things back to basics. It seems like the episodes that people keep going back to are the very basic ones. It seems like no one’s really sharing exactly how to get started with tracking, like literally the first couple of steps. So that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today. I’ll break it all down and categorize it by talking through some of the things that you should do before you start your first week, and then what your first week of tracking might look like. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietitian that specializes in a macros approach. In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals. We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits.

Emily Field (00:00:53) – I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition. So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too. So if you’re the type of person that hasn’t been able to string together a couple of days of tracking and you find yourself starting over a lot, I’m confident that this episode is for you, and I feel like you’re gonna gain some traction after hearing some of these steps. Okay, but before we get into anything, I have to mention at the top, you have to ditch your preconceived notion that this is just another diet plan, just another diet program, something that you have to follow starting on Monday. Macro tracking is a skill that you learn over time with practice. So let’s normalize getting better at something. The longer that you do it, normalize not being perfect at it right away. That is going to make everything go smoother. It’s going to help you have a little bit more grace for yourself.

Emily Field (00:01:48) – It’s actually going to keep you in the game a lot longer. All right. So prior to your very first week of tracking, there’s a couple things that have to come together. All right. So let’s review those first few things that you need to have ready before your first week of tracking. And the first is that you need to set your goals. You need to have actual macro targets before starting your first week of macro tracking. You’re going to want to take the time to define your health and fitness goals. Are you aiming to gain muscle, lose fat, support your active lifestyle, or maybe achieve something else entirely? Clearly, outlining your objectives will influence your calorie goals in your macro targets, guiding you towards the right nutritional balance for your unique needs. Which brings me to my next point. We’ve got to calculate your macros. You’ve got to have some macro targets in mind before you start that first week of tracking. So you’re going to calculate your personalized macro targets using a reliable method such as my DIY Macros guide or another online calculator.

Emily Field (00:02:45) – Alternatively, you could consider consulting with a dietitian to determine your ideal macro targets tailored to your goals, but also taking into account factors like your age, your weight, your height, your activity level, your food preferences, and more. Setting macros in grams, rather than percentages of total daily calories provides a lot clearer guidelines for your daily intake. It’s best if your macros are set in grams instead of percentages, but it’s totally fine if that’s all that’s available to you, you can absolutely get far with those percentages. Next, I’ll say that it’s probably a good idea prior to starting your first week of tracking macros to understand which foods provide which macro, at least at a very basic level, this will make meal planning a lot easier. And as your skill in tracking grows, it’ll become even more easy to make macro manipulable meals because you’ll have a better understanding of which foods contain which macronutrient. So which foods do you need to dial up or down in order to get you closer to your macro targets? We have an entire episode about the PFC found in different foods, so that might be an episode that you go listen to after this.

Emily Field (00:03:51) – If this is where you really need some help. But in general, carbohydrates are going to be found in your grains and grain based products. Fruits and vegetables. Proteins are going to be found in meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, beans and then fats are going to be found in oils, nuts, avocados, coconut products, etc.. You’ll have to just understand that balancing all these macronutrients ensures optimal nutrition and overall health. We’re never going to want to limit one macro over another, because there are going to be consequences to doing that. Again, we talk about this in many different episodes throughout the podcast, but my general stance as a dietitian is that you need all three macronutrients in a balanced way to provide a lot of variety and a lot of like, wholesome nutrition for your body. Okay, so the last thing you need prior to tracking, prior to this first week of tracking is to choose your tracking method. Popular methods for tracking include using apps, tracking manually in a journal, or maybe using a spreadsheet on the computer.

Emily Field (00:04:56) – I absolutely love using technology here. I don’t know of anyone that’s really doing it manually or in a spreadsheet, but I know that people have before. I like to use Chronometer, but Macros First is another great app and my last, you know, recommendation would be MyFitnessPal. I would probably recommend them in that order too. Okay, so first being Chronometer, second being Macros First and third being MyFitnessPal or something else. Ultimately the method that works for you, the best method for you, is the one that you actually enjoy and the one that you can be consistent with. One where you like the interface. You can navigate the app pretty easily. It doesn’t feel clunky to you. It feels intuitive. I almost forgot to mention that, you know, maybe an optional step for your, you know, prior to tracking macros at the very first week is to obtain a food scale. Using a food scale would be the best, most accurate and precise way of tracking macros because it allows you to measure your food portions by weight, ensuring consistency and reliability in your tracking efforts.

Emily Field (00:05:59) – Now, there are a lot of people who start tracking macros without a food scale, so I didn’t want to make this a required step. But if you feel like this is something that’s really going to work for you, and you can see yourself really enjoying the data side of things, I highly recommend that you get a digital food scale. A food scale is going to enhance your portion awareness, help you understand and control serving sizes more effectively. With a food scale, you can easily adapt and adjust portion sizes to meet your specific macro targets, ultimately supporting you in the long run for, you know, progress and obtaining results. Using a food scale while tracking macros is probably what sets it apart and allows us to see some of those results as rapidly and as efficiently and effectively as we do. You know, when you have that control over the portion size to the ounce, it can mean the difference between hundreds of calories across a week, which could mean the difference between gaining, maintaining or losing weight.

Emily Field (00:06:53) – So when we talk about eating up to your macro goals, making sure that you have enough fuel to support muscle gain, a food scale is going to help you do that. Or if we’re trying to eat as much food as possible while seeing fat loss and supporting your metabolism, supporting your hormones, a food scale is going to help you do that. It’s going to really take out that guesswork of the portion sizes. You can be wildly inaccurate if you are using things like measuring cups, measuring spoons, or simply eyeballing it. Okay, so now we are ready to track our first week. Okay, you’re in your very first week of tracking macros. I’m going to walk you through six steps that I would say are probably just the rubber hits the road. How do I actually start tracking macros? And it may sound really simple. It may sound like duh. But the very first thing I’ll say is you’re just going to start logging your food in the moment without changing anything about your typical eating pattern. I want you to track your meals, your snacks, your beverages, as well as those like little bites, licks, taste pieces, anything that comes in contact with your mouth.

Emily Field (00:07:55) – I want you to resist the urge of changing your typical eats, because at this stage, it’s just about establishing a logging routine and learning a little bit about your normal eating habits. Okay, so be diligent about recording portion sizes and details of each meal and snack. You’re going to use food labels, online databases, maybe nutrition guides online to determine the macronutrient composition of the foods you consume. And this is going to be highly inaccurate. It’s going to be highly imperfect in the beginning, but I want you to do it anyway. This is a skill. Like I said, macro tracking is a skill that you develop over time, and you really need those reps right now. It’s best to be tracking in the moment, especially as a beginner tracker, but I do think that it’s worthwhile to log what you can ahead of time. This is just going to help you be a little bit more mindful of your eating pattern, and it’ll also help you cut some corners with time. Okay, so maybe you typically eat the same things for breakfast.

Emily Field (00:08:52) – Maybe you always have a midday snack or a pre-workout snack. If you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll have some protein powder or collagen powder somewhere in the day. You can probably add these to your diary ahead of time. And what I like to do is do this over coffee in the morning. I’ll just take 5 or 10 minutes in the morning to visualize my day. Even if it’s just skeletons of my eating pattern. Just portions of my day. Okay, I’m gonna copy and paste from days before. I’m going to log what I know I’m going to have just things that I know that are probably likely that I’ll have during the day. And as you get better and better at tracking, this pre-planning and pre logging step will be just become the dominant theme. They’ll probably be a lot less in the moment tracking as you become a more expert tracker. And that’s good. That means that you are a more mindful eater. That means you’re putting some forethought into your day. That’s probably going to lead to better results overall.

Emily Field (00:09:49) – I mentioned that this is pretty common for me to do over coffee in the morning, but it’s also something you can do in the evening, maybe before you go to bed. I have clients that will be watching TV in the evening, or just kind of winding down, and they’ll just take that 5 or 10 minutes, tie it to a habit or something that you’re already doing. And this is called habit stacking. We’re building a habit of pre logging. And you can stack that on to something that you’re already doing in the evening. That pre logging that pre-planning is just going to, like I said, make you more mindful. You probably have a much calmer mind in the evening or in the morning before your day starts. So you can reduce the decision fatigue that comes with tracking macros in the moment or tracking macros in your app in the moment while you’re eating. Okay, so we’ve got a couple of days in your diary. Now it’s time to evaluate and adjust some things. Okay, so you’re going to look at your days of data in your food diary.

Emily Field (00:10:42) – Maybe let’s say you have 2 or 3 days and you’re going to look at the breakdown of your protein, fat and carbohydrates in your meal. And you’re going to ask yourself some questions. Do my meals have some protein, some fat and some carb? Are my meals disproportionately higher in 1 or 2 macros compared to the others? Do I average about the same amount of protein, fat, and carbohydrate day to day, or is there really no pattern to how I eat each of these? This would also be the time to look at where or which foods do I get most of my protein from? Where do I get most of my fat? From? Where do I get most of my carbohydrates from? This is your evaluate and adjust step. Okay, we always want to treat macro tracking like data, right? You it is. It is data about your eating pattern. And we can learn a lot by looking back. So ignore where your total calories are falling and start to gather some information about how you typically eat.

Emily Field (00:11:37) – This step is all about informing the next steps to come in the process, knowing how to manipulate your meals, how to get more or less protein, fat, and carbs. You know, things like that. How to get closer to your macro targets as we get going. Okay, so now that we are kind of cruising into 3 or 4 days of tracking, I want you to really start focusing on one macro at a time based on the information you gathered in that step I just talked about prior. I want you to pick that one macronutrient that seems like it’s farthest away from your macro prescription goal, farthest away from your target. So again, you’re going to ignore calories and both of the other macronutrients for a day or two and focus on making changes to your typical meals and snacks to get you closer to that daily total for that one macro. Again, don’t worry about perfection at this step. Getting within like even 10 to 15g of your macro target right now is really sufficient at this learning stage. And for most people, the first focus is going to be protein, because unless they’re really conscious about getting it at every single meal, they’re probably drastically underreporting what’s needed to see health, body composition, athletic performance changes.

Emily Field (00:12:47) – So the focus of this step is just to master that one macronutrient, build some confidence around tracking macros before moving on to mastering those other macronutrients. And it’s okay that we’ve kind of like, you know, it’s your first week of tracking. We’re kind of getting in a groove of tracking in the moment, maybe a little bit of pre logging or assessing where we’re at at the end of the day. And now we’re going to go in with a little bit more intention on one macro. During your first week, it’s likely that you’re not going to be in control of every single meal that you eat. So my next tip or my next step here in this first week, is just to do your best with the meals that are out of your control. You have a lunch and learn at work, maybe an unexpected invite to the neighbors, or a last minute swing to grab some food to go. You know, it’s just not realistic to expect that your meals are going to be all perfectly balanced and planned by you, especially in this very first week of tracking.

Emily Field (00:13:41) – I want you to just track to the best of your abilities anyway, because this is where the real learning happens. Don’t skip tracking just because you know that you won’t be accurate or on target here each time you track. You’ve heard me say this before. Each time you track is a learning opportunity. It is helping you educate yourself a little bit more about the nutrition content of your food. When I think back about my first few weeks or months of tracking macros, and there were meals that I was not so confident in tracking because I didn’t make it myself, I treated it like a learning opportunity, and I leaned into that curiosity. Okay, I might say something like, all right. So I ate a whole portion from this restaurant, and that was a super big calorie and macro bomb. Maybe now, in the future, I know that I have to go for half that portion, or I might need to save more macros to accommodate that portion. Or maybe I just need to be okay with going over my macros on occasion.

Emily Field (00:14:35) – And another example, maybe I could consider swapping for a lower fat side dish that would serve me better next time. You know, whatever I logged. Maybe it was tots or fries or onion rings or something like that. It’s just not going to work for my macro targets. It’s not going to work for my goals. So I know for next time that I’m probably going to have to swap out for a lower fat side dish, something a little bit more veggie heavy, a little less deep fried, if we will. Another example here, maybe you just want to say in order to eat this meal and stay within my macro targets for whatever data I’ve gathered, from going out to eat and attempting to track this meal, I just might have to hold back on some fats and carbs for my breakfast or my lunch in order to allow for that meal to fit. Okay, there are going to be times where it is really worth it to you to have something that is pretty high calorie and pretty high macro, and there’s nothing wrong with meals like that.

Emily Field (00:15:28) – But in order to stay on target with your goals and to kind of progress you forward with tracking macros accurately and diligently, you might need to hold back in different meals to accommodate that bigger, more macro rich meal. Okay, to summarize, we’re saying do the best with the meals that are out of your control. Okay? This is a skill that will come in time. You’ll learn where to look up nutrition information for different restaurants, maybe how to find something similar on different menus that do have a standardized nutrition database you could log in place of what you’re eating. There’s a lot of tricks to logging foods that are out of your control, but the best thing to do in this step is to simply break down what you’re eating. Instead of finding a meal descriptor that’s kind of like, I don’t know, spaghetti and meatballs or burger with cheese or chicken tacos or steak fajitas, something like that. That sounds like a complete meal. What I’d rather you do is break down what you’re eating and find the individual ingredients and log those in the best guess portion sizes of what you’re consuming.

Emily Field (00:16:37) – Okay, so for that burger, you’ll find a, you know, eight ounce ground beef patty and you’ll find two ounces of American cheese, and you’ll find a burger bun, something like that. Or the fajitas, maybe you will track, you know, a tablespoon of oil that they probably cooked in and four ounces of skirt steak. And, you know, any avocado or sour cream or cheese or whatever else you added on that, maybe some six inch corn tortillas or flour tortillas that you can log your breaking down the meal that you see in front of you and to individual components. Because this is what’s going to teach you which macros are found in which food. If you’re just simply logging the completed meal, you have no idea where those macros are coming from, and it’s probably going to be wildly inaccurate because you have no idea what the portion is that you’re logging. You have no idea what the intention behind that tracked food was when that person put it in the diary or in the database. It’s so much better if you’re just kind of breaking down that full meal from an education standpoint and from an accuracy standpoint as well.

Emily Field (00:17:44) – Okay. So the final step in your first week of tracking is to grocery shop with macros in mind. And you might be wondering what the step is doing at the end of my list. It might have been better at the beginning of my list, but that’s because I think you need to fumble through your first week before being able to inform a great grocery shopping trip. And I have some tips on how to grocery shop with macros in mind, because I have been doing this for years and I’ve been helping clients do this for years as well. After you have been fumbling through your first week of tracking, you’re going to start to know pretty well where there are holes in your macro tracking experience, right? You’re going to know. Yeah, I definitely was falling short on XYZ macro. I don’t have enough food in my fridge. I probably can’t really make a meal from my pantry items. I could probably use some help with some freezer items. And now you’re going to inform a great grocery shopping trip because you have more insight to your typical habits.

Emily Field (00:18:43) – So I’d say the best and first place to start is to make a grocery list organized by section of the grocery store. So instead of like marking down what you need in a random order, I love to visualize your walk through the store listing items by major sections so your produce, the bakery, your pantry items, maybe dairy butcher, your frozen items, things like that. And then I would review that list and see that there are some protein, some fat, and some carbohydrate heavy items in. Several of the grocery sections on your list. So you’re going to grab carbohydrate dominant fruits and vegetables in the produce section, maybe the frozen section and the pantry section. Maybe you’ll find protein, dominant meat, fish, poultry, eggs in the dairy the butcher and the frozen sections. Nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut products, cheese are probably spread throughout, but I want you to take a once over glance at your list and make sure you’ve got a mix of PDF and see coming from multiple sections of the store for meal variety.

Emily Field (00:19:45) – And also, this is just going to help you in that macro manipulable stage where you’re looking at your meal and you’re like, what can I add to round out some protein, fat and carb here? Something that doesn’t make this into a Franken meal, but it rounds off the top and I don’t have to scramble at the end of the day. Another tip here would be to look at your list and identify fresh, frozen and shelf stable proteins, fats and carbs so you don’t want to rely on meat, fish, and poultry exclusively to meet your protein goals. Just like you wouldn’t want to rely solely on cooking oils to meet your fat goals or rice and sweet potatoes for your carbohydrate goals, it’s best to have variety and choice. So when you’re looking at where these foods are coming from in the section of the grocery store, kind of start to see, can you establish that some of these are frozen, some of these are fresh and some of these are pantry stable. Again, this is just going to help with meal planning and rounding out your meals in the moment when you need it.

Emily Field (00:20:41) – One of the biggest changes that you’ll be making as somebody who tracks macros, is to probably move away from meals that are already prepackaged and not able to be manipulated. Certainly there is room for frozen meals or family sized platters or snack foods, things like that, but the majority of your food will be coming from ingredients not already made into a meal. Okay, so this is where that term macro manipulable meals comes from. These are meals that you can dial up and down the fancy content based on your needs and preferences in the moment. This is what sets you apart from a very beginner tracker and someone who’s like an expert level. Okay, and the journey between that beginner and expert can be slow or fast, but I think the quicker that you’re able to recognize that we are making meals that are macro manipulable, they can be dialed up and down in the moment, and you become more creative with a variety that you have on hand in your house. The faster that’s going to be that faster that transition is going to be.

Emily Field (00:21:46) – So again, like prepackaged items like frozen meals, family sized platters, snack foods, meal replacements, foods that are packaged with like sauces, cream cheese. It doesn’t really allow for freedom to add and subtract and see. Instead, you are going to purchase ingredients to build your own meals that are balanced in the way that you want, according to your macro targets on a specific day. So there you have it. That is what I would consider the six essential steps to starting to track macros. Like the very first week that rubber hits the road. What do I do in my very first week? I have no idea where to start. And of course we have a lot of resources to help you along the way, so feel free to go back into the archives of this podcast and see some of the very first episodes that we published around tracking macros, how to get started, where foods are found. There’s a lot of really good juicy stuff. If you really like this method or this medium of learning, there’s a lot of really good juicy stuff there for you to really set yourself up for success in tracking.

Emily Field (00:22:52) – So in conclusion, to summarize everything we’ve kind of talked about here today before you’re even at your very first week, you’re going to clearly define your health and fitness goals because that will guide your calorie and macro targets. You’ll calculate your macros accurately with tools like online calculators or consulting with a dietitian for personal guidance. You’re going to start to dabble in where do you macros come from? Which foods contain which macro? Because that will inform some choices when your meal planning to make sure that you have a balanced diet, you’re going to choose a tracking method or tracking app that fits with your lifestyle and your preferences allows for consistent monitoring. You might integrate a food scale into your routine so that you can enhance the accuracy of your portion control and overall macro tracking. Then, as you move into your first week of tracking, you’re just going to focus on logging your food intake without making drastic changes to your eating habits. You’re going to use this data to evaluate and adjust your macro distribution throughout the day. You know, finding and learning about yourself.

Emily Field (00:23:56) – You’re leading with curiosity. You’re learning about yourself here so that you can make different choices in the days that follow. Finally, you’re going to approach grocery shopping with macros in mind, aiming for a variety of protein, fat, and carbohydrate sources to support flexible and balanced meal planning according to your macro targets, you will embrace this. I can’t stress this enough. You will embrace this as a learning process. And remember that macro tracking is a skill that improves with practice and patience over time. So thank you so much for tuning into the podcast, and good luck with your very first weeks of tracking macros. You’ve got this. Thank you so much for listening to the Macros Made Easy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the one you’re listening to right now to share it on your Instagram Stories, and tag me at Emily Field so that more people can find this podcast and learn how to use a macros approach in a stress free way. If you love the podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and a review.

Emily Field (00:24:51) – Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at emilyfieldrd.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.