{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Episode #105: Quit Counting Macros with Christina Montalvo","description":"Christina Montalvo is the founder of The Confidence Project. She\u2019s a personal trainer and intuitive eating coach, with a course called Diet Culture Drop Out. Today, we focused on counting macros. Christina has a really interesting story about getting started in the wellness space, and how dramatically her approach has changed since those early days! To learn why you shouldn\u2019t be counting macros, listen in today! (Plus, a few notes on why using your phone to tell you when to cook, workout, or go to sleep isn\u2019t the greatest idea.) Reminder: You have two days left to leave a review of the podcast and get FREE access to my holiday workshop! This is a fun giveaway in honor of my 100th episode, and I\u2019d be honored if you took part! Just leave your review and send me your screenshot. In November, I\u2019ll send you your access to the workshop and feel amazing throughout the holidays! Anti-Diet Strength and Conditioning Christina started as fat loss coach! Since then, she\u2019s realized her entire education was steeped on intentional weight loss. Being a personal trainer meant helping people lose fat\u2026.it just came with the territory. However, since then she\u2019s pivoted. Now, she owns an all-women\u2019s strength and conditioning gym outside of Chicago, where she\u2019s an anti-diet strength and conditioning coach. Her first memory of her body being a \u201cproblem\u201d was when she was 10 years old. That\u2019s when she started dieting, which launched her disordered relationship to eating and food. It was never considered disordered by others however; instead, it was applauded as what she \u201cshould\u201d do to maintain her lifestyle and weight. During these time, she tried pretty much every diet under the sun. When she found counting macros, she thought she had found \u201cfood freedom\u201d, because she could eat anything she wanted. Christina noted there was nothing and no one to point out how disordered and unhealthy all of this was. It wasn\u2019t until she was an adult that she was able to identify the fear-based, confirmation biased-based information that the diet (and nutrition) industry so often spread. Freedom in Counting Macros? During her honeymoon phase with counting macros, Christina thought she was living the dream of food freedom. However, that all came to a head as she realized it didn\u2019t provide the freedom from diet culture that she had hoped for. The macro nutrient component to a food can be found in everything we eat. These are carbs, proteins, and fat. When you do macro-counting, you create a caloric deficit and then create a plan when you\u2019re \u201callowed\u201d a certain number of macros for each of the big three categories. Some people add fiber counting as well. If you\u2019re into macro counting, you\u2019re usually attached to a tracking app AND measuring and weighing everything. Serving sizes, number of ounces, and ratios of macros become all consuming! In Christina\u2019s personal and professional experience, macro counting is limiting and based on control and restriction. You may be \u201callowed\u201d to eat pizza\u2026.but as a result, you can\u2019t eat almost anything else for the day (or are restricted to very few items). Macro Counting Wasn\u2019t Worth It Christina would work hard in the gym, often doing two-a-days, and religiously track her macros. Eventually, she realized that for the amount of time and energy she was expending\u2026.the results weren\u2019t that phenomenal. The celebration of losing .5 pounds, or of making incremental changes to her body, started to no longer make sense. As a result, she started thinking more deeply about her relationship with food and exercise. She started making changes in her own life and habit first. (At the time, she was teaching macro counting to clients as well!) She would find that when her clients would participate in healthy activities, nothing mattered to them if the scale didn\u2019t change. Even when they were doing things that should feel really good in and of themselves\u2026.they weren\u2019t enough when the focus was on losing weight. Christina also noted that professionals in the field, as well as clients, weren\u2019t prioritizing or celebrating behaviors that felt good AND that were good (like getting sleep, enjoying moving your body, and living a life you can enjoy), unless they could directly attach them to losing weight. Tempted By Counting Macros? Christina notes that there is something to be said about relying on technology, like macro counting apps, to tell you what to feed your body. A previous client of Christina\u2019s, who was macro counting at the time, broke her phone. She immediately spiraled, because she couldn\u2019t make eating decisions without seeing the \u201cgreen bar\u201d or knowing how she was \u201csupposed\u201d to eat, based on her app. The idea that we need outside intervention and technology to tell us what food to eat is ridiculous. Humans are born knowing how to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. We know how to read our bodies and understand what we need. Rather than relying on external voices (diet industry! apps!) to tell us about our own bodies\u2026.what if we tried listening to our bodies instead? I loved that Christina talked about this, because it is so important! A few weeks ago I talked about my own relationship with my phone. I think we can all learn a lot about how technology interacts with our bodies, and how we sometimes use it to override our own biological cues. Another issue? When you\u2019re counting macros, sometimes you\u2019re really hungry\u2026and sometimes you\u2019re \u201cforce feeding\u201d yourself plain chicken breast in order to meet the requirements of your macro plan. Rather than listening to your actual body and the needs she is communicating\u2026.you end up relying on \u201crules\u201d, restrictions, and often an app to tell you what you MUST consume. So many of us are SO attached to our screens: TV, smart phones, tablets, and more! If that\u2019s you\u2026.be sure to listen in to this full episode! Tracking It All! Christina and I also discussed the current fad with tracking everything on smart watches. For instance, so many people track their daily step counts, and often 10,000 steps is the \u201cgoal\u201d. As Christina notes, that step number is arbitrary. It doesn\u2019t mean anything, and it isn\u2019t special or accurate. However, many of us like to have yes\/no, or right\/wrong rules to follow. We like to think that when we hit a step number, burn a certain number of calories, or complete a certain sequence of events, we\u2019ve done everything right! And we love being right, and feeling we\u2019ve been doing the right thing\u2026even if it isn\u2019t ultimately serving us. Too often, people attach morality to fitness trackers. (Christina has a whole podcast episode on this HERE!) We think of ourselves as being \u201cbetter\u201d people when we do everything our trackers say we should be doing. However, the also means being unattached to our own volition. We end up stripped of our own power, following rules instead of listening to our bodies and following our own intuition. When you have a chance, remember to leave a 5 Star Review over on Apple so you can get FREE access to the holiday workshop! ","author_name":"Quit Dieting for Good","author_url":"https:\/\/caitlinball.com","html":"