Category: Nutrition odds and ends

Meal Prep like a pro

I personally am not a person who preps. I like to make quick meals at night and eat the leftovers for lunch or with dinner the next day.

But that doesn’t work for everyone. That doesn’t work for really really busy people. That doesn’t work for people who don’t enjoy cooking.

So instead of trying to give you tips on how to meal prep, I approached a friend of mine, a Mrs. Lauren Baxley (know to me as miss Lauren Falleur when we lived together in college) who is the MASTER of meal prepping. I have watching her posts on social media about meal prepping for a few years now. So here are meal prep tips from a master: Continue reading “Meal Prep like a pro”

Calculating your baseline nutritional needs

Given, there are a million and one sites, people, pro’s, books, blogs and calculators that will do it for you. All giving you slightly different answers depending on how “hard core” you are.

I’m not in the business of super fast weight loss. If you haven’t gathered that already. Tracie Blair is not a fad. Thank you.

But someone did ask about macros (okay, a few people have) and no one in my baby steps group is asking questions about carbohydrates except for the macros.

I CANT, given the 70 or so of you, (or however many of there are of you out there) give a blanket answer. I stated this in the step 3 blog on Carbs. But it did get me thinking about a starting point… most of you probably don’t have one. And then some of you have been given all sorts of answers.

To figure out the absolute baseline we use all sorts of fancy equations and different tests to tell you what you need… a secret – they’re not accurate. They can, however, give you an idea of where to start.

While you’re here, why don’t you go ahead and calculate your Basal Metoblic Rate or BMR:

For men: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5
For women: BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) – 161

This is just one of a few different calculations you can use… they all give very similar answers. But this one is easy enough. It’s called the Mifflin St. Jeor Equation.

I want to stress that the number you get from the equation is a calculation of how many calories you burn sitting around doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Laying down all day binge watching game of thrones type of day.

I like it because it gives you the bottom line goal. I never want people to drop under their baseline number because … well of all the arguments I could use I’ll go with… why would you want to give your body absolutely less than it needs just to function? If you hit your baseline number and you move around – walk, workout, clean all day.. you will lose weight. Because you’ve elicited a response that requires more energy than just sitting.

Anyway.. for finding your macros – you need to reflect on your goals. Do you just want to lose weight? Do you want to be good at sport/stronger/more endurance? Are you trying to gain weight (few but there are people out there that do)?

I will encourage you to meet with a professional for this  (like me! Hello!) but a nice little starting point could look like this:

Protein: 30%

Fat: 30%

Carbs: 40%

So you would take your BMR break it down by each percentile to give you calories for each category.

Then you would take the numbers from the % and divide yet again by:

Protein: 4 calories

Fat: 9 calories

Carbs: 4 calories

To give you grams of each category

EXAMPLE:

If you need 2,000 – it would look like:

Protein – 2,000 x 0.3 = 600/4 = 150 grams protein

Carbs: 2,000 x 0.4 = 800/4 = 200 grams

Fat: 2,000 x -0.3 = 600/9 = 67 grams

TA-DA – you have calculated your own macros. Tweak as you go. Be your own scientist… and remember my baby steps program is free. That’s why I’m not diving into each of you, you have to figure things out on your own… and honestly, in the end, this is probably better for you. You’re in control not mindlessly following some program written “for you”.

Admittedly this is a lot of work. And yes! Tailoring nutritional needs to someone is a lot of work. That’s why we end up just paying someone else to do it for us… but you all are capable of tailoring your own nutrition to yourself… be honest, no one knows you as well as you do.

I also want to state that I don’t like giving macro’s that often. I don’t like people trying to control their diet in this way where they’re freaking out because they went over… or they’re two grams low on fat so they like the peanut butter lid… I hate that obsession.

I want people to just eat healthy… naturally. Easily. I want them to WANT to eat right. To LOVE to eat right. And I want it to be second nature… that’s why I implemented the baby steps program in the first place. I want to give you the tools to make the right choices and for it to not be some crazy nutrition mind game.

I want being healthy to be easy.

Do you even prep, bro?

You’ve seen them, the people with their lives all put together who spend Sunday’s joyously cooking, cutting, weighing and placing perfectly portioned “macros” into little black containers so their abs can stay pumped all week long. #mealprep #absaremadeinthekitchen

Okay, it’s not always like that. But social media makes even me feel bad about the way I approach my week sometimes.

I am a firm believer in changing, but changing into something obtainable. If you don’t actually enjoy prepping your week on Sundays or you hate feeling controlled by your food (thats me) then maybe the perfection just isn’t for you. Maybe you’re too busy, don’t like eating the same thing every day or hate the fact that your food touches each other for a few day,  you need to understand that prepping breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in black little containers and to-go bags isn’t the only way to go. 

But while sitting around thinking about how to help you decide how to approach the week I thought about all the different types of people I have worked with…. 

Do you even prep, bro?

Continue reading “Do you even prep, bro?”