191: 10 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started Counting Macros

 

 

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio episode number 191.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four. Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

 

Expression of gratitude to all listeners of this podcast 0:51  

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke and I am just so glad you're here. I'm so glad that whether this is the first episode that you've ever heard of  Biceps After Babies Radio, or if you keep coming back because you love the content. I'm just glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're listening. And I hope that this podcast, as I hope with every podcast that I record, gives you something. You walk away with knowledge, inspiration, and motivation, with an ability to be able to apply what you're learning to your journey. That's really why I sit here and record these episodes. So thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing the podcast. And I'm just feeling a lot of gratitude for you as the listener today. 

 

How I found macro counting 1:25

So today's topic is a fun one because it had me doing a little bit of reflecting and thinking back to when I first started counting macros. So when I found macro counting, it was at the end of 2015. And let me tell you, the landscape of 2015 was very different from the landscape it is today. Counting macros was not a thing that a lot of people knew about. Counting macros at the time wasn’t even really called counting macros. It was called IIFYM, If It Fits Your Macros. And it was really just starting to come over from more of the bodybuilding world. Counting macros has been a thing in the bodybuilding world for a long time. But it was just starting to become more mainstream, and you know, venturing its way outside of just prepping for fitness competitions into more of a general population. But there weren't a ton of Instagram accounts, there weren't a ton of blogs, and there wasn't a ton of content about it. And the content that was out there was very oriented towards a fitness competitor, you know someone who is going to the extreme to strip off as much body fat as possible, to maintain as much lean mass as possible, to be able to step on a stage in a bikini and be able to win a fitness competition. So I have shared this story before but I'm gonna share it again that the way I found macro counting was actually on Pinterest and I remember I was scrolling through Pinterest and I saw this picture and it was like a before and after of this woman and her abs after a cut. And I saw it and I was like huh I don't even remember what the title said or what you know, the copy said when I clicked on that and I went to this woman's website. Her name is Karina like I still know where I still remember she doesn't really you know do much with macros anymore but I went on to her website and she had these blog posts where she was kind of updating during this like 15-week cut that she had done and she was talking about counting macros and she was talking about the food that she ate and how she was able to like still eat ice cream and still be able to get this like lean aesthetic and a six-pack and I read through the content. And this is the first time I'm hearing anything about you know counting macros. And many of you know that I am a registered nurse. And you know, I've done a lot of anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology and all the nutrition and science classes that you need to do in order to make it through nursing school. And so as I'm sitting here on this blog reading this, I'm like, you know what this makes a lot of sense. From nutrition, from a scientific perspective. I've never been big, like dieting or fan, I've never, I didn't grow up with that my mom didn't really ever do diets. I am not the type of person who was always hopping from diet to diet. That just wasn't my history. And as I read through this, I was like, huh, this from a scientific perspective with my nursing scientific hat on, this makes a lot of scientific sense. It sounds very sound in its science. And I was, you know, kind of just like putting a pin into it. I was like, oh, that's, that's really interesting. And she was talking about this thing called reverse dieting. And again, that concept was like, so foreign to me, as it is to many of you, when you hear the concept the first time, I was like, I don't really get what she's talking about with reverse dieting. But she had finished her cut. And she was going through this reverse. And she just, you know, basically shared the experience. So I put a pin into that.  And several months later, it was January of 2016. And I decided that I wanted to set a new year's resolution as I did. I'm big on goals, big on New Year's resolutions. And so I was sitting there in 2016, I was like, What is my New Year's resolution going to be? And I had this thought run through my head. I taught five, or six fitness classes a week, I was a group fitness instructor, teaching body pump, Zumba and bar, and CXWORX. And all of these classes. And I loved group fitness, it was so fun. But I had been teaching group fitness for eight years. And if you look at me, in year eight, and you look at me in year six, and you look in the mirror in year five, I essentially look the same. So I'm doing all of this work in the gym, I'm working out a lot. And my body was never really changing. It just always kind of looked the same. And it wasn't bad. I'm not saying that I looked terrible. But it just always looked the same. And it was all the effort that I'm putting in. I should be getting some kind of result out of it over the years. And I just wasn't. And I knew that the reason that I wasn't was because yeah, I had my workouts where I was very dedicated to workouts, but my nutrition was, there was no rhyme or reason to it, it was just like I just kind of ate food. Not there was nothing wrong with that. But there was no intention behind it, there was no intention behind my nutrition. And I knew that if I put some intention behind it, if I dialed in my nutrition, that that was going to be the tipping point, it was going to be the tipping point where I was going to actually start to see some of the results. And so 2016, I set a new year's resolution. I said I want to get a six-pack, I'd never had a six-pack before. I feel like the muscle’s there, I do a lot of working out but no six-packs. And I remembered that post and I went back and like found her blog and kind of like read what she had written about it and decided, you know, if I'm going to do it in any way, if I'm going to get a six-pack, and I'm going to like lose this weight and get more shredded, I want to do it in a way that makes scientific sense to me. And it's not just like, cut out all of the, you know, unclean foods because I had tried that before. I tried that before, especially in college. And I'd never be able to sustain it, I could make it like three days. And by day four, my friends are having pizza and I'm miserable. And I'm like screw this, I'm gonna have the pizza. So I really had a hard time with that, like all or nothing of saying no to all sweets, or all sugar, all unprocessed food, or all processed food or whatever it is I had had that experience of trying to do that and it failing miserably every single time. And so this idea that I could eat food that I liked, and still eat cookies and still eat ice cream and fit it into my macros, but you know if I am If It Fits Your Macros really, really appealed to me. So I started and I was flying by the seat of my pants, just kind of figuring things out as I went along. And many of you know that over that cut, I ended up losing about 10 pounds. And I did it. I had a visible six-pack for the first time in my life. And I was floored that I had spent so many years doing the same thing and not getting the results that I wanted and that I could just change my nutrition a little bit, just dial it in just like tweak it a little bit. And in eight weeks, I have a six-pack. It just floored me. And what was more important was that I liked the process like I was still eating foods that I loved. I talked about this a lot but I eat ice cream every single night during my cut. And that was exciting to me, and it was, it was this point that I just wanted to share with people I was like, This is amazing. I eat ice cream every night and I was able to lose 10 pounds, and I have a six-pack. And like, all I had to do was dial in my nutrition and understand the macronutrient composition of my food. 

 

The beginning of Biceps After Babies journey  9:15

And so I just started sharing on Instagram, I started the handle Biceps After Babies with this idea of helping women to know that just because they've had babies, doesn't mean they're the best bodies behind them. And that, in fact, I was fitter post-babies than I was even before I had babies, and that, you know, women can follow that, and you can be the same for yourself. And I just started sharing my experience, and people were so interested that they wanted to learn more. And then I started getting people DM’ing me and asked me to coach them. And I talked about how I really am an accidental entrepreneur, I never started my Instagram account thinking you know, what I want to do, I want to build a coaching business, I want to like have team members, I guess that was never, what I set out to do is just I'm just gonna share this as it's like when you go see a movie, and you want to tell everybody about it. Because it was such an amazing movie, I had this amazing experience. And I just wanted to share, and people started asking me to coach, and that turned into, you know, this business. And now we have a team behind me. And we have MACROS 101 And we have multiple programs. And it's been exciting. It's been awesome. But it all started with that new year's resolution. 

 

10 things that I wish that I had known when I started counting macros  10:21

So looking back, I was thinking about this the other day. And I was thinking because I asked, I asked a lot of my podcast guests, especially on the “I Did It” series, I'll ask them this question where I will say, you know if you could go back and talk to the former version of yourself, what would you tell her? You know, if you could go back to when you were struggling with diets or when you hated yourself, or whatever it was, you know, go back 10 years ago, what would you tell yourself? And it's a really interesting question for people on the podcast to answer. Because they're in a different situation. And they have a different perspective now than they did 5-10 years ago. And so I started asking myself that question, if I could go back to 2015-2016. Amber, as I was just diving into space and counting macros, and, you know, setting physical goals and changing my body shape, what would I go and tell her? And are those things that I would go back and tell her? Would that be something that'd be helpful for people to hear? And the more I thought about it, the more I said, Yes, I think, especially for people who are new to counting macros, but even those people who are not new to counting macros, you can always learn lessons from other people's mistakes. And I think that's actually my favorite way to learn lessons. I like to learn lessons, I like to let other people make mistakes. And then let me learn the lesson from them so I don't have to repeat the mistakes. And so that's really my intention today, with sitting down to record this, I'm going to talk through 10 things that I wish that I had known when I started counting macros, so that you can hear the mistakes that I made, and perhaps not have to make them yourself. So let's jump into it. 

 

No. 1 Macro counting is not a monolith 11:59

Number one, and this is something I preach a lot. But I wish I had known, that macro counting is not a monolith. That it is not just one thing. And this is something that I didn't really understand. I very much came to macro counting of like, okay, what's the right way to do it? Like, how exactly do I do it, and I got into that mindset of, oh my gosh, I don't like if I go over my macros, then I have done it wrong, and I'm not gonna be able to get the results. And since then I moved away from that myself and helped my clients move away. I think that mentality comes from two places. I think it comes from people's prior experiences with diets, where that's been their experiences, like when they start a fat loss period. They do it via diet. So there's like certain rules, and they just are used to figuring out okay, what are those rules and what do I need to follow and then doing it. So I think with experience with prior diets, people bring that into macro counting. But I think the second reason that that happens is that, as I said, macro counting really came from the bodybuilding world. And in the bodybuilding world, you do have to go to extremes, you do have to be very strict. If you're trying to get down to, you know, 14% body fat, 13% body fat as a female, you have to be extreme. You have to be precise. You have to weigh and measure every little thing and you have to hit those things spot on it, you can't have any days that you mess up in order to get an extreme aesthetic, right? To get an extreme aesthetic, you have to go to extreme things. And the difference in the bodybuilding world is they recognize that's not sustainable. That's not the goal. The goal is not to get to 13% body fat and maintain it. The goal is to get to 13% body fat and look amazing for one day. And that day is show day. And then once that day is over, they recognize you can't sustain that and then you know you're gaining weight after that intentionally because you can't sustain that low of body fat percentage for that long and have an enjoyable life. And so, I think because it comes from the bodybuilding world where that extreme perspective is with the way that things are, it gets brought over sometimes. But when we take this tool of macro counting that yes, you can utilize, you know, as a competition prep tool, but then when we start to apply that tool to more of the general population, which is who I work with, right, I'm an average mom. That's who I work with. I work with women, old, young moms, not moms, but I work with just the general population who just want to feel better and look better and feel healthy and get up off the floor playing with their grandkids. And I'm not coaching people who are looking to be shredded, and to get to the lowest body fat percentage possible. So as much as people love to promote macro counting as like food freedom, what I find is that it is really easy to turn it into another diet. And that's not the same thing as it being another diet. And if you go and want to listen to more on that topic, episode number 74. Macro counting is not a diet, if you get this right, one of my rant episodes is a good podcast to listen to. So macro counting is not a monolith, it's not one thing, and there's not a right way to do it and there's not a wrong way to do it. That's the first thing I wish I would have known.

 

No. 2 Macro counting is a tool and what matters is the person holding the tool 15:24

Number two is similar but a little different. Macro counting is a tool. And what matters, you know, just as much as what tool you're using is the person who is using that tool. So, you know, if you're thinking about a carpenter, you can have a hammer, and two different carpenters can do two very different things with those hammers, and they can wield them completely differently. Or, you know, maybe a better analogy would be like a knife, you know, you can use a knife and the woodcutter can carve this beautiful thing with this knife. And someone else is like cutting steak with a knife. You know, the person who is using it, and how they're using it, how they've been trained to use, it matters just as much as the tool. And I've really learned this with myself, and then, you know, over and over and over again with my clients is that your growth is inseparable from the results that you want. So oftentimes, people think, Oh, I just need this new tool, I just need macro counting. Like that'll fix all of my problems. And in reality, you are just as important as the tool. And if you spend as much time on developing yourself and your own personal growth and diving into what makes you afraid and what underlying beliefs you have, you're going to be able to wield that tool so much better. And so we do both inside of MACROS 101. We're working by teaching you about the tool, how to use the tool, how to use it better, how to customize it for your own unique journey. And we're also addressing the person who is wielding the tool. And that's you and we're figuring out what makes you tick, what non-negotiables do you have? What fears do you have, and what underlying beliefs do you have that you may not even realize are holding you back? Why are you self-sabotaging? And when you come at your goals from both perspectives, utilizing the tool, utilizing it well, and growing the person who is using the tool, that's when the results really start to shine.

 

No. 3 If your question is can this work for me? The answer is yes  17:17

Okay, number three. I had the thought and I know so many people have this thought but when I was, you know, reading this blog post of Karina, I have the thought of like, Will this work for me? Right? Because she hadn't had any kids. She was like a young, totally different life than I had. She actually did a lot more weightlifting than I ever did at that point in time of my life. And so this question in the back of my mind was like, okay, so it worked for her but will it work for me? And I know a lot of you asked that question. And it may be because you have certain medical conditions, because of your age, because of your life situation, because of allergies. You know, there's a lot of unique aspects to you, that you feel like can impact your journey and make you have to ask the question of like, Yeah, I know macro counting works for all these other people, but like I'm a unique person isn't going to work for me? And if I could sit down and answer that question for you, I would say yes. And that is because macro counting, like macros, are already working, whether you're aware of them or not. You are already eating food like macros are happening. You are eating a certain amount of macros every single day, whether or not you're paying attention to it, whether or not you're being intentional about it. It's like gravity. It's like asking, “Does gravity work for me?” Right, and gravity works for all of us. It's working, whether or not you're thinking about it, whether or not you're paying attention to it. So the question is not, you know, can it work for me, it's already impacting you. The question really is do you want to let it just happen to you or do you want to be in control of it? And that's really the question because you're eating food anyway. So do you want to be intentional about that or do you just want to let it happen? And I think that that is really the core of utilizing macro counting as a tool is recognizing whether or not you count macros you're eating them. So what if we paid a little bit more attention to them, that we just were more intentional about them? And that's what I found, it was like, I was eating food. And I wouldn't call myself a crazy terrible eater, pre macros, I just kind of ate. And I just didn't pay a lot of attention to it. And what I found was, that when I put just a little bit more effort, and a little bit more intention behind it, everything changed. And I got so much better results because of it. 

 

No. 4 Nobody can look at your macros and tell you if they are exactly right for you  19:37

Alright, number four, friend, nobody, I say this really loving me, nobody can look at your macros, including me, including any other coach, including you, and say, Yes, those are exactly right for you. And if anybody ever does that, and says, looks at your macros, and said, boom, this is it. These are your macros, then walk away, because they're trying to sell you something. The truth is, is that all of the equations in the world, all of the calculators, all of the coaches in the world, what we are working with is the information that is provided to us, the information that we have, and we don't have all of the pieces of information. So we're working with the best amount of information that we have to get you the best starting point. That's what we're looking for as a starting point. Not an ending point, not saying these will market your macros forever, not saying these are the perfect macros for your body, we just want to give you a solid starting point. And that's what you'll get when you use my free guide at bicepsafterbabies.com/setmymacros, you can download my free guide to set your macros, but recognize what you're looking for is a sort of starting set of macros, just a good starting place. And then what really matters is over time taking feedback and data from your body, and then utilizing that information to zero in on what's going to be most effective for you. So if you're sitting there going, I don't know if these macros are right. Guess what I don't either. How are we gonna figure that out, we're gonna figure it out by starting to take action and getting feedback and data and analyzing it, seeing how your body responds, and making adjustments. 

 

What’s inside Confidence In Your Numbers program  21:14

And that's what we're going to talk about inside of Confidence In Your Numbers, I'm going to be teaching you how to get a really good starting point, right, we don't want just random numbers pulled from a calculator. Because it's gonna start you further away from where you want to be. Right, it's like there is this element of, we want you to start as close to an ideal set of numbers as possible, and then we're going to make minor tweaks to be able to get you there, we don't just want you to start with any set of macros, because then you're gonna have to make much larger tweaks to get to where you want to go. So what we're going to do in Confidence In Your Numbers is give you a really good set of starting macros, and help you to understand where those numbers come from. Because when you have that buy-in, and you understand where those numbers come from, they feel less like, I don't know, magical, they feel less like, I don't know why I'm so sad about these numbers, but someone told me I'm so suited. So I'm just going to hit them, you have buy-in and you have an understanding of the process that you went through to be able to come up with those numbers. So in Confidence In Your Numbers, we're going to get you a really good set of starting macros. And then I'm also going to teach you what you are looking for? What are you looking forward to telling you when you need to make those adjustments? How are you going to make those adjustments, what tweaks to make, first, what to consider when making those tweaks, we're going to walk through all of the things that most macro coaches won't teach you because they want you to pay them month after month after month to do it for you. But guess what, it's not that hard. It's not that hard, you can learn how to do it. And in fact, on a lot of levels, you doing it for yourself is going to be much more effective than a coach doing it for you. Because you will understand your body and you understand your lifestyle and the changes that are going to help it to fit better into your lifestyle. It's all learnable stuff, I promise you. And so that's what I'm gonna teach you inside of Confidence In Your Numbers. And if that's intriguing to you go to bicepsafterbabies.com/confidence. 

 

No. 5 You do not have to go to extremes to get results  23:02

Number five, you don't have to drown yourself in protein. You don't have to weigh every little thing. You don't have to hit your macros spot on each day, basically, extremes are not what get you results. Now again, if you're a fitness competitor, which I can't imagine you are listening to, that doesn't apply to you, right, you want an extreme body, you have to go to extremes to get it. If you're looking for a body that is maintainable and like you know, a lifestyle that you just want to live in, extremes are not required to get there. And in fact for most people, when they go to those extremes, and they make it so restrictive and they feel like I have to eat 180 grams of protein a day and I have to weigh my lettuce and I have to you know I have to be within one gram every single day because they feel like on some level that's going to get them faster results. Inevitably what it does is it causes you to hate the process and resent it and feel restricted and then what happens my friends, you quit. And the only way to guarantee you're not going to get results is to quit. And so loosen it up a little bit. This process, I talk about this all the time and MACROS 101, has to be enjoyable. You have to enjoy the process. Because if you don't, and you're in those extremes, and you're so tight, you know, tight holding on like white-knuckling it. You can't do that forever. And so if you find yourself going to the extreme, oh, I have to eat 140 grams of protein. I have to, even though I'm struggling to even eat 80 grams of protein, I'm failing because I have to eat 140 grams. But no, you don't. You don't have to eat 140 grams of protein. What if you just said I'm gonna eat 95 grams of protein? Could we start there? Could we increase your protein from 80 to 95? Heck, yeah. Would that make you way more successful than trying to and failing to hit 140 protein, because it's way too unachievable for you? So don't let yourself go to extremes. Extremes are not what get you results, and they especially are not what get you sustainable results. And if you're listening to this, I have to assume that you are not just someone who wants to lose weight, but you actually want to keep it off. 

 

No. 6 Cutting is sexy but most of your time should be at maintenance  25:13

Alright, number six, cutting is sexy but most of your time should be at maintenance. And if you're not familiar with the lingo, cutting just means you're in a diet phase, you're in a caloric deficit, and your goal is to lose fat. That's where everybody thinks that they should live their life. Because that's for a lot of women where they have lived their life, it's like it's always going from one diet to the next. And so they bring that mentality in and feel like I always should be cutting. Just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut until I get to the goal weight, and then I'll figure out maintenance ever, then I you know, I promise once I hit that goal, wait, I got it. I'll do maintenance after that. And that's backward, the majority of your time should be spent on maintenance. Cuts should be a very small percentage of the time. They should be intentional, they should be well executed. And the rest of the time you should be focusing on maintaining. I want you to ask yourself the question. Have I ever intentionally (intentionally is the keyword there) have I ever intentionally maintained my weight? Or like that was the goal? Am I successful if I maintain my weight? Most women the answer to that question is no. Maybe they've accidentally maintained their weight at some point, but it wasn't ever intentional. They would like to have been smaller. They were like I really want to be smaller, but I'm just maintaining. It's not what they wanted to do. Have you ever intentionally thought that it was your goal to just maintain your weight? If the answer is no, there's something there. And you probably need to spend some time on maintenance. Get to know yourself, get to know what your body's capable at maintenance, I promise you, it's a whole world that's opened up to you. So yeah, cutting is really sexy, and everybody wants to cut out where you spend a majority of your time, majority, your time should be maintenance. 

 

No. 7 Reverse dieting is often the path to reaching your goal weight  27:01

Number seven, this is a good one. I wish that I would have known that and I'll dive more into my experience with this. But I wish I would have known early on that reverse dieting doesn't happen when you reach the end goal. That often it is the path, which you have to go through to reach the end goal. So if you're not familiar with reverse dieting, I have a bunch of episodes on it. Episode 9, Episode 42, Episode 114, episode 170 are all on reverse dieting. And essentially, you know, the short version is that reverse dieting is getting you out of a caloric deficit. So it's slowly increasing your calories over time to bring you from a caloric deficit up to a maintenance level. And a lot of people feel like I'll do that when I hit my goal. When I hit my goal weight, I'm gonna cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, until I hit my goal weight, and then I will reverse. And I'm always having to coach clients through this idea that no friend, the reversing is part of the process to get to where you want to go. And if you're stuck in the cycle of always thinking, I just need to get that goal weight, I just need to get that goal weight and it's not working. Sometimes the reason is because we need to take a detour. And we need to do that reverse and we need to improve your metabolism and we need to take that time away from dieting so that the next time you come back to it, it's much more effective. I think about it like when we're driving so we often drive up to see my parents up in Northern California and we drive up to five. And the last time that we were coming home, it was like the day before, it was like the day after New Year's and everybody was trying to drive back to Southern California and it was super, super congested. And so we're sitting in this like really bad traffic on the five and we have our GPS out and our GPS suggested to us that we needed to take this detour, we needed to like get off the freeway, like freaking go way out of the way on all these like side streets. And then it was like, eventually it was going to connect us back to the freeway. But in terms of the miles that it added, it was like double or triple the amount of miles that we would have to travel. But you know, Google Maps told us that it would be faster than staying on the freeway. And so we listened, we went on Google, you know, we listened to Google Maps, and we got off, and we went through these, like dairy farms, and like all of these side streets and, you know, finally made it back past where the block was. And we were like, on our way, sailing back to Southern California. And I think about it a lot in terms of the reverse, the hesitation people have is like, if I do a reverse, it's going to waste time, it's going to take a lot more time. And I want to get to the results that I want faster. So I want to just stick it out and just keep cutting. And we don't realize that that's like saying I just want to keep sitting in this traffic. I just want to sit here, because this is the shortest route. distance wise, that may be true, this is the shortest route to get to where I want to go. But you don't realize that you're just basically sitting there, you're not moving forward. And you're convincing yourself that that's the fastest way when in reality, yeah, it may be more miles, you may be traveling way out of the way you thought you were gonna go. But in reality, it's gonna save you a lot of time, because you're actually going to get past that traffic, you're going to actually get to their site, and you're going to actually get to go towards your journey. So reverse, it is not what happens when you reach your goal weight, often it is the thing that you need to do in order to reach your goal weight. 

 

No. 8 Your weight doesn't tell the whole story 30:39

Alright, number eight, your weight doesn't tell the whole story. If you come to me, or you complain to yourself, or your spouse, and you say it's not working, I'm trying to it's not working. And the only measurement you are taking is the scale weight. You can't tell me that it's not working. This scale measures the amount of weight is basically your relativeness to gravity. That's what a scale measured is your weight. Your weight is not the same thing as fat, your body is made up of so much more than fat, it has blood, it has water, it has muscle tissue, it has organs, and it has hair. I mean, it has like, all of these things. And then yes, it has a skeleton, you know, it has your skeleton. And then yes, it does have fat. So you're taking this data point, that is an incomplete data point. And putting so much weight, hmm, pun intended, you're putting so much weight on it of saying this is the one number and if it's going down, it means I mean successful. And if it's going up, I'm being unsuccessful. Diversify the data points you're gathering. You know you'll never find a science test that just like gathers one data point? No, you're gathering multiple data points, so that you're able to assimilate those data points and figure out what's really going on, the more data you can gather, the clearer the picture starts to become. It's like those, if you're seeing those, I don't know my friend used to be really into these where it was like you'd see this like a little picture. And you couldn't really tell what it is. And then the next picture would be a little bit bigger, and it had like a little bit more detail. And then the next one would be a little bit bigger. And then finally it would like zoom out and you'd have a lot of detail and you'd be able to like see oh, okay, it's actually a shoe, I can see was a shoe until like, like, enhance the picture and got more detail. It's the same thing as if you're just taking one data point and making decisions on your journey based on that one data point, it's like looking at that tiny pixelated picture, with no quality to it and deciding what that represents. The more data points you can get, the more you can enhance that picture, the better decisions you can make, and the more clarity you have of what's going on with your body and then what you can do to keep the progress going. You must be taking measurements, you must be taking progress photos, you must be looking at those non-scale victories, and you must be incorporating all of those data points to figure out if it is working and if it's not what you need to do to change it. 

 

No. 9 Change takes time 33:11

Number nine, change takes time. There is a delayed response between you putting in the effort and you receiving a payout. It's just like when you plant a seed. Okay, nobody plants a seed. And then three days later is like dang, that seed hasn't sprouted yet. And then goes and digs up the seed and is like what's going on? Why is the seed not sprouting? It's like, yeah, no, it doesn't mean it's not working. The seeds work, it's just it's doing stuff underground first, and you'll eventually see it. Yeah, the trees are gonna eventually come. It's gonna eventually have a flower on it, but it doesn't happen right away. And that like delayed gratification and recognizing that when you plant the seed, it is not going to bloom the next day is something that you have to understand, it's going to take time, it's going to take the time it takes. And yeah, you may put in an effort. I love James Clear, he wrote the book Atomic Habits, and he has this really great metaphor where he talks about stored potential energy. And he makes the point that if you have an ice cube, and it's sitting out on a counter, and the ambient temperature is 29 degrees, you know, the ice cube won't melt. If you increase the ambient temperature to 30 degrees, again, not melting, increase it to 31 degrees, and nothing changes. And then once you hit that, like 32 degrees, right, you know, 32-33 degrees. Now all of a sudden, boom, you see, the eyes start to melt. But it's like that potential energy that's being sawed up. So you know, you increase the temperature from 29 to 30, it doesn't look like anything changes. But it doesn't mean that that potential energy isn't being stored up and that eventually, you're going to hit that tipping point. And it's going to actually make a difference. So often, people are so quick to say it's not working. So I'm working, huh, freak out, ah, and just recognize that just because you aren't seeing the results today does not mean that it's not working, it actually may mean that it's working just fine, you're increasing that temperature, and eventually, you're going to hit that tipping point. And that's when it's going to make the difference. 

 

No. 10 Getting smaller isn’t going to fix the internal dialogue you have about yourself 35:20

Number 10, this might be my favorite, getting smaller, hitting your goal weight, inserting any physical goal that you have, is not going to fix the inner dialogue that you have about yourself. On some level, so many of us have convinced ourselves, if I get abs I did this, life will be so much better when I get abs. Life will be so much better when I lose 40 pounds, I will feel so much better about myself, I will have so much more confidence, people will like me more, my spouse will like me more whatever it is, we have this idea that like it's going to fix all the problems that we have, it's going to fix those mean thoughts that we say to ourselves, it's going to fix what we say to ourselves when we look in the mirror, it's going to fix how we feel, and what we say when we, you know, try and close that it's going to fix those internal dialogues. I'm here to tell you, after coaching thousands of clients, it's just not true. That inner dialogue is not magically going to be fixed. And I can tell you, after seeing client after client after client reaches their goals, and then have this moment of like, wait, but I still am not confident what is going on here, I still don't like myself, I still am really insecure about my body. Even though I hit micepy goal weight, I still don't feel the way that I thought I was going to feel. And that is because changing the external body is never going to change the internal dialogue, the internal you, the internal part of yourself. And so if you're trying to change your external appearance, in an effort to change the internal part of you, it's never going to work. It will never work because you're not fixing what's broken. And so it's why we spend so much time on the internal stuff inside of MACROS 101, we spent a lot of time on the foundation of how we build this foundation from the inside out. So that one the changes stick and so that two, you can get there faster. Because I promise when you work on that internal dialogue first, it changes the way that you show up for yourself, changes the way you care for yourself, and changes the way you talk to yourself. And when you change the way they talk to you that changes the things that you do. And it makes all of the difference in the world. 

 

Recap 37:40

So that's it. Those are the 10 things that I wished I had known when I started counting macros. And hopefully, you can take these and learn from my mistakes and not have to make the same ones. So let's quickly just recap those 10 things I wish I knew. Number one, macro counting isn't a monolith. Number two, macro counting is a tool, and what matters as well is the person holding the tool. Number three if your question is can this work for me? The answer is yes. Number four, nobody can look at your macros and tell you if they are exactly right for you. Number five, you do not have to go to extremes to get results. Number six, cutting is sexy, but most of your time should be spent at maintenance. Number seven, reverse dieting isn't just something that happens after you reach your goal weight, it is often the path to reaching your goal weight. Number eight, your weight doesn't tell the whole story. Make sure you're taking multiple data points. Number nine change takes time. And number 10 getting smaller isn't going to fix the internal dialogue you have about yourself. 

 

Take away 38:53

So I hope this list has been used thinking it has the wheel spinning. Have you been reflecting on your own journey or the decisions that you're making or maybe the questions that you've had, as you've approached, utilizing this tool of macro counting for yourself? I hope that has been helpful for you. And if you love the podcast, it would mean the world to me if you share it, share it with a friend, or with a colleague or sister and have them be able to have the same experience you may be having now where it's like, this aha moment of like, oh, that's what's going on. That's why this wasn't working for me. That's why this felt so hard. It doesn't have to be that way. I'm so glad you're here.  I'm so glad you're listening to the podcast. And one last time. If you're interested in attending Confidence In Your Numbers to be able to learn how to set and adjust those macros. Go to bicepsafterbabies.com/confidence. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber, now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything. 

 

Outro

Hey, friend if you heard the news. We have a Biceps After Babies Radio Insider list. If you love Biceps After Babies Radio, you don't want to miss a thing. Head to bicepsafterbabies.com/insider to join the group. You'll be the first to know all things about the podcast, see some behind the scenes and get special messages from yours truly. We want to make this a special community for those who are fans of the podcast. And last, did this episode particularly resonate with you? If so, will you please share it? Either send the link to someone who would find it valuable or take a screenshot and post it to your social media and tell your friends and family why they should listen. Make sure you tag me @biceps.after.babies so I can hear your feedback and give you a little love. And you know, if you aren't already following me on Instagram or Facebook, that's the perfect time to hit that follow button. Thank you for being here and listening to Biceps After Babies Radio.