FightSmith Training

To get to where you WANT to go, you need some metrics to understand where you are and how you got there.

I am a BIG believer in tracking your food.
Personally I think adopting someone else’s “meal plan” is a bad idea and sets up some bad habits- by that I mean, if I adopt a specific meal plan “to get healthy” then I associate good vs bad foods and “eat this when I want to lose weight”…and when you do lose the weight, what food do you go back to? Exactly.

I propose to track your own food. Make zero changes. Just track it. There’s all kinds of apps nowadays to do it free too: MyFitnessPal, LoseIt, Calory- or even trainer specific apps (like mine).

Ok so seriously, some things for free here. If I got you started on weight loss.

1- Start by tracking the food you’re already eating. Don’t worry about making changes. Just get 1 weeks worth of what your food habits are currently. It’ll be eye opening.

Yeah I know, tracking can seem difficult- I promise it’s not. Most major restaurants now have their food in those apps- like, their complete meals built out for you. So no worries if you eat out.
It’s even easier to log it. You cooked it right? You know exactly how much of everything went into it. Write it down on paper first if you need and actually plug it into the app later.
But week 1- track what you eat. Be honest. And accurate.

2- eat those same foods, BUT, try to hit the calorie goals by logging the amount first that meets your calorie goals. Then limit yourself to eat only what you calculated.

No magic food. No crazy changes to your diet. We can worry about protein, fat, carbs and sugar later. First things first- let’s focus on JUST calories.

3- Find that diet doesn’t work for you. Maybe constantly hungry now? Can’t fight temptation. NOW is the time we look back at your log and see what foods we need to swap or make small changes to. Fine tune it but still leave it with food that you actually LIKE.

That’s it.
Seriously.
That’s a small step in the right direction, but one that doesn’t totally rearrange your life with different grocery shopping, meal prepping or planning. Start small. That’s perfectly fine and maintainable.

🤘👍

Weight management is seriously a game of math. And honestly it’s not near as complicated as it looks.

This is a reminder that we don’t need to over complicate things.
Yes, the formula I wrote on the board is an actual formula for figuring out what your daily caloric intake should be based on multiple variables: age, s*x, height, weight, and daily activity level.

But guess what? You can find this for free on a simple google search! Even basic meal tracking apps like MyFitnessPal, LoseIt, and even my own app has this formula BUILT IN. It’ll do the work for you.

And this is where we should all start. ALL OF US.
Don’t get super bogged down in the weeds of details, hot topics, and the current “big thing” to focus on. At the end of the day it’s a simple math equation:
Gain weight: eat more calories than your body needs
Maintain weight: eat the exact amount of calories your body needs
Lose weight: eat less calories than your body needs

Doesn’t matter what the program, diet or trends say. At the end of the day is a biophysical equation of energy. You gotta know what you need and understand energy requirements before you decide to change it.