Tracking calories and protein is often mistaken for being restrictive. But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Tracking what you eat simply makes you more aware of what's going in your body and it actually gives you MORE freedom to eat what you want.
As an example:
Yesterday, I ate a McDonald's double quarter pounder with cheese AND a Filet-O'-Fish sandwich for dinner.
That was my last meal.
My daily calories finished out at 2,460. My daily calorie goal is 2,600. My total energy expenditure (maintenance calories) is around 3,000 calories. So even in a cutting phase, I was able to eat 2 McDonald's sandwiches and actually stayed under my calorie deficit goal.
Equally importantly is that I finished the day with 204 grams of protein. My protein goal is anything over 200 grams.
So, I was able to maintain my calorie deficit AND consume my protein goal for the day while eating fast food.
Am I recommending eating McDonald's or other fast food regularly? Of course not!
But, since I diligently track my calories and macros, I was able to eat calorically dense fast food guilt-free.
I ate very high protein, low calorie foods all day which allowed me to have a lump of calories to fill in at the end of the day, and I was jonesing for a couple McDonald's sandwiches and I was able to make it work....
This is nutritional freedom!
You only achieve this freedom by actually tracking what you consume.
If you're not tracking your calories and protein, and you don't really know how many calories and protein you are eating, what are you waiting for? All of my clients see better results when they begin tracking their nutrition and they all begin to have a healthier relationship with food as a result.
And if you eat fast food regularly, you will find out that the calories in fast food are NOT worth consuming regularly, and will reserve those fast food feedings for rare days when you intentionally less during the rest of the day.
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