Why You May Not Be Seeing Results

Common Mistakes When Tracking Food

Have you ever felt personally victimized when it comes to MyFitnessPal (or whatever calorie tracker you use)?! Trust me. You are definitely NOT alone. I know you have been there… it is the end of the day and your macro totals look absolutely perfect!!! You logged everything you ate. You are doing everything right! So why isn’t the scale moving accordingly? Why aren’t you seeing the results you want?

Ways You May Be Sabotaging Your Progress

• You are eyeballing instead of actually measuring – I know we have all seen the comparison picture of 2 tablespoons of peanut butter vs reality. It is VERY easy to overeat when you are eyeballing portion sizes. Weighing food may seem time consuming, and it is in the beginning. But guess what?! You don’t have to do it forever! You do though need to weight out food for awhile before you can start accurately guesstimating. A calorie tracking app only works if you are actually inputting everything in correctly. Hot tip = always weigh your meat in ounces and then everything else will be weighed in either grams or ounces. One more hot tip = weigh your meat/fish when it is raw. If you have to weigh it after it is cooked, multiply what it weighs on the scale by 1.1-1.5 to get the raw weight. Let me break it down a little further. When weighing (cooked) well-done meat, multiply the weight by 1.5 and use the meat’s raw nutrition facts. When weighing (cooked) rare meat, multiply the weight by 1.1 and use the meat’s raw nutrition facts.

• You are using genetic entries – a ‘sandwich’ could mean A LOT of different things. You need to break down the sandwich: 2 slices of bread, 2 ounces of turkey, swiss cheese, mustard, etc. Another example – quit using entries like ‘small apple’! Weight it out and record ’80 grams pink lady apple’.

• You are logging as you go (aka NOT pre-planning out your day) – WORST NIGHTMARE! This is the easiest way to forget things that you ate during the day. Plan your day out the night before so you have no excuse not to crush it! If it’s not logged, don’t eat it! Simple. No reason to second guess how to feel any missing macros if it has been planned out already.

• You are not double-checking pre-populated entries – There will be times when you scan a label and something totally different will pull up. So make sure you double check! You don’t want to eat something that is 300 calories and accidentally log it as something that is only 150 do you? That is a mistake that is easily avoidable.

• You are underestimating macros when you guesstimate anything you eat – it is very easy to miss any oils and sauces in foods when we are eating out. Make sure you over-estimate. Choose the higher calorie entry just to be safe.

• You are eating back the calories you burned during exercise – DON’T DO THIS!!! First of all, the calorie trackers we use are not the most accurate devices. Second, when you figure out your macros with an actual equation and not just with an online calculator, you are already figuring in your activity level (lower total calories if you aren’t as active vs. higher total calories if you are more active in the day). So if you are eating back the calories you burned, you are most likely putting yourself in a surplus, not a deficit.

Hope this breakdown helps you pinpoint where you might be going wrong when it comes to tracking macros and using calorie tracking apps. Still looking for a little extra help when it comes to determining how many calories you should be eating or what breakdown of macros would be best for you? Reach out to me! I would love to help get you on the right path to a healthy lifestyle!

- Body By Riss