Why We Should Master Macros?
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Good morning, how is everyone doing with our twinkle toes dancing so far? I love it like honestly for some reason I'm not I I don't get, like, I get frustrated in a good way, though, because you have to think with your brain a lot. Like Adam was saying in his on Monday, like, he's like, look, you have to really think and coordination.
Speaker 1:I think that's where the cognitive benefits come from with dancing. It's like, you really have to focus and there's no time to There's no Your mind can't wander to like, thinking, should I go and sit down? You literally just all in thinking and trying to move your body at the same time. Think it's brilliant. I can't wait to actually be able to dance at the end of it, hopefully anyway.
Speaker 1:So I got some moves now. We'll see, we'll see. Anyway, into today's topic. So why macros? Some of you will know, some of you won't.
Speaker 1:Why macros, calories, stuff like that? I'm gonna talk about the study first to explain why macros or you know it's called flexible dieting or if it fits your macros versus you know clean eating and like a strict diet right. So there's a study done on this with strict or clean eating, basically we eat the same stuff like chicken broccoli, tuna and maybe a bit of rice. It's kind of like the boring bland foods that are typically associated with healthy eating. Say clean eating and it's a stupid term.
Speaker 1:Where this was the rage. Go back ten-twelve years ago everybody started with clean eating, eat cleaned, get lean all this stuff. On the other hand if you fit your macros, it's basically it's macro based system you just have to hit your protein, carbs and fat and it doesn't really matter what food you eat. Now some people took this way too extreme. They were eating junk food all the time.
Speaker 1:Doughnuts, nice and well fits my macros. Yeah Gary, you have to go to the extreme right. So there's a lot of people who give macros a bad rep because they ignored micronutrient density. They didn't eat any fruits and vegetables right. What I want you to understand is you can eat any food you want as long as you eat your macros and lose weight however is that the best option for you do you need to have your vitamins and minerals of course so don't be too extreme with it right.
Speaker 1:And in a short there was a study done by Professor Mark Cobb of Kansas State University and he basically did the Twinkie diet he ate sugar every three hours for ten weeks and he made sure he was in a deficit and people are like if you eat sugar every every three hours you're gonna spike your insulin every three hours insulin is a storage hormone which means it's gonna store fat all the time and you won't lose weight. He was like nah that's not how it works if I'm in a deficit even if I eat sugary stuff every three hours, I'm gonna lose weight. The laws of thermodynamics, they were like, no. Well, guess what? After ten weeks, he lost 20.
Speaker 1:I think he lost 27 pounds. His body fat percentage went down. His good cholesterol went up, his bad cholesterol went down, everything improved in his health and he was even shocked by this. Now that's obviously one study but what we can conclude from that is it is better to be at a healthier body weight. So his BMI actually went from like overweight down to the normal range.
Speaker 1:So it's more important to be in the healthy body weight range. Now BMI is flawed system. Can be used for people at certain heights and weights, like if you're really short or you're really tall or you've got more muscle mass than average is kind of flawed. Like, for me now, I'm, like, overweight in the BMI scale, I don't want take it seriously. But it's for some for, you know, general public in most instances, it can be useful too.
Speaker 1:Anyway, he's BMI. He bent down. He lost weight. So it's more important to be at the normal, you know, quote unquote weight, than being overweight, but eating loads of healthy food. Now why is this?
Speaker 1:Well, being overweight is very stressful on the body, right? It's not really about like, well, I'm overweight but I'm eating healthy food. Well, you've got one of the things right, but let's reduce the stress on the body with all that extra weight, let's bring it down and you'll see and study after study shows health markers go up significantly when weight is lost and not so much just because you're eating healthy food okay. So this is the balance we need to get with macros. Yes you can eat what you want but think of nutrient density vitamins as well okay because they are important.
Speaker 1:But this study back to it, it looked up strict eating clean eating versus macros and I write well maybe strict eating is better because they're making sure they're eating chicken and broccoli and stuff like that and veg. So it was 41 subjects, 30 males, 11 females. And they did a questionnaire, their diets were analyzed, this type of stuff. The average ages of the 41 subjects was 29.1 years, ranging from 20 to 50 years old. So males on both groups consumed on average 2,500 calories with an average fat intake of 83 grams, average carbohydrate intake of 323, and average protein of 63.
Speaker 1:There were no significant differences between male macronutrient based diet and strict diet and participants when average intakes were compared for all nutrients, including the macronutrients, selected vitamins, and minerals. Okay. Fifty percent of males had intake below the RDA for vitamin A, seventy three had intakes below the RDA for vitamin D, and fifty percent had intake below the RDA for potassium, and sixty three consumed below the recommended amount of fiber. Okay females in both groups in the study consumed an average of 1,700 calories with an average fat intake of 58 grams, carbs two seventeen and protein 103. Okay of the vitamins and minerals assessed females consume less than the RDA for vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, iron and potassium and fiber was also below the recommended intake.
Speaker 1:For females the macro based diet has consumed significantly greater amounts of several nutrients including protein vitamin E vitamin K and vitamin C over half of the individuals from all groups consume less than the recommended amount of several of the nutrients. Okay. So the conclusion from this study, there's not really a massive difference when you do a macro based dieting versus strict dieting with clean foods when we're looking at nutrient intakes. However, the female participants did show better diet quality on the macro based versus strict. And that's quite surprising.
Speaker 1:Okay, because if you're on a strict diet, you tend to think of like fried chicken, broccoli, greens and all this stuff. But what you neglect sometimes on a strict diet is variety in food and sometimes we need the variety and actually when you actually look at a calorie based diet only versus a macro based diet only with calories they're just looking at the energy just total calories. They're ignoring the protein and the carb balance and the fat balance. And that comes with a con that you don't get the variety and you don't get the vitamins and mineral density, right. So macro based approach whilst it's not superior for fat loss than just calories, it is superior in the studies there's another study that shows as well in bikini competitors that if you do go macro based and hit those three numbers you tend to have a better diet in general just because of the variety and you're making sure you hit protein carbon fat splits okay so that's why we do macros and there's another added benefit like with a higher protein diet you feel fuller for longer, your satiety response is better, you recover better, gain a bit of muscle, gain a bit of strength So protein is very important.
Speaker 1:I'm going drill that in like make sure we get your protein. Same for me, my protein intake's been low recently, I've run out of Hydro A, the Turtle Clear Hydro A and you know as I'm two of those a day like my with my water because it's just like drinking flavored water and it's amazing. And they do help massively having like one or two scoops of a clear whey each day, high quality protein, having food. You know, we need to look at how do we maximize our protein intake and make it fit our life. Because if you go from never tracking protein to now starting to track protein, it can be difficult because you're like, well, what's got protein?
Speaker 1:But you'd be surprised if you look the ways to increase your protein. The simplest way, right, is look at what you're currently eating. What foods you currently eat in the contain protein? Okay. Increase the portion size of that food.
Speaker 1:Simple. Increase it by 20%. That's a boost of protein. Very simple. Nobody really thinks about it, but that's a simple way.
Speaker 1:Next step. Find other protein sources. Try them and add them in. So either as a snack like a protein bar or ideally you wanna have another meal which is high in protein. Alright?
Speaker 1:So you wanna try and get like 25 to 50 grams of protein in that meal. And if you've maxed that out, then you can look at right. I can have maybe two shakes a day of the Clearway Hydro. So I'll have one with my water in the morning, and I'll have one after my workout or whatever. And you can have up to half your protein intake from whey proteins or vegan proteins with no adverse effects or no declining results.
Speaker 1:Know I look at whey protein not really as a supplement per se it is but it's more of a food because it is derived from milk it is just it is powdered it is dried it's added, digestive enzymes and it's added some flavor in. And the clear whey hydro is actually the top level protein you can get. It's high, whey protein hydrolyslate, which is essentially described as pre digested. Doesn't cause irritation, doesn't cause bloating, it's very quick acting into the body. It's been shown in studies to improve your power recovery better than whey protein isolate and whey protein isolate is really top standard as well but hydro is a bit higher.
Speaker 1:So if you're into your training, into your weightlifting, into your cycling and stuff and you wanna improve your power recovery, look at whey protein hydro post workout. That's another topic. That's more performance stuff. Doctor p will definitely cover that later on in the weeks. So that's it for macros the benefits are that so make sure you understand that the variety is important don't try and be too rigid there's been so many studies on rigid dieting and it doesn't really work long term.
Speaker 1:You wanna understand that you've got the freedom and flexibility to eat whatever you want. It's like a game of Tetris. Right? It's all a game. You got three numbers.
Speaker 1:That's it. You got three numbers. Right? What can I eat today to do it? I go can go rogue today.
Speaker 1:I go, don't know what I'm gonna eat. I'm just gonna go throughout through my through my day, scan a few foods in, see what I'm up. I have someone else scan a few foods in. Alright. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm up to. And then I'm like, okay. I'm getting closer to the end of the day. Maybe I'll scan something first to see what what I end up with it and maybe I'll just modify it slightly and I kind of do loads of days like that when I'm out of the house. I just go rogue freestyle.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make a difference as long as you come near your macro targets This freedom is something you need to grasp because the fitness industry has always been showing like telling people keto diet, strict dieting, no pain or gain, it's sacrifice to win all this nonsense and you can literally lose weight enjoying enjoying your head off eating nice foods. Okay? And the the added bonus of using the Macro Planner, you should also be getting into your head that you can go out for a few drinks, you can go and have meals out and still be on track. Okay. So even if you don't know the exact amount of macros or calories when you eat out, as long as you use the macro planner and give yourself more of an allowance on that day then on the other days where you're lower and you know you're eating, you've already accounted for your increase in calories on that day and even if you can't get it perfect you've still modified your behavior to match what's happening in the week.
Speaker 1:Instead of putting your head head in the stand going, oh, weekends here, not tracking, don't wanna know. That's not how we should live, guys. Like, because if you wanna really get your get a handle on your nutrition and behavior, we need to know what happens on the weekends, don't we? We would rather know than not know we need to look at ourselves in the face and go right this is my weekend's made out of. I went up listen my weekend was heavy but I didn't didn't go I'm just gonna ignore it I was like how much did I consume in the weekend let's have a look.
Speaker 1:Okay Friday even Friday, sort of friend my best friend I haven't seen him in ages. Friday my goal was 1,700 calories I had 2,800 calories so over a thousand. On Saturday my goal was 3,000 calories because I adjusted for it but I still went over 3,500. On Sunday I had a intake of 1,500 and that was my goal because I had adjusted for it okay so you know I wasn't perfect but I definitely give myself more of allowance when I needed and I was you know coming in close I just got to claw back now a few days happy days so please get into the mindset of flexibility please please I don't want you all to be thinking it's rigid. There is no magic food.
Speaker 1:There is no magic diet either. It's about eat the food you like, get them in your macros. It'll take time to master it. Don't worry about it. Have a play about.
Speaker 1:Treat it as a game. It's not that serious. Treat it as a game. And if you go over and over, absolutely fine. Don't panic.
Speaker 1:But I'll leave you with that. My question for you today is what is your one big thing today? So on my phone, on my home screen, I got a screen saver that says commit to less. So it's got 12 boxes. It says commit to less, complete more, and underneath there, there's only three boxes.
Speaker 1:So if you commit to less each day, you'll end up likely doing more. Because if you look at a list of things you wanna do all day and you've got 10 things, you're not you're gonna go too much. But if you ever looked if you ever looked at three things, but I even narrowed it down. What's your one big thing today? What's your one big thing you wanna do today?
Speaker 1:Is it the workout? Is it tracking your mac ros? What is it? Okay. So think of that, get your one big thing done, and then you can move on to your secondary stuff.
Speaker 1:And by doing this, we build up daily momentum, and that's how we get things on track. Don't try and do too much. Commit to less, complete more. Let me know what your one big thing is. Please comment below your one big thing today and I'll speak to you tomorrow.
Speaker 1:And that is it for today's episode. So hopefully you took something away from it. If you didn't, here's what you need to take away. Stop wasting time on social media. Stop wasting time gossiping.
Speaker 1:You've only got a day to live. Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life.
Speaker 1:Enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow. Do daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
