Make Fitness Progress Without Tracking Macros

At KJO Coaching, we love tracking macros (protein, carbs, and fat) to help our clients reach their fitness goals. 

We’d even argue that tracking macros is one of the most efficient ways to reach your goals and develop healthy eating patterns. 

But macro tracking doesn’t have to be forever. 

While tracking macros can be a helpful tool for staying on track with your nutrition and achieving your fitness goals, it is not the only way to make progress. In fact, for some people, tracking macros can be stressful or overwhelming and may not be a sustainable long-term approach to healthy eating.

Several of our clients have “graduated” from KJO Coaching with full intent to NOT track macros anymore.

They’re able to do this because they learned how to create balanced meals, listen to their hunger cues, and find meals that work for their bodies through tracking macros. 

We like to call this “active tracking.” 

Active tracking refers to paying attention to portion sizes, meal composition, and what works well in your day-to-day life while you track macros.

Here are some strategies to help you transition away from tracking macros and into intuitive eating. 

Make Fitness Progress Without Tracking Macros

It may seem daunting to stop tracking macros, especially if you’ve been tracking them for a while, but it doesn’t have to be scary because you get to make this transition at your own pace. 

Stop Tracking Macros Slowly

You don’t have to stop tracking your macros cold turkey. You can take it one day and one meal at a time. 

If you are not quite ready to drop tracking altogether, we recommend having a single untracked meal each day. 

This approach might look like tracking your breakfast, lunch, and snacks but not tracking dinner. 

Alternatively, you can add in some intuitive eating days throughout the week. 

Having intuitive eating days might look like tracking your food most days of the week and planning for one or two intuitive eating days. 

The important thing to remember here is that these intuitive eating days should look similar to the days you’re tracking your food if you want to maintain the healthy habits you’ve developed while learning to track macros. 

Maintain Healthy Habits

Maintaining your healthy habits is the key to maintaining your fitness results. 

You can’t expect to be able to maintain your progress if you revert to old habits and eating without considering how the food impacts your goals, progress, and your overall health. 

If you want to maintain your fitness progress, you will need to come from a place of active macro tracking so you are aware of portion sizes and how certain foods make you feel so that you can carry this information into your intuitive eating habits. 

You’ll also want to consider your meals and timing. 

Which meals work best for you?

Consider your enjoyment of the meals, how well you digest them, the amount of prep time involved, and the macronutrient balance. Each of these factors plays a role in maintaining the healthy habits you’ve developed during your time tracking macros. 

Try to keep your meal times the same as when you were tracking to keep those healthy habits in check and to make healthy choices effortless. 

Use a Personalized Strategy to Reach Your Goals

The most important part of reaching your fitness goals is to find an approach to nutrition that works for you and your lifestyle while supporting your overall health and fitness goals. 

While tracking macros can be helpful for some people, it's not a tool that you have to use forever, and it's essential that you find an approach that is sustainable and enjoyable for you. 

If you genuinely enjoy tracking macros and want to do it for years and years, we support that. And if you want to track macros just long enough to develop healthy habits and learn to eat according to your goals, we support that too!

We know that fitness is not one-size-fits-all, which is why at KJO Coaching, we always customize our approach based on our clients’ lifestyles and goals.

Whether you want to take a macro-tracking approach to reach your fitness goals or want to pursue another route, our team would be happy to help guide you on your journey. 

Click here to learn more about working with us. 

You can also start creating healthy habits by taking our FREE 5-day self-sabotage workshop. 

You’ll receive short, daily trainings and exercises to uncover the why behind your cravings, all-or-nothing thinking, and other psychological barriers that are preventing you from reaching your fitness goals. 

Get access here.

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