More Than Macros
Hello! To save myself future sorrow and before we jump in to the juicy stuff — let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. I am qualified with Cert III in Nutrition and Dietetics. This means I can give dietary advice to otherwise healthy individuals however I do not diagnose and/or treat any medical illnesses. This article is not intended as personal advice, rather a further dive in to some well known industry truths. You should not make any nutrition decisions based on this article and should contact a qualified professional for personalised advice for your own situation (for both physical and mental reasons).
The goal of this text is to provide lifters and coaches with a tool that could aid in taking a more holistic approach to one’s diet. It can be applied as an advanced method or as a way to establish a baseline in an acute assessment.
We can begin by agreeing that if you achieve the appropriate energy balance, macronutrient intake and fibre that you will maximise your physique and performance based outcomes.
If we take a long term approach, we know that the healthiest organism performs the best. This truth stretches beyond and remains applicable regardless of any goal that one may have. Creating an environment of health will ultimately result in superior outcomes over time.
It can be very common for people tracking macros to forget about fibre. When considering health, fibre is a great place to start. Accumulating 25–40g of fibre per day from whole foods (not supplements and fortified foods) will often deliver a complete profile of vitamins and minerals (micronutrients). This is a great place to start for those looking to reach strength and/or physique goals.
We can progress this further and take a closer look at the finer details of the diet. Personally I take the, “Are you willing and able?” approach with my clients.
Stage 1: Are you willing and able to track your food?
If the answer is no, we’ll stick to a portion sized whole food approach. This indirectly controls energy balance as well as macro and micro intake.
If the answer is “sometimes, but not always,” — we’ll use the portioned size approach and track a goal number of days. This is such a powerful tool when it comes to understanding what’s in your food.
If the answer is yes, then we set macronutrients and provide resources on how to both create routine orientated meal plans as well as how to be reactive. This allows the maximal amount of flexibility in one’s diet without the overwhelm of thinking “What do I need to eat next?” all day everyday.
I find it usually takes 4–6 weeks for most people to become self-sufficient at tracking macros and make daily/weekly plans while acting reactively when it suits.
Once there is a plan in place, I’ll ask for a subjective, “Nutrition Quality out of 10 Score” each week. This gives a little more information about the contents of the diet without a full review. I rarely want to prescribe a client exactly what to eat as it’s not helpful in the long run and removes a potential learning moment for them.
Once good habits are in place and the overwhelm of learning to track wears off, we can move into the next stage.
Stage 2: Diet Quality
In this stage we can add simple rules to increase the quality of the diet, “Are you willing and able to aim for 5 serves of veg, 2 serves of fruit per day?” For the health conscious client, we delve deeper and look to include both raw and cooked vegetables as well as consuming 5 different colours per day.
A new method I’ve been having great success with lately has been using the Chronometer App. This app gives you energy, macros, fibre, but also individual vitamins, minerals, and even amino acids.
There are a few special scenarios where this method has shown to be incredibly valuable:
Abnormal diet types; vegetarian/vegan, no red meat, low vegetable intake.
Abnormal calories; large calorie deficits, very high calorie diets.
Education for empowerment; to look at nutrition as a whole rather than “good” vs “bad foods”.
Other health issues have arisen
The app isn’t all that user friendly and it could be a challenge to use day in and day out. This paired with the overwhelming amount of data could potentially lead to some obsessive type behaviour. For these reasons, I find value in using it as a snapshot to check in and assess a few days when the scenarios previously mentioned occur.
Data points that will typically prompt me to investigate further are:
Bloating and or water retention.
Lethargy.
Abnormal outcomes to training and nutrition strategies.
Planned drastic changes in nutrition.
Change in overall health status.
Here is how I typically implement the Chronometer app into your diet.
You will need to already be tracking your food, or this will be a quick road to overwhelm.
Download the app and set it to your current physical and diet settings.
Pick 2–3 days from last week’s tracking and include your best and worst days.
Enter each day into the Chronometer app ensuring you pick food with accurate and complete profiles.
Review the data and identify what’s too high, what’s too low and what’s just right.
Use examine.com to explore things that are too high or low to get a better understanding of what that vitamin / mineral / amino acid is and what roles it plays in the body.
Review whether you can adjust amounts of your current diet to reach your targets or google search foods rich in the missing nutrients.
Return to the app and add and adjust foods to create “a perfect day”.
If your dietary preferences, lifestyle or other personal choices make it impossible to reach your targets from food, consider using examine.com to understand best practice when it comes to supplementation.
If you choose to supplement, add the specific supplement you choose to the chronometer to ensure it is in fact doing what you intended it to, and not causing other complications with overdosing other areas.
Walking away having completed this process you should have a good idea of what a perfect day might look like for you. Where you tend to over and under consume and be armed with a much deeper understanding of your diet as a whole.
The results I have seen from this approach include:
Dramatic increases in subjective mood and energy after increasing meat intake and specific vegetables to reach magnesium and iron targets.
Large reductions in water retention and lethargy by identifying and correcting extreme sodium to potassium imbalances with simple swaps in carbohydrates sources.
Complete amino acid profiles in vegetarians/vegans.
A mental shift in perception of “good” and “bad” foods by zooming out and viewing the diet as a whole, rather than only considering specific foods in isolation.
If you’ve been tracking for a while and want to take a deeper dive to assess your overall nutrition, download the app, have a play and we’d love to hear what you discover.
