There are a few key things you need when tracking your macros; a scale, a goal, and an app to put all your information in. I choose to use MyMacros, but there are lots of different apps that will track your food. This app costs a few dollars and you can get the updated version for an extra little fee. I have the basic app and it works just fine for me. Let me say this here, that I do not let the app tell me what my goal is. Many apps will calculate a macro goal for you, but I like to do the math myself with two different formulas.
One thing that I love about this app is that you can follow people. I follow different friends and clients to keep a check on their food and make sure they are inputting food correctly. Another perk to following people is you can copy their customized foods and the recipes they have created. This is extra helpful when you are eating the same food as someone and they have already created the recipe in their app. Just copy it to your daily food and you are done. This is how Josh inputs most of his meals. I make the recipe in my app, create the number of servings, and he copies my meal for that day. It is really very simple.
The downfall to tracking with an app like this, is you have to double check the food nutrition. Even when you search for food to add to your meals or in your recipes, the “verified” information is not always correct. This is annoying, to say the least. I am not tracking to get an estimate of what I am eating, I want to know 100% what I am getting. Having to research food nutrition and compare it to what the app has stored is not user-friendly. When I first started tracking, I would look at the USDA food website to get an accurate amount of protein in my chicken, beef, pork, etc. I created custom foods in my app to ensure that I was getting the correct information. When you pay for an app, you expect it to do all of these things for you, please don’t assume that it does. Even when you scan barcodes or food labels, they do not input the information correctly. DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING. If you are taking the time to track your macros you might as well do it right.
There are other tracking apps, like RP that tell you exactly what to eat and even when. It is “simple, stupid” as one friend of mine put it. This is great for those people that literally don’t know anything about macros, have a hard time making sure they eat and need help getting started. What I don’t like is that you cannot enter in recipes. I don’t like the basic meal prep food, so I can’t just pick from a list of carbohydrates, fat, and protein and only eat that. I want a good meal, which is why I track my food on my own.
Entering in recipes and even just figuring out a serving of an entire bag of cooked rice can make you feel like you are doing a science experiment. It takes time and a good deal of effort to meal prep and track the way that I do, but I love it. I still eat some great food and I keep track of my macros without going over. I modify every recipe that I cook to ensure that I don’t bust our macros on one meal. This takes some planning and strategically having low-carbohydrate and high-carbohydrate meals on the same day to balance each other out. I don’t eat a lot of fat to begin with, simply because I love to eat carbohydrates more, but I make sure that I don’t blow my fat macros out of the water on one meal either. I try to keep it as balanced as possible and I also time my largest portion of carbohydrates around my workout.
To give you an idea of my typical day, my macros goals are 2098 calories, 175 grams of protein, 219 grams of carbohydrates, and 58 grams of fat. I just changed my goals because I am no longer breastfeeding and have really had the same goal since I had Anderson. For some reason, I did not change it after I stopped breastfeeding him. Some days I hit my macro goals, some days I might go slightly over, and others I don’t hit them 100% but I come close. If I have not worked out, then I don’t stress about hitting my macros. I have been tracking for about 3 years now, so I know pretty well if I have overeaten or not without using the app.
Technically, if you hit your calories you will hit your macros. This is not always true because there are a lot of foods that have “empty calories” or calories that are not attached to a specific macro-nutrient. This is why it is important to eat healthy and clean food. You will hit your caloric intake max before you hit your macro-nutrient goals if you are eating a bunch of junk. Tracking your food gives you ownership of what you are putting into your body. Actually having to write down what you have done, makes it more real sometimes and gives you a better perspective of what kind of path you are on.
If you want to lose weight, track your food and see how many calories you are really eating throughout the day. You might find that you are overeating when you get home from work and are fixing the kids their snack. It is hard not to grab some of their snacks and eat it here and there. I know I am guilty of doing this. I like to weigh/measure out a serving just for reference so I can make an educated guess on how much I am snacking on with my kids. If you know snacking with your kids is just something you can’t stop doing or should I say won’t stop doing, then make room for those calories in your day. Don’t use up your carbohydrates for supper on goldfish with the kids. You technically aren’t starving, you could wait another hour to eat the carbs with your meal, but you blew them on your kids’ snack time.
Make smart food choices and make sure you double check your app. Go a step further and create custom foods based on your research. Once you have created that food, you’ll know that you have the correct nutritional information for the next time that you decide to eat that food. I saw a caption earlier about keto that said: “keto works if you work”. This is true for any diet or meal plan. If you put in the work, it will work. It doesn’t matter which lifestyle you choose, if you put in the work, it will work. Simple. Pick a lifestyle choice that works for your life, not one that leaves you miserable that you will eventually quit because it is not practical.
New Food Review
This dish was pretty simple and easy to make. I ended up cooking it like a sheet pan dinner with the chicken and vegetables. I did not marinate the chicken, I didn’t want to have to wait to cook it. I had planned on eating this as a bowl, but decided to not eat the rice after all. I would definitely cook this again with the modifications that I made, but it was not my favorite meal.
Pineapple Glazed Pork Roast with Bacon Wild Rice Stuffing
THIS STOLE THE SHOW! No kidding, I wish I could have eaten this everyday. The stuffing was amazing and the rub on the outside of the pork was so good. I didn’t do the recipe exactly as it stated, because I never do, and it still was great. It did have a good bit of fat, so I was strapped on fat the rest of the day. The side of rice for 5 servings (it made 6, but I used one serving in the loin) was 133 calories, 9.6 grams of protein, 16.9 grams of carbohydrates, and 3.1 grams of fat. The stuffed loin per serving was 304 calories. 41.4 grams of protein, 8.8 grams of carbohydrates, and 10.4 grams of fat. I didn’t wrap the loin, instead we cut the center out to stuff. I cooked the center as well and added it to our meal for extra protein. 100% making this again, ASAP!
I really like this dish a lot. I ended up only using a 1/3 cup soy sauce and 2/3 cup vinegar in the crockpot with the chicken, but it was great. Last week there were mounds of tomatillos, this week they were all gone. Luckily, I had some salsa verde in the pantry so I used that in its place. I still added in all the paste and garlic, it just didn’t have that fresh roasted taste. I put the chicken over rice, added the salsa and mango. I had some pineapple left over from the pork loin, so I added that as well. Delicious. Next time I will have more mango to add to it. Per serving this salsa (without the meat) was 94 calories, 2.9 grams of protein, 9.8 grams of carbohydrates, and 5.3 grams of fat. The amount of total carbohydrates and protein depended on how much meat and rice you used. I added my sauce for the meat to my salsa recipe and split the meat and salsa into equal servings so it was in my app correctly. (I’m telling you some recipes are like doing trigonometry.)
M E N U
BBQ Sandwich
Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice Pilaf
Pork Bowl with Salsa
Pork Loin Chops + Balsamic Parmesan Roasted Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes
BBQ Sandwich
There is no link for this recipe, because it is so simple that you don’t need anything to guide you. I love being able to get a pork butt cook it one way and make two completely different meals. If you see BBQ sandwich on my menu, pork tacos/bowls will be on the menu as well.
I cook the meat in the crockpot for 8 hours on low. To season, I evenly coat all sides with yellow mustard and season with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, and paprika. Once the meat is cooked thoroughly, let it cool and then separate the meat from the fat. It really does defeat the purpose of healthy tacos and sandwiches if you leave the fat in there. Plus it is just gross.
Make sure you weigh out meat for tacos and the sandwiches prior to mixing in the sauce/salsa for each meal. To avoid overeating or coming up short on meat for the second meal, I weigh out the total amount of meat and then separate the meat according to how many meals I need to make.
I do not add the BBQ sauce until I am ready to eat each serving. I make sure to weigh out my sauce for every sandwich before I put on the bun. Simply put the bowl on the scale, weigh out the meat and the sauce in grams or ounces, depending on the nutritional label. Toast your bun, top with the meat, and pickles, and enjoy!
*Changes I make to meet my macros
Ingredients: 1 Boston Butt Paprika Salt Pepper Yellow Mustard Onion Powder Chili Powder Garlic Powder Brioche Bun BBQ Sauce Pickles
Slow Cooker Chicken and Rice Pilaf
This is a great easy recipe. I love anything I can throw into the crockpot and just let it cook on it’s own. When I cook this I don’t shred the chicken into the dish after it has cooked. I take the chicken out and keep it separate from the rest of the dish. This makes it much easier to count my macros. I weigh out the rest of the food from the crockpot and divide it into 4 containers equally. A lot of crockpot meals I encounter with carrots end up being sweet, but this one is not.
Without the chicken accounted for, the macros for 4 servings the last time I cooked it was 174 calories, 5.8 grams of protein, 31.7 grams of carbohydrates, and 2.5 grams of fat.
*Changes I make to meet my macros
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups wild rice *1 cup 3 cups low sodium chicken broth juice of 1 lemon 2 teaspoons dried parsley 1 carrot, cut into 1 inch pieces 1 cup wild mushrooms, torn 2 pounds bone-in chicken breast and or thighs 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil * Omit 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves 1 tablespoon fresh chopped sage kosher salt and pepper 4 shallots, halved 1 sprig fresh rosemary
Pork Bowl with Salsa
Normally, I make pork tacos after we have bbq sandwiches, but this bowl is so much better! I loved this salsa with the pulled pork over rice so much more than my usual bottled verde with peppers and onions.
The last time I made this salsa the macros were 52 calories, 0.6 grams of protein, 13 grams of carbohydrates and 0.2 grams of fat for 4 servings. If you want to keep it low carbohydrate then you can use the high fiber/low carb tortillas or just eat the meat with the salsa on top.
I will be using the same pulled pork as I did in the sandwiches. I do not use a BBQ sauce when I cook the pork butt, so it is easy to use in different recipes
*Changes I make to meet my macros
Ingredients: * using the pulled pork from the crockpot and putting it over jasmine rice with the salsa Salsa: 6 small tomatillos, husked 1 jalapeño 4 green onions juice of 1 lime 1/4 cup cilantro, roughly chopped 1 cup diced pineapple
I am always a little hesitant to mess with your basic grilling recipes. Kabobs are easy, super healthy and can be done without a marinade, but I really enjoyed this marinade on the steak last time. To round out the meal you could always add some rice or leave it as is for your low carbohydrate meal. You can easily meal prep these and grill them the night you plan to eat them or cook them ahead of time. We will likely cook them the night of since we are outside playing with the kids anyway. Last time I forgot to add the pineapple, but I wont forget this time.
*Changes I make to meet my macros
Ingredients: about 8 metal skewers (or wooden skewers, soaked in water for 10 minutes) 1/3 cup soy sauce 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil *Omit 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1 to 2 tablespoons honey *1 ounce 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper about 1.5 pounds boneless top sirloin steak center cut, diced into bite-sized pieces 1 red bell pepper, diced into bite-sized pieces 1 yellow or orange bell pepper, diced into bite-sized pieces 1 red onion, diced into bite-sized pieces 1 large zucchini, diced into bite-sized pieces * mushrooms, 3 green bell peppers, 1 red onion about 1 1/2 cups fresh pineapple, diced into bite-sized pieces * 1 cup pineapple salt and pepper, for seasoning to taste, if desired 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, cilantro, or basil for garnishing; optional
Pork Loin Chops + Balsamic Parmesan Roasted Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes
This is just a good basic meat and side dish. Most of my dishes are bowls or one pot/pan meals, so I am happy to have something easy to track. For this dish you won’t have to create a recipe, you can just count the amount of spears and tomatoes you have, and weigh out the parmesan. I am going to get a block of cheese, not the shredded container kind.
*Changes I make to meet my macros
Ingredients: Pork loin cut into chops Spray olive oil Desired seasoning 1 lb asparagus *2 bundles 2 cups cherry tomatoes cut in half *2-3 pints 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese salt and pepper to taste 1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
E N J O Y !
