confusion to clarity: brittany’s client story

Emily Field (00:00:03) – 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. 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. 

Today we have a special podcast episode where I’ll be talking with my client, Brittany. We’ll be talking about her journey through coaching and what she learned, and what kind of lessons she’s taken with her since she’s graduated. So let me give you a little bit of background on Brittany. Brittany said she felt lost about how to eat to support her body goals because her activity had changed so much in the last several years.

Emily Field (00:01:04) – She loved to run, but she knew that strength training was also important. She’d been trying to track her macros and aim for about 1800 calories a day because she wanted to be leaner, but something did not feel right because she was pretty much always hungry. And on the days that she was more active, when she ran more, she was prone to binge in the evening. That was leaving her feeling defeated and super down on herself. So Brittany selected me to guide her, to find clarity in what and how much she should be eating in order to get stronger, leaner and fitter. She did not want to continue down this path where she was stressing about her food, hungry on most days and struggling with overeating and then restricting to make up for it. We first established her maintenance calories and macros so she could experience how good it felt to eat enough, and she would know what that looked like because she didn’t have any idea up until this point. Like so many women, she knew how to eat for dieting, but had no clue about how to eat to support herself, let alone to get stronger or fitter.

Emily Field (00:02:04) – We also retooled her exercise routine to include more of a heavier emphasis on strength training, but we also kept up her routine of running on the weekends because that was really important to her mental health, her fitness goals and her social life. We figured out what balance looked like for her and defined what it meant to be consistent with her habits, because while her body goals are important, they’ll never take precedence over her role as a partner or a working professional. And as a result, Brittany is confidently eating enough to be stronger, fitter and leaner. Not only does she know how, but she’s made it easy to do so because of the routine and environment she’s established. She’s lost over 20 pounds and over 16in while working with me. Most of the time she was eating more than she was when we started working together, and not only is she able to maintain these results, she’s not hungry and no longer worries about binging. She’s established a very healthy relationship with food because she’s tuned out the noise and diet misinformation and has gained clarity on what really works for her body.

Emily Field (00:03:06) – All right. Brittany, thank you so much for being here. I’m really excited to have a chat with you. Can you tell the audience a little bit about who you are and how you came to me? I’m most curious about that. In your own words.

Brittany (00:03:17) – Yeah. I don’t remember how long ago it was that I found you, but it’s been a while. It was before I followed you on Instagram, I believe I came across, I think it was before you just had macros made easy. And I was getting all of these social media alerts on macros and what it can do for your body composition. And so I was doing some googling and think that’s how I originally came across your site, and from there just started absorbing your content. So yeah. Guess about me. Millennial aged female, married, no kids have a little fur baby. Actually, I haven’t always been active, but for most of my adult life, active. Like I spent a lot of time being outside, moving and finding new adventures.

Emily Field (00:04:06) – Yeah, that’s how I feel. Like I know a client is going to be a great person to work with is, you know, they have a journey, they have a story. So a lot of times I think clients will come to the table saying, well, I once was active and I should be able to get myself to be active again. I know I can do this, but I think one thing that stood out to me when you submitted your first health assessment and we started to work together, as you said, my activity has changed quite a bit. I’ve done this, I haven’t done that, I’ve changed this, I’ve changed that. And so you’re kind of feeling like, at least in this point in your life, which is very, very common millennial age person, that we have tried a bunch of different things. And for some reason, what worked before is not working now or it’s not appropriate anymore. Right? Because our life is just different. Our situation is just different.

Brittany (00:04:52) – Or it’s not fun anymore. Like you weren’t. You thought maybe you were doing it for the right reasons. And it was fun at the time. And that was kind of like my relationship with running. I found running in my early 20s, and I loved it initially, and we were just dropping off. And so while I did find it joyful, it was also like the thing I went to when I wasn’t feeling good about myself. Yeah, eventually it became transactional and kind of a punishment, you know, how am I going to get lean if I’m not running 40 miles a week, which wasn’t working anyway in more recent years?

Emily Field (00:05:29) – So not only do we not have the time for that anymore, it doesn’t feel enjoyable. And whether or not you realize it, you created kind of a barrier with that exercise. It’s no longer a celebration of what your body can do. It’s punishment or what you’ve been eating, or punishment for the body that you’re in. And that’s not going to make anyone excited to go out.

Brittany (00:05:49) – Not at all. And eventually, like my relationship was running had progressed to, my husband and I moved from the Midwest out to the West, and we got into a lot of trail running, which kind of like awakened this love of activity again. But then it quickly got back into like a more transactional thing where I even remember looking at a race photo and was like it had been around a mountain for 20 miles. And my first thought was like, oh, look at my thighs. It wasn’t like, so tough. What an amazing day. What an amazing thing my body can do. It was.

Emily Field (00:06:24) – Right. That’s such a common experience. I was actually just talking to a client who was reflecting on. She set a goal to complete a marathon in under four hours, which is a huge accomplishment and be a certain body weight. She accomplished one. She accomplished the marathon, but she didn’t accomplish the weight goal, so therefore she negated the whole celebration around the marathon. And that sounds similar to you.

Emily Field (00:06:48) – It’s like we’re hyper fixating on the thing that we see in the photo, not the huge accomplishment, the athleticism and the training and the hard work and all that that you had. So was that a trigger for you to be like, I think I need some help in this area or what was that like for you?

Brittany (00:07:03) – I think my realization that I had fixated on how my body looked in a photo during that time came after when I started to work on body image, and just remembering back to that moment and how I felt and thinking like that’s a little warped. At the same time, you’re like what you mentioned about your client and the marathon and then also hitting a certain weight. One of the things that you talked about in coaching that I really latched on to was, you can’t do all of the things all of the time. There’s something very funny about how we set priorities, like a priority means the most important thing. So by making it plural, not everything’s important. It can’t be that way.

Brittany (00:07:47) – You can’t have a priority of example, chasing a very difficult physical task and being at your lowest body weight.

Emily Field (00:07:55) – That’s so powerful that you learned that, you know, and actually makes me even rethink my own use of the word priorities. I feel like there should be a big old. X on the S and just call it the priority right now in my nutrition and fitness. Is this so, so powerful? So the audience knows that we work together for eight months. Where in a journey do you think that that light bulb went off or was that like prior to us working together, that you realize you need to focus on one or the other?

Brittany (00:08:28) – It was after we started working together. I did that hair mineral analysis before we started, and that was a big wake up call for me because actually, like two weeks before that, I had started having some physical symptoms where I thought, oh gosh, I’m stressed, maybe I’m stressed. And I went to ask my husband like, hey, have you noticed that I’ve been stressed out lately? Before I could even get it out, I just started crying and I was like, oh boy, I’m stressed.

Brittany (00:09:02) – And then I did the mineral hair mineral analysis with you before we officially started. And of course, that came back as I was very depleted in certain things that pointed to chronic stress. And that was all kind of a wake up call. It’s like you are doing too much. You are taking on too much. You are setting too many priorities. And so that was kind of like the first part of it. But as we worked through the modules, I think it probably really started to hit a month or two months. And because then you’re like really processing things, I believe stress management was towards the beginning of our coaching cycle, and that’s when it all kind of started coming together. For me, it was like, you need to back off some things. You need to figure out what you’re really trying to focus on, you know?

Emily Field (00:09:58) – And when we start coaching, we do an initial health assessment where, you know, there’s enough questions there where I get a pretty good read on a person’s lifestyle and where they’re putting their energy.

Emily Field (00:10:09) – And you were already aware that you’re pretty stressed out. You got a lot on your plate, yet you still had a goal of losing fat, and you were seeing a bit of change in your body composition, but maybe not so much change on the scale. But you were starting to feel hungry. And when I remember from that time and reviewed some of your initial documents here in preparation for this call, you had said specifically you are prone to binge in the evening if you were highly active that day. So I want to paint this picture of like you recognizing that you’re stressed in your professional life or your life in general. And also you added a stressor of dieting because sometimes, and this is like my clients, it’s very much in this sphere. They use food and exercise to control the chaos that might be in their life. And it’s a very normal and typical way that we might do that. That’s not healthy. We want to break that link. We want to figure out how to process stress in a different way and not use food to cope in a negative way.

Emily Field (00:11:11) – But can you describe how you were treating food while you were stressed? Maybe before you got your initial custom macro calculation from me, how were you handling food? Were you actively trying to diet, or were you hitting macros like what were you doing at that time?

Brittany (00:11:26) – So I was following a dietician who was kind of promoting like intermittent fasting, and that was making sense to me. And that was kind of like, oh, this is going to be my easy fix. So I kind of started a cycle around intermittent fasting, which for me, I didn’t notice any of the clarity that increased energy, like it was not a good fit for me, but I still kind of pressed forward on having that stressor in my life too. Just thinking that it would help me easily get to my goal. And then I kind of phased out of that into what was a very typical cycle for me, which was you wake up and you start the day of like, I would weigh myself and I wouldn’t be super happy about it.

Brittany (00:12:09) – So it was like, okay, I’m going to be really like quote unquote good today. And I would start out, you know, not eating enough because I didn’t really know what was enough for me anyway. So I would restrict myself during the day. And I also wasn’t eating very balanced either. And so I would get to the night I had done 1 or 2 workouts, I would eat dinner, and then it’s like, I’m still hungry and you just kind of like gorge yourself because you have put very much thought into how you’re sustainably going to handle the day.

Emily Field (00:12:43) – Such a common scenario for sure, you are under-eating as a punishment for the weight that you saw on the scale. It really just set the tone for the whole day and not sticking with you as you make your very first food decision. And then the body is smart. It’s built for longevity and evolution in those cravings are going to come at you, whether that’s the evening or into the weekend or whatever it might be. So while you were likely in a little bit of a deficit, you are seeing a teeny bit of change.

Emily Field (00:13:13) – Before we started working together, I knew, and this is very common for anyone who works with me, we’re not going to start our time together with your primary goal of losing fat. So obviously Brittany has a lot of goals that we kind of hit on at the top of our coaching cycle, but one of them was that she wanted to change your body composition, you wanted to be stronger and she wanted to be leaner. She wanted to be fitter, but it would be really painful if you came to me and we dropped immediately into a deficit to chase that fat loss goal. And I want to, like, leave a big asterisk for people who might be listening and have had an experience with a coach where they walk in. There’s no setting of maintenance, there’s no trying to see how we do at a certain calorie amount. That might not automatically be a deficit. So the very first thing that we did together was raise your calories from where you had been trying to average. I don’t know that you had a lot of data there, but it was more we.

Emily Field (00:14:07) – You set your calories higher than what you had been averaging before, and over the course of several weeks, you actually saw fat loss and weight loss. Was that surprising to you, or did it make sense? You know, now that you’re eating? Had a pattern, had changed more protein? Maybe you’re better balanced meals? I’m not exactly sure. What was the mindset or what did you think about that experience when you started to eat more, quote unquote, and see fat loss and weight loss?

Brittany (00:14:32) – Yeah. So I knew that we were not going to go immediately into a deficit, because I’ve been following you long enough to know that that’s just not how we’re going to do it. So it was a surprise later. Like it made sense, you know, because previously had been shooting for 17 or 1800 calories, but because I wasn’t putting a lot of strategy or intention behind what I was doing, I would frequently way overeat at night and or on the weekends. So yes, I was shooting for like 17 or 18, but who knows what I was eating.

Brittany (00:15:07) – It was probably like averaging well above that. Like you said, I didn’t really have a lot of data going into it. But yeah, seeing when we started to, my official fat loss phase was 4 or 5 weeks and I believe I lost, you know, 5 to £7 in that 4 to 5 weeks. And it was a happy surprise while it was happening. But yeah, it did. When I stopped to think about it, it was like, well, that makes sense because I actually know what I’m putting in my body and I’m actually eating enough to I’m not shooting for this 1700 calories and doing a hit workout and running five miles.

Emily Field (00:15:44) – Yeah, that’s a really good point. Just to wrap up that point about you overeating might have been in the evening or might have been on the weekend. The net change the difference? There is likely no chain. This is very common where you see or people. I’m I’m trying to lose weight. I’m eating so little I’m actually eating 1200 calories. But when you really look at it, it’s being made up for in alcohol or your brunch or your dinner, your late night eating, things like that that doesn’t get recorded or doesn’t get recorded in your brain.

Emily Field (00:16:13) – And so the net change across the whole week or across the whole month is next to nothing. Which can be extremely frustrating because in your mind, your main priorities weight loss or fat loss. So you’re entering into every food decision with that mindset. But it’s not producing results because it’s not what you’re saying. Like intentional. You’re not building meals with any sort of balance, things like that. So yes, I’m happy that that happened for you. That was your quick win that got you kind of hooked and bought in, I’m sure. But another thing that you said is that you’re alluding to the fact that we change the structure of your active time throughout the week. I think when we first started together, you knew the importance of strength training, but you had a love for running. And this is a really common, I wouldn’t say complaint. That’s not really the word I’m working for, but people are worried to give up the things that they love, like running, even though they know it’s not really working for them.

Emily Field (00:17:05) – So I would love to hear from you around your experience with me, challenging you to increase the time spent strength training, but maybe put on the back burner of that cardio and knowing there might be another time where you can reemphasize the writing because you love it. I don’t think I ever told you that you had to stop it forever. So can you tell me a little bit more about that.

Brittany (00:17:24) – Even really recall you telling me to stop it, but just, you know, think about it differently. And honestly, I have to say it was kind of a relief because when I started, I was burnt out on running. I had been training for too long. I had been training for races for years without a break, which is like another thing entirely. And I think I wanted permission to stop. But during the past few years, while also training for races, I had tried different strength training, slash hit programs and like jumped into them at too much high intensity and then I would end up pulling something or it wasn’t enjoyable.

Brittany (00:18:03) – And so I would just immediately back out of it. And so I kind of felt like, I don’t know what I’m doing with strength training anymore. So I forced to run, but I don’t really want to run anymore because I know that I need a break, but I also don’t want to gain weight. So it was kind of a relief to have the support and the guidance to know that I can step back from this, because I have in my past loved strength training, but I have taken such a break, I didn’t know how to get back to it. The strength training program that was provided in Italian. I did the at home dumbbell version. It was very easy to understand. It was very accessible. The time fit into my schedule in a very sustainable way, and so to be able to ease back into it while learning about progressive overload and taking the time to know how you’re going to get changes from it, and then also incorporating just more walking, it was. Very enjoyable, but it also helps with my stress levels, like just increasing my movement throughout the day and going for walks around the neighborhood to get, you know, however many steps instead of, oh, I’m going to wake up early to sit in a run that I really don’t want to do.

Brittany (00:19:23) – So it was a nice change, and I think it’s good to change up your priorities, change up your experiences throughout life. Anyway, I know there are probably some people out there that have to get their run or their like activity in a certain like it’s just who they identify as and they feel that they need it. But I’ve actually enjoyed kind of cycling these different physical activities.

Emily Field (00:19:46) – That’s great. And there’s something to be said about experimenting for experiment sake. And you probably, ah, knew that you could leave it after our time ended. So let’s say you truly didn’t enjoy it. I’m sure you had enough of a rapport with me that you could have told me that. And beyond that, I wasn’t going to force you to do anything that you didn’t want to do. So I love that attitude. I agree that there’s just different chapters to your life and, you know, might as well try some different things on. And you are a different person now than you were five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago.

Emily Field (00:20:19) – So what your experience of exercise or even your experience with eating could be completely different because you’re different. So one thing that I heard you say was walking strength training and maybe the occasional running. That balance actually helped your stress a lot more than forcing yourself to run in the morning. And I think that is a really powerful statement, because we like to think that our exercise is our stress relief, that that’s what people say. They say, I must go on the run because I’m stressed, or that’s their only way of letting out their stress. And maybe that’s true. Maybe in the puffing and the focus on their breath and the sweating and the heart rate, that is inherently a stress relief for them. But to your body, it might be a stressor, especially if you’re not eating enough, not sleeping enough. And also, you said you didn’t quite enjoy it. You feel like you’re doing it because you have to. There’s no way that that can be a stress relief. So yes, I mean, in coaching we have a very big nod to non exercise activity.

Emily Field (00:21:17) – And that as one of the main priorities that I have for people and their active time. And part of that might be to burn calories throughout the day. But part of it is to simply go outside and be in nature, because that’s going to do more for you and your mental health than the actual exercise piece. So it sounds like that was your experience, am I correct?

Brittany (00:21:34) – Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I’ve started running more again. And I you know, as I mentioned earlier, taking a break from it and kind of shifting priorities around a little bit over the last year. I enjoy it more now. Now it is a relaxing, enjoyable experience again, but I also walk a lot more now, and it is a break in the middle of the workday or even on the weekend just to go and be outside and go for a walk.

Emily Field (00:22:00) – I’m sure your pup loves it too.

Brittany (00:22:03) – You know she does.

Emily Field (00:22:04) – Yeah, no, Kona does too. So? So I mean, the audience knows a little bit about your story with coaching, but I’ll just refresh your memory that you lost about a total of 20 pounds while we were working together.

Emily Field (00:22:17) – Most of that weight was lost during a focused and finite fat loss phase. So Brittany referred to this. You know, we don’t start out in a fat loss phase. We want to see how the body does eating enough because as you said, you have no experience with what enough is. There’s not really much for education around that and experience with that usually. So we started your calories at a certain spot. Then we decided to intentionally lower them into a fat loss phase that was sustainable. So that means that that deficit wasn’t super large. It was pretty manageable. But I’ll hear from you on that. And I can’t remember how long that phase was. Can you remember?

Brittany (00:22:54) – I believe it was about 16 weeks.

Emily Field (00:22:57) – 16 weeks, okay. Four months. And then we gradually brought your calories back up to what your new maintenance would be. So that’s kind of what we did. And at the end of our time together, at the end of our eight months, you know, Brittany had lost a total of 16in.

Emily Field (00:23:11) – So that is an amazing feat because she’s strength training and eating enough protein and enough calories to lose weight. But we can almost guarantee that that weight was lost from fat because of your intentional eating, because you were eating enough protein and because you were strength training, which is amazing. You might not be able to say that, you know, people can lose that much weight, definitely. But we can’t necessarily say it’s from body fat if they’re not really looking at protein and not strength training. A lot of times that can come from your heart or a muscle, or it might be water weight and a mix of muscle and a little bit of fat. So here in our coaching program, I’ve obviously want you to be better off when you leave than when you started. And that means that you mean your body composition is in a much healthier place by losing 20 pounds of fat or mostly fat during that time because you prioritize those other two habits? So I would love to know what your experience was really going through that fat loss.

Emily Field (00:24:06) – Is and seeing the weight come off, you are in a deficit. The lowest your calories were were 1730, so not super low at all. That’s obviously going to vary by person because their height, their starting weight, their activity level, things like that. But Brittany had a pretty healthy metabolism and you were able to see that much change by not really going that low in a deficit. So I’d love to hear about your experience in that fat loss phase, maybe even compared to other attempts that you’ve made. Just so we can color in some details.

Brittany (00:24:38) – It was effortless. It does feel like I’m trying to like, fight that word, because I know that you use that when you talk about like, what would it look like to lose fat effortlessly? And it’s like, come on, it’s always going to be some work. And yes, it is some work, but I never felt I shouldn’t say never. I didn’t as often as other attempts feel like this annoyance and this crankiness and this, you know, there certainly were days where I had too much chocolate or I, you know, didn’t adhere to my carbs on this particular day.

Brittany (00:25:11) – But for the most part, it was very sustainable. So, yeah, it was it was slow. I think we did. We took it very slow. I think the first decrease in calories was 150 or 200 calories. I could be wrong on that. And I felt like there was enough support and enough knowledge to be intentional with how was eating throughout the day, and it was not perfect by any means. I still struggle with macro checkpoints, not necessarily the knowledge around it, just the actual like doing it. You know, I might save more carbs and fat for dinner and be a little bit skimpier on it during lunch, but just having the knowledge on how to build balanced meals, how to create more volume, it felt very easy and very sustainable. I was going to add that I did do macros made easy a year prior, so it wasn’t completely fresh information for me. So I did have that background. That absolutely helps with the fat loss phase and making it easier. And and then I think the other thing too is having the information on how to build the meals around what you like.

Brittany (00:26:26) – Because I had tried macro plans in the past, it just generates a you can actually do it on ChatGPT. Now to just say, I know.

Emily Field (00:26:35) – I do that a lot. I do just something.

Brittany (00:26:38) – Curiosity like what is it? If I’m bored with what I’m eating and I can’t think of new ideas, I’ll be like, build me a meal plan around these macros. And it’s usually pretty boring. But those have always been so hard to follow because they’re giving you like, these random recipes that are the same every day and you don’t really know. They might not even necessarily be foods that you like. So like having the information to attempt a deficit, but also enough information to like build meals that you’re enjoying and making them more volume based was really helpful. So I actually enjoyed the period of time I felt really comfortable around when we first started the program and I was eating at maintenance, I actually felt like, wow, this is a lot of food. I was in trouble for the first little bit like eating that much, which sounds weird because I was definitely eating more than that sometimes.

Brittany (00:27:31) – But then like even during the different phases, just because I was focusing on like having enough protein and having enough carbs, having enough fat, it did feel like a lot of food. Now that I’ve been at maintenance again for a while, it just feels normal. It doesn’t feel like too much food anymore.

Emily Field (00:27:48) – It’s so interesting that our perspective changes so much to get that feedback. A lot people here need this much. There’s absolutely no way I can eat this much. And then after you’ve been in a deficit for a while, you’re like, I would really love to go back to those maintenance macros again.

Brittany (00:28:02) – But it was also, you know, doing enough activity but not like too much activity. And also eating like still a relatively decent amount. I was at the end of the fat loss phase. I was ready to get out of it. But towards the middle you’re seeing the progress and you’re seeing this proof of I can lose fat and I can do it in a way that’s not torturous, and I can do it in a way where I’m not like binging at night and on the weekend.

Brittany (00:28:34) – And I’m also seeing, like, this great progress and oh, wow, I’m, I’m getting stronger. I’m lifting heavier weights. It’s all very satisfying. And so there was a point where I was like, let’s just be in this fat loss phase forever, which is why I did coaching. I did a second cycle because I didn’t necessarily trust myself yet that I would reverse out. I could have easily seen myself staying there and then kind of going too far with it. And. Ringing out because wasn’t reversing out of it because I was just trying to live in. And that’s kind of been my past with dieting. And I know that I’m a person who needs accountability. So it’s something that I could have seen myself doing as just taking a little bit too far. So it was helpful to have the extra time to have the accountability, to do the opposite and reverse out and not be scared, like, oh, I’m going to eat an extra 100 calories for two weeks, and that’s going to make me gain 20 pounds.

Brittany (00:29:39) – No, that’s not that’s not going to work that way.

Emily Field (00:29:43) – I would say that if I could change, I can change anything. It’s my program. But four months is a very good amount of time to at least dip your toes into a fat loss phase and think the people I will say to Brittany is one of the reasons why she’s successful and why. Why you’re successful is because you are very good critical thinker and you come to the table having already ruminated on your actions for the week. So every single check in there was like, here’s what I learned about myself. Here’s where I’m still challenged. Great in that sense. But also, it seems like you were able to look at your patterns from your previous diets and say to yourself, yeah, I think I would appreciate some support in reversing and into maintenance. And I would say that probably most people, they know how to diet, and maybe they didn’t do it this way before, but you knew that there was like, maybe this it felt a little attractive to maybe continue to go longer than you needed to in a fat space.

Emily Field (00:30:40) – So I want to know a little bit about that reverse process. You tease this a little bit with, you know, adding calories back over the course of 4 to 6 weeks. A big fear for a lot of people is I’m just going to blown up. I’m going to gain all this weight back. I simply do not understand why would ever want to eat more. So what helped you get past that and really embrace that process? Coming back into maintenance?

Brittany (00:31:05) – I think it was just like proof through what had already happened. It was like, okay, so we’ve gone through these modules. Everything’s very science based. Everything’s very like, this is why your body works this way. And it all makes sense, right? Like these are facts. This is how it is. And we followed them and it all works. So I had no reason to believe that it wouldn’t work. But three decades of social media and diet culture and being surrounded by all of the, you know, negative comments about food and body image that we hear, like most days, just from life, like, you know, that you can reverse out and be fine because you’ve learned about it.

Brittany (00:31:53) – But there’s still this. It was still a very like emotional and psychological thing for me. Like, I absolutely knew that it would be fine, but I just needed I needed the crutch. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. It helped build confidence, because going through a second cycle to prove to myself that it would be fine coming out of it, makes me feel more comfortable doing a fat loss phase on my own.

Emily Field (00:32:21) – Totally.

Brittany (00:32:22) – And it was great coming out of it because you’re like, oh, great, I get an extra like little. You don’t do it immediately. You do like the little steps and it feels again. It feels like so much food, which is bizarre because I think the first week was like 100, 150 extra calories, but it feels like so much good again. But yeah, it takes a while to get used to coming back out of it. But I noticed more energy and I went on vacation during the reverse, and it felt like really freeing to be able to have a little bit, you know, extra calories.

Brittany (00:32:55) – And then again, I was excited to come out of it too, because I was at that point ready to start adding back in more running. And it was the beginning of summer, which is just more active anyway. So it felt very manageable. And, you know, again, I knew I had the support there for any crazy self-talk, which, you know, that’s another tool and another reason why I felt like I could have probably done okay, but I wanted the extra support and coaching with coming out of the reverse, but just learning about that, stopping during the program too. And that’s something that I still do. I just saw you posting about it too, so it’s like it’s a tool that is helpful to have forever.

Emily Field (00:33:36) – Absolutely. What you’re talking about with the reverse is it’s so relatable that you think, I know this on paper, I’ve crossed the professionals. And also there’s this like little mean girl voice that’s like, but it couldn’t work for me. There’s just no way that I could be the successful, or I could execute that way and it could go that way.

Emily Field (00:33:58) – So that’s the power of coaching is really the kinesthetic learning almost. It’s like you learn it on paper, you hear. Aired on a podcast. You read about it like, does it mean that we can do it like through our actions? So for anyone who might be on the fence about hiring a coach, that’s what I’m saying. That’s the power of checking in and having a rapport and relationship and support your multimedia, you know, means that is the point to walk through a brand new phase, something you’ve never done before and have somebody that will hold that space for you when you have doubts about it and you second guess and you’re like, I’m freaking out about this stuff, what do I do? And that’s like, really the point. That’s why we’re here.

Brittany (00:34:37) – It really helped build confidence. Like there’s so many pieces of the program that helped me with my confidence. But being able to go to the process and have support so that you really stick with it when you’re having those hard moments of like, oh, but I gained a pound today, or I, you know, ate too many Oreos last night or whatever, having that support and like getting through it and coming out the other side, learning the stress management and the you know, about alcohol and metabolism and all of the things really builds your confidence in the end.

Brittany (00:35:11) – And like at this point, in a couple of weeks, I’m looking at a fat loss phase again on my own, and I feel fine with it. I feel like I did this once with Emily. I have all the knowledge. I know that it’s going to be fine if I’m not perfect. If I have a slip up here. I know that it’s about consistency. I know how to build the right habits and set myself up for success. And the amazing thing about it is that I notice the confidence stretch into other areas of my life to all of a sudden like it wasn’t just confidence, because I could lift heavier and I could lose fat, and I knew how much to eat. And I don’t have to measure everything because I know what’s correct for my body now. It for me anyway. It gave me momentum into other areas of my life.

Emily Field (00:35:55) – That’s not why I’m in business. I’m not here to help make thinner women. That is not the mission. The mission, truly at the root is that you don’t have to be spending this energy and your precious time and all your gifts, like all wrapped up in trying to be smaller and trying to do it on your own and the rat race, like, think about how much mental energy you are putting in to that cycle before we started working together.

Emily Field (00:36:21) – And now that is completely off your plate, you have the clarity and like you said, the confidence to know how to eat, to support a body that you love to live in and to do the activities that you love to do, like all that other energy can go to things that are much more enjoyable. Oh that’s amazing. I’m really thrilled to hear that because you verbalized what I try to verbalize throughout all my, like my social media and websites. That’s awesome. I mean, it does sound like you’re doing a lot of what we were doing or in coaching, it sounds like you’re walking more, you’re back to running, you’re doing some strength training. I think from what you’ve said here, that balanced meals is still a priority for you. Are you still tracking macros?

Brittany (00:37:02) – You know, I had a crazy September October like trips, vacation didn’t always have cell service on my app, you know, just life. And again, I feel like I’m at a point where even if I’m not tracking, I can at least say like, oh, well, you know, make sure to order something that you know, has fancy or make sure to have protein based snacks with you, since that’s more difficult for me to hit.

Brittany (00:37:30) – So I feel like I had the tools, I wasn’t. I was being mindful, but I wasn’t tracking. And now, just in the last two weeks, started tracking again because I do want to set up for a fat loss phase again. So I am getting back into that habit of tracking daily.

Emily Field (00:37:47) – I always recommend before starting a fat loss phase to establish at least the habit of tracking. But establishing maintenance is also good too, because we need to know from where to drop calories in order to have a easy, sustainable, painless fat loss phase. So that’s great that you’re doing that because you know, your day does look a little bit different when you’re trying to track all three macros and hit targets. You do have to bring that intention back, and I would never recommend that you do that only when you’re in a fat loss phase, because it kind of rewires your brain or continues to wire your brain that tracking equals fat loss. The only reason why would track macros is to lose weight or to lose fat.

Emily Field (00:38:24) – And that’s not a narrative that we really want. We want to see it as a goal neutral experience, and you can use it for whatever you want, including just to eat, to have energy and eat, to support your training and to feel like a normal human and so not have a lot of stress in your life. So that’s great. I’m curious if there’s anything else that really has stuck with you from our coaching experience that you like, think about on a daily basis or a weekly basis, you know, outside of the things that you’ve shared already?

Brittany (00:38:53) – Not really. I think the biggest things for me are and, you know, maybe lately it’s been because I am setting up for another fat loss phase has just been knee melt seizing and. I’m setting up for a fat loss phase now, because our holiday schedule is not like, you know, the traditional one. So it supports like, I know that I’ll be able to be successful in a fat loss during a holiday season, and it will allow me to get out of one before spring and summer time when I want to be more active.

Brittany (00:39:26) – So just thinking about that and then also the habits, habits and goals were really big for me and keeping things process based. And then also observed measuring and taking body measurements. Again, just because it’s nice to have that second data set aside from just body weight.

Emily Field (00:39:44) – Absolutely. So it sounds like macro phasing stuck with you. The taking multiple metrics. That’s great. If that stayed with you as well. That’s a particularly helpful as we reach the end of the year and you’re thinking about what I want for my three months, six months, nine months, what I want my 24 to look like. It’s almost always better if you don’t know what what Brittany’s referring to. It’s almost always better to set a goal that talks about the action, not the outcome. We say we want to lose weight. That’s great. That’s an outcome. That’s not an action. That’s not a behavior you cannot control that. You can want that as an outcome. But what are the actions that will lead you to lose weight? Those are the things that we set goals around.

Emily Field (00:40:26) – And it seems a lot more close to home and a lot more attainable if we set goals that way. So I’m loving that you did that and are doing that so well. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of this conversation. I’ve learned a lot, really solidified what really stuck with you. And that’s been so helpful for me. And I know it’s so helpful for our audience to listen to because they can see themselves in your story where you were and where you are now. I’m just so proud of you, Brittany. Thank you for like, incorporating the things that I’ve taught you into your life and just letting it wash over you and taking what you want, leaving what you want. It’s just a huge compliment. I’m really so happy that I poured as much energy and do as I did, because it feels very rewarding to see you where you are right now.

Brittany (00:41:06) – It was one of the most important things that I’ve done for myself, and it’s it’s almost on the border of like light coaching in my brain because yes, I lost fat.

Brittany (00:41:16) – And that was, you know, one of my main goals. But I learned so much more about myself and how to live a happier light than just, you know, lose fat when I’m feeling a little like I want to be in control of something or, you know. Yeah.

Emily Field (00:41:31) – Down on yourself.

Brittany (00:41:32) – Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Emily Field (00:41:34) – Thank you so much. Brittany really touched me, and I’m so happy to have work with you. And thank you so much for your time here on this podcast episode. I will talk to you soon.

Emily Field (00:41:48) – 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 RDDs 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. Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at Emily Field.

Emily Field (00:42:15) – Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.