The 2 Life-Changing Skills I Needed

In 2016, I set goals with the help of my trainer and nutrition specialist. I was ready to go all in and give 100% effort.

The 2 life-changing skills I began to use immediately once my goals were set…

1)WEIGHING MY FOOD ON A SCALE

2)TRACKING MY WEIGHED FOOD> IN A FOOD APP ON MY PHONE> FOR A HUGE AMOUNT OF TIME

I needed to put on muscle. I had done an InBody scale weigh-in for the first time in 2016 and my muscle was on the line between average and below average. As a 46-year old woman, this scared me. I needed to lift weights and make sure my nutrition was supporting muscle gain. It was this weigh-in that initiated the reason for the goals we settled on.

These skills, without any doubt in my mind, helped me make sure I was eating the right amounts to give me the healthy body composition I was working towards. I don’t think I could’ve hit my goals, or could continue to hit current goals without them.

I’ve heard push back when it comes to weighing and tracking food…it is restrictive, it creates disorder, it causes a bad relationship with food, it’s obsessive to think about food all the time, no one eats like that, it causes you to ignore your own internal cues. I have no doubt those scenarios have played out for some people, and that sucks. We have no guarantees about anything in life…except that time keeps passing. I wasn’t satisfied with it passing and nothing changing so I took the chance on this new way of managing my nutrition.

At times in life, I have under eaten… weighing and tracking helped me eat ENOUGH of the types of foods I needed to improve my nutrition. I have also engaged in the habit of eating less during the week and then over eating and binge drinking alcohol on the weekends. I was constantly snacking in between meals during the week because the meals I was eating weren’t large enough to sustain me until the next time I ate. My snacks were of little nutritional value.

Weighing and tracking helped me learn:

-what my maintenance calories were

-how to eat calorie amounts appropriate for my digestion and other systems

-how to eat and drink foods I love without restriction

-how to make sure nutrition was supporting goals (in fat loss, in building muscle, in maintaining muscle, for general health)

-what my portions needed to look like on my plate

-the nutritional value of ALL foods and what vitamins/minerals I needed more of

-if a food was mostly a protein, a carb, or a fat

-accountability in eating the right amount; not under eating and not over eating

-I’d always have a tool to fall back on if needed

-how to take the principles I learned and apply them without weighing/tracking In the future

-how incredibly carb/fat/high calorie driven our environment is when eating out

-how much alcohol can bump up total daily calories

No one has to track their food obviously, but if they want to know if they’re consuming the vitamins/minerals/calories that are essential for good health or have aspirations for a body composition goal, in my opinion, it’s a non-negotiable for a period of time to weigh/track your food to become knowledgeable about how to use nutrition to work in your favor.

These skills were life changing for me because they led to eating food in a healthy way, not in a harmful way.