I am tired of tracking macros. Seriously.
I get setting boundaries and making sure you are getting the nutrition that you need. I also liked the idea of trying to make sure you ate every single last bit of your available macros. But long term, I don’t see how it is healthy to spend each night standing in the pantry with your phone scanning stuff just to meet those numbers because you can. What is that communicating long term? Am I going to be scanning barcodes and entering numbers into my phone when I am 75 years old?
My biggest worry, aside from going nowhere recently, is that I am slowly being programmed to be dependent on the app and macros to determine my health. For example, I could have a fantastic day numbers wise. But let’s say that I go out to eat and instead of having a burger and fries, I get some salmon and rice. I made a much healthier decision but if that meal bumps me over my allotted numbers for the day I would feel like I had messed up, when the truth is I didn’t.
While I know I have gained weight (despite not verifying this on the scale), I am still basically in the same size clothes. Waistband is more snug than it once was but I am still in an XL shirt, not forced into a XXL just yet. The truth is I don’t care about the weight, just the composition. So I need to eat based on that which means I have a few adjustments that I am going to have to make. If for any other reason than to shift things up a bit and shock my system into doing something different. Because the same thing I have been doing is no longer working.
Moving forward, here is the plan:
- Increase water intake. I have been having at least a gallon a day. I don’t do some great during the middle of the day and need to fix that. I want to shoot for a gallon and a half daily.
- Add more veggies to lunch and dinner. There are times when I am hungry after meals and I think its the type of food that I have been eating. I know I need more veggies and I think an extra cup at each meal would be fine.
- Reduce sugar intake as much as possible. My sweet tooth is bad and some days out of control. The best thing I can do is limit the sugar intake as much as possible. I know when I have done this in the past that my body feels better. Less sugar and more water keeps my joints flushed out and moving better.
- Be more forgiving. Too often my wife and I beat ourselves up over little things, especially food. That really doesn’t serve any purpose in the long term and builds obsessive and unhealthy habits that spill over elsewhere. If the goal is to be flexible, then actually being flexible makes sense.
So far today I have not tracked anything and already feel more free.