Macros

[paleolala]

Hey all,

I'm at day 35 (aiming for w100) and I know you're not meant to calorie count during the whole 30, but I've just plugged in the last few days of eating to see where my macros are sitting after a particularly lacklustre crossfit session tonight. I wanted to check what kind of a mix I'm sitting at with my new eating habits and see if there is room for improvement anywhere.

I wondered if anyone has recommendations for a suggested macro mix for someone who is pretty active (a bike commuter + 3-4 crossfit sessions, a run and a bikram class a week), but with quite a bit of body fat to lose? I've been lacking a bit of discipline and sneaking in a bit too much fruit and a few too many nuts lately and I want to get these under control and make sure I'm getting all the fuel I need.

I'd like to be able to tweak my intake slightly to maximise my performance, but I'd also love to start slimming down.

Would love any advice! Thanks!

[Tom Denham]

Violating the Whole30 guidelines is not a good way to make a success of the program or to achieve your own goals. Adding your tweaks and adjustments will not make the Whole30 better, but it almost certainly will make your experience worse. We tell you not to count calories or set macro goals because that is how you make yourself crazy, send your hormones out of whack, and become miserable. Don't do it!

You are trying to mash together an old diet paradigm with a lifestyle it doesn't fit. Good does not come from such additions. We know the old diet paradigm does not work. Let it stay dead to you. Stay with the Whole30 program. The Meal Template is your friend. Read it again and then make any adjustments that you need...

http://whole9life.com/book/ISWF-Meal-Planning-Template.pdf

[CAK911]

Just to echo what Tom is saying with my personal experience: I did a first Whole30 where I kept meticulous track of everything I ate (I know, bad, but I just couldn't let go to a habit that I had formed over years and years); I'm now doing a second Whole30 where I only keep a basic list log here on the forum. I'm about 8 days from the end, but I can tell you right now it's working better than the previous carefully plotted, measured, rationalized, and tracked Whole30. At least some of that, I am sure, is that I'm just not having to worry or think about food that much. We cook at home, we eat at home or I pack a compliant lunch. It's easy-ish, and it's a huge load off worry-wise. So, basically, I'm 100% on the "trust the program" bandwagon at this point.

[paleolala]

I think I've been misunderstood so I'll try this again.

I sailed through my first 30 days with no off roading, without measuring my intake (a habit I was happy to let go of) and I'm feeling excellent.

I've decided to continue for another 70 days because there are some habits I want to bed down and I want to find an ideal balance for myself.

As part of this, I'm back to training more consistently and I'm finding the balance I've settled in for my first 30 days clearly isn't going to meet my requirements now that I'm working much harder physically. I've been referring to the Meal Template and I haven't hit the jackpot yet.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and can talk to what kind of protein/carb/fat balance they've found most suitable with a similar workload. I'm well aware this varies for everyone, but I wonder what has been effective for others. I just want to know if I need to adjust my balance to accommodate more carbs/protein with each meal.

[Tom Denham]

If you are more physically active and lifting heavy weights, you will probably need more protein to support your muscles and more carbs to give you energy. The meal template invites you to move up from one palm-size portion to as much as two palm-size portions depending upon what it takes to keep you from feeling hungry. If you are working hard, one palm-size serving is likely to leave you hungry between meals. You will need to experiment to discover whether the sweet spot for you is 1.5 palm-size portions, 1.75, or 2, for example. Basically the same thing with carbs. If you feel that you are dragging and not feeling enough energy, try more carbs. I find that when I am very active, I do best when eating one whole sweet potato per day. Fat is the most variable part of the eating plan. It is important to eat the minimum recommended in the meal template, but then you can add more healthy fats as needed to keep you from being hungry between meals.

A grumpy old man like me doesn't say this very often, but you really are special and unique. This approach to eating is designed to customize what you eat and how much you eat to you. There is no ideal macro ratio for people in general.

[paleolala]

Awesome. Thanks for that Tom. Trying to find the tricky balance between performance and losing the extra body fat I'm carrying. And I'm impatient in that I can only take a certain number of poor workout performances so I thought I'd be able to draw from the vast amount of collected wisdom here!

[Katey Dager]

I was actually wondering the same thing for different reasons. I'm on Day 3 and I have been so hungry, so I was hoping to figure out where I was lacking by entering in what I had eaten and seeing if I had enough in each area, but I'm not really sure where to start. I seem to be fine in terms of the amount of calories I need, but I feel like something must be off if I am hungry an hour after each meal.

[missmary]

I seem to be fine in terms of the amount of calories I need, but I feel like something must be off if I am hungry an hour after each meal.

Katey, if you are hungry an hour after each meal, then you aren't fine in terms of the amount of calories you are consuming. Listen to your body. Don't count calories. and EAT MORE if you are hungry, more protein and fat in particular should help.

[Susan W]

Katey don't fall prey to logging and counting. It will do you more harm than good. Those numbers mean nothing.

Are you following the meal template? No way should you be hungry an hour after you eat.

Can you give us an example of what you are eating on a typical day and general portion sizes?

[Katey Dager]

Katey don't fall prey to logging and counting. It will do you more harm than good. Those numbers mean nothing.

Are you following the meal template? No way should you be hungry an hour after you eat.

Can you give us an example of what you are eating on a typical day and general portion sizes?

I thought I was following the template, but looking at it again, I think I was depending on cooking fats too much and not adding enough.

For breakfast today I had three pieces of bacon, half a yellow squash(I'm not sure if they have a proper name--it's like a zucchini but yellow)cooked in the leftover fat, and half an orange. For lunch I had two aidell's sausages, a few slices of onion, and about a cup of cabbage, all cooked in olive oil. I haven't had dinner yet, but as an example, yesterday I had a small boneless ribeye steak cooked in ghee, a portobello mushroom, and half each a zucchini and a yellow squash roasted with olive oil. I'm not sure, but it is probably a lack of protein and, in particular, fat, as missmary said.

[Susan W]

Yes, you need more food girl. More of everything. Is the bacon whole 30 friendly? It's hard to find bacon that has zero sugar in the ingredients. Also, my feeling on bacon is that it makes a better condiment than protein source. It's mostly fat and you'd have to eat so much to make a palm sized piece of protein.

The meal template is this:

A palm sized piece of protein and up to 2 palms worth if you need it. A thumbsized amount of healthy fat and up to two. The rest of the plate should be veggies which would be about 2-3 cups.

Almost everyone can hold 3 eggs if not more, so that is an example of a proper amount of eggs as your protein.

Now go eat! :0)

[Katey Dager]

I was surprised (pleasantly so) that it was not difficult at all for me to find compliant bacon. I was shopping with my boyfriend looking at all the bacon packages, and right as I said "I probably won't find one without sugar", the one I had picked up was coincidentally fine. You're right that it is hard to get enough protein from bacon alone. I would probably be better off having a couple of eggs with just one or two slices of bacon(it's pretty thin stuff).

I felt nauseated earlier(probably because I didn't eat enough--that has happened to me before), so I roasted a butternut squash for something gentle on my stomach. I'm currently eating half of it with (plenty of) coconut oil and I feel much better, so I will cook up some protein after this. It's probably not preferable to have my dinner in stages like this, but like I said, I wasn't feeling well, so it was easier this way.

Thank you for the advice. I think I was just throwing the amount of oil in the pan that I needed to cook my food and not being conscious of the fact that I need more fat than that. I did low-carb successfully for a year, so I feel pretty silly screwing up like this, as my meals are not terribly different! I will be more mindful of the meal template to make sure I am getting enough of everything, and maybe explore some new sources of fat(since some of my old favorites like peanut butter and cream are off the table).

Thanks again!

[Susan W]

Katey no worries...it takes a moment to get the true hang of this way of eating. I was a serial dieter until losing a bunch on a plan that, in a weird way, led me to Paleo and W30. I say weird because the 84 lbs was lost eating space foods. I happily would have given up the rapid loses for the health I have now. This is my 5th whole something (currently I am almost halfway through a W100) and nothing comes close to this plan.