I wanted to elaborate on and share this great post by @drnadolsky from Instagram. If you have not followed the "Dr That Lifts", you are missing out on some good info.
So many are trying hard to make progress with their nutrition and think they are doing well with the food choices they are making, but cannot see progress ever. This blog post will be about the mistakes most people are making when trying to eat "so called" healthy, but are choosing not so healthy options. Lets break down the picture's meals to help analyse the efforts some are making, yet totally failing.
Super Specialty Coffee: Most of my clients love to have special coffees, but in reality they have zero clue in what actual macros are in these coffees! Sure the business itself may have calculated these macros, more than likely they borrowed the macro-nutrient info from something similar. Never mind that most of these drinks are: - low in nutrient value
- super high in carbs - super high in calories. Some being 800 calories or more! That is two meals for some people!
Now you have the barista who is making the coffee. They do not measure out the sugar squirts, nor the milk, or really anything, it is all eyeballed. Thus some days the coffee will be 800 calories and other days it might be 600 calories and it could be up to 900 calories, even if you get the low fat milk! What I am trying to say is, entering your coffee in MyFitnessPal is not optimal as you have no accurate measuring and zero control into the amounts going into your body. Additionally this is not helping you stay on point with nutrition via ramming in 800 calories in a drink that only satisfies your mind and does nothing for your body!
Death by Trail Mix:
Yup, I see this all the time! Death my trail mix! Again hard to measure and track via macros.
How many smarties are in there?
How many almonds are in there? How much dried fruit are in there? Every added nut, seed, chocolate, fruit all have different macros. So the nutrient information is normally bogus, a guess at best, unless you separate and weight every thing individually, to know what you are actually eating via macros. You get my drift, very hard to be accurate here! Trail mix might seem healthy, but death by trail mix is so true! Honestly, how many people can just stop eating trail mix! You just nibble away and can never be accurate with how much you just mysteriously shoveled down you throat! "Dam I just ate the whole bag, but it was healthy right".
I ate a Salad today, you would be proud!:
Ah something I hear all the time, I ate so good on Tuesday, you would be proud. Ok what happened to the other days of the week?
The salad, a so called staple in the "I am going to lose weight battle". Hey do not get me wrong, I love salad and I even make what I call "Salad Man Bowls". In this case though, the individual is making a mini salad that is not very filling, nutrient dense, low on protein, not satisfying at all and will trigger a night time binge for sure! The dieting world makes salad look bad! When you eat salad you are telling your brain, "well this sucks, I am on a diet and eating !#$ing salad.....again!". In this case, salad is having a negative impact on success. How do you make it positive? By making the other meals support the salad, meaning they all taste great, make you happy and are having a positive impact on your weight loss journey. Plus you have to make the salad look and taste awesome! That is why I make my salad a "Man Bowl", it just makes me feel good when eating it! Plus the salad is HUGE, has lots of protein and very satisfying!
Condiments:
Another area where dieters abuse is the use and improper tracking of condiments!
If you are not weighing your condiments, and just free pouring, you are eating way more calories than you think.
Example: you make a salad, you are not happy about the salad, so you break out the ranch, look on the back of the bottle, it says 2 tbsp of dressing is so many calories. Again already pissed off you are eating salad, you just free pour the dressing, knowing you went way over 2 tbsp, yet you tracked on myfitnesspal 2 tbsp of ranch....WTF!
This happens with ketchup, mayo, and especially the dreaded Peanut butter! Everyone can admit knowing 1 tbsp nut butter is not a lot of nut butter! What so many do, is take a heaping tbsp and then lick the spoon when done. ALL of that extra nut butter are unaccounted calories and if you are not tracking accurately they add up!!! If you want success, track with accuracy and stop lying to yourself entering the wrong info in myfitnesspal.
The Ribs: Yes a meat source, nice work protein! Looks like these ribs where purchased right out a fast food place, covered with BBQ sauce! Hey, we just learned about condiments above right, so what is wrong with these ribs? Yup, BBQ sauce all over them, thus way more added calories unaccounted for. Are the ribs a high quality meat source? Probably not and will have you burping and farting for hours after. Do you think you can trust the macros on these ribs? 100% No as there are too many variables to count. So again, the person is trying to get a protein source in there day and from the looks of the pictures, this has been the only protein source so far and a poor option at that.
Late Night Waist Busters "Chips": As we spoke about before, the meals leading into the night time, if they are poor in nutrients and unsatisfying, binge eating is just around the corner. Now, what is this person thinking after trying hard to "eat healthy" all day? They are probably thinking, "hey man, I did pretty good today, I need me some chips as a reward". Even if those chips where Low Fat, it does not matter, the day did not support itself via progress.
Plus again, like trail mix, chips are another snack that you simply cannot stop! How many of you have ate and entire large bag of chips and then went back for something sweet!
All of the above are "silent progress killers". These are so hard to track and will shoot any progress down the toilet on your journey to be healthy. Sure, being a flexible eating coach, I teach a method to have some fun food in your day, but 80-90% of my day is high quality, nutrient dense, very filling and satisfying food. These foods help with my metal clarity, mood, fuel workouts, aid in recovery and sleep. The flexible food comes into play when I have successfully stayed on plan, then I can eat a flexible food and track it 100% accurately. Even then, I am choosing a flexible food that do not mess up my digestion or make me feel like a slug after. I am choosing the flexible foods that will actually give me more recovery and energy. Additionally I get to feel a mini diet break in my day of solid nutritional effort and tracking with out harming my digestion.
If you need help or guidance, send us an email to sculptedbybrandt@gmail.com
We would love to help.
We also do group nutrition mini seminars, helping beginners get back on track without the stress of planning it themselves.
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