The One With My Macros Story

Food always was "good" or "bad" to me

Back to the Beginning

In The One Where I Had an Eating Disorder, I told you about how my poor self image led to me thinking "skinny" was desirable and as a result developed an eating disorder I battled through most of my teens. Although I had stopped the skipping meals (at least as a primary source of weight loss) and bulimia like behavior in high school, I took the disordered ideas of eating with me into my 30s. Food was either "good" or "bad"; and therefore I was either "good" or "bad" for eating it. Did this stop me from being "bad"? Nope! In addition, I didn't find a passion for fitness and working out until I was late in my 20's - 27 to be exact. So, when I was "bad" I didn't even do anything to counter it (not that you should!!). This led to a vicious cycle where I'd eat "bad" food and then do nothing to move my body, and then get depressed that I didn't look the way I thought I should look. Round and round I went. Sometimes the cycle was short and then I've a break and not care and feel comfortable as I was. Sometimes the cycle was short and I'd have days of being miserable.

The frustrating thing is that even until I got into my 30s, I still knew very little about nutrition. I followed fad diet after fad diet thinking that skinnier meant healthier; that skinnier meant happier.

In no way do I believe this now. Skinnier does not mean happier or healthier. I've never been stronger than I am now and I'm currently close to my heaviest weight I've ever been as I sit and type this. I monitor my blood pressure daily and my numbers are fantastic. Skinny does not mean healthy. Skinny might have meant happy to me in the past, but I know there is so much more that feeds my happiness now. My mental health is huge part of my happiness. I don't think I knew true joy until I developed deeper relationships with our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. Neither of these things depend on how much I weight or what size my leggings are (cause lets be real, I never wear jeans).

Turning Point

In 2017 I started seeing more of my friends talking about macros and If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM). I started reading everything I could about the lifestyle and this way of eating. In The One With Macros Basics, we talked about what macros are. To quickly refresh, macros or macronutrients, are the carbs, fat and protein that make up our food. Every 1 gram of both protein and carbs equals 4 calories each. Every 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories. So macros add up to the calories in the food. Counting macros is a more detailed way to count calories. In doing so, it can help to ensure you getting enough of each macro for your personal goal. When you want to lose weight, what most people are actually saying is that they want to lose fat and keep/gain muscle. By not consuming enough protein you can prevent muscle from growing and repairing. Eating enough fat will help with hormones and eating enough carbs will also help with providing fuel for your body. Previously, when I lost weight (about 40-45 pounds) I didn't know about macros and honestly barely counted calories. I managed my success because I worked out about 2-3 hours 5 days a week. Bottom line I was burning more than I was eating. But when I did this, I ended up skinny fat, and not as toned as I wanted.

So in 2017 when I had gained all of that weight back and then some, I started looking for a way that would help keep the weight off, something sustainable. Enter Macros. I went all in and got an online coach who I checked in with twice a week. She provided me numbers to follow and looked at my daily food diary in MFP. She offered suggestions to what I was eating and held me accountable to not only hitting my daily macro numbers but to doing my workouts as well. If anyone is on the fence about getting a coach, I highly recommend it even for a month or two if your budget will allow.

Through learning about macros, my mindset started to shift. I no longer saw food as "good" or "bad". I stopped thinking about the idea of having a "cheat meal" or "cheat day". Instead, I started seeing my daily food as a puzzle. I wanted to get as many pieces of that food, or at least food I wanted to eat, into the puzzle without running out of pieces. I made pizza and Chick-fil-A fit. I learned that if I gave all my carbs to Irish Soda bread it really sucked to eat lots of chicken breasts, egg whites and broccoli for dinner. Mind you, this was a slow process and didn't fully click when I first started.

All of a sudden, I was free

Food no longer had this control over me. Guess what, I was happy too! I didn't lose weight right away, but it felt so good to feel in control finally. Instead of letting food control me. While working with coach, I lost almost 20 pounds and then I suffered a serious injury one day working out with my trainer - I am so thankful he was with me as I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been! I was doing a warm up set of squats on the squat machine with about 110 pounds. I was about half way through the set and when I squatted down I felt a sharp pain in my lower back and started screaming in pain. My trainer had to help me get the machine back to neutral position and then helped me to the back where he tried to help massage out the pain. We though I had pinched a nerve or something. When I went to the chiropractor, I learned I had popped my hip. After this injury I was limited on what types of exercise I could do for several months. I became depressed and discouraged, instead of taking what I knew about macros and maintaining that 20 pounds I lost, I reverted back to old habits of emotional eating. So guess who gained those 20 pounds back. This girl!

Old me would have stayed miserable and depressed and not pushed myself past that hurdle. I know that I'm not to where I want to be yet. But, I'm a heck of a lot closer than I was than if I hadn't started again and again and again. It's not about how many times I fall it's about how many times I get back up. There's a quote I love that says "If you improve by 1% everyday, within a year you have improved by 365%. Think about that".

I will always be thankful for what counting macros has taught me and given me. I'm glad that I'm on a path that will allow me to accomplish my goals. The best part is that it won't matter if I'm trying to lose weight or gain muscle, macros can help me achieve that. I can achieve those goals in a healthy manner that keeps my mental health first and foremost. I love that multiple areas of passion in my life are overlapping and helping me to grow and improve daily.

<3 J