What is all this MACROs talk?

A few weeks back I had some blood work done to help me find any food allergies that I wasn’t aware of. Unfortunately for me, the results weren’t in my favor, which meant I would have to restrict my already restricted diet. In an effort to figure out how to eat well and still meet my calories, I started researching IIFYM for the 100th time.

IIFYM is the short hand for “If It Fits Your Macros”. “Macros” is short for Macronutrients, which are Carbohydrates, Fats (lipids) and Protein, the building blocks for keeping you alive. WHEW, way to make it confusing, right? To make my life easier, I asked around our box to get some first hand information and then I sought out the Eat To Perform (ETP) website to use their calculator (link here).

No, I haven’t purchased their program yet but I am sure it’s in my future. Okay, so all that information aside this is what I have discovered after a week of tracking my Macros with MyFitnessPal (link here). I am grossly underfed. I have been hungry since I started Crossfit and had blamed it on my increased metabolism from working out consistently.

Nope, girl needs to eat! I was consuming too much fat, a 1/3 of my protein and about 1/3 my carbs. The worst part was, I would feel guilty for eating more because I thought I was eating too much. What has this world of dieting done to my brain?? Even now after tracking, weighing and measuring everything I eat, I am dumbfounded at how little I take in.

For instance, my breakfast on Friday was 5 slices of bacon, 5.75oz of cantaloupe and a banana at 3.63oz and a gallon or so of black coffee. That breakfast was 18g of fat, 37g of carbs and 17g of protein and a tiny 374 calories (no I don’t count calories but posting for reference). This breakfast was NOT enough food but to my brain (see the full plate below), I was overeating. I am struggling to get in my Macros and who would have thought it would be this hard?

I had an orange for breakfast with my bacon and cantaloupe today and rejoiced when I saw how high it was in carbs, I might be the first person on the planet to do that! So in the last week I have been eating to fuel my body and to fill my Macros and every day I am short somewhere. Although not with my fats, those are easy to fill! My food allergies restrict me so I can’t just fill my Macros with eggs, bread or rice, which I see is quite easy as I watch my husband eat.

When I started tracking my Macros an amazing thing happened. I broke the guilt and shame cycle of eating. In my past I tracked my calories and allotted myself 1,300 calories a day with mass quantities of cardio. I succeeded in unknowingly starving myself into a “skinny fat” girl. I didn’t have the information I needed to know that what I was doing was wrong; all I knew was that I was hungry. I thought my stomach was being greedy but apparently, my body was right all along.

So as I go into week two of tracking my Macros, I am feeling better emotionally and physically. I am still working out the kinks and trying to find ways to fill my Macros without making bad decisions, although, you can use IIFYM to eat the foods we reserve as “cheat meals”. This way of eating is what makes this journey mentally healthier for me. I don’t want to see foods as “good” or “bad” anymore, I just want to see food as fuel.

You can find me on MyFitnessPal as: Kettlebells & Quads