Is A Calorie Really Just A Calorie?
If you have been following me for a while on Instagram and watch my stories you will know I take a lot of time out a week to food prep. Every Friday I dedicate a few hours in the kitchen cooking up my protein, vegetables and carbs’s for the week …..and I’m going to be honest with you I hate doing it! I’m no cook and being in the kitchen isn’t an enjoyable experience for me, but it is a necessity to my goals and chosen lifestyle.
I do with it with the sole purpose in mind that if I am not prepared my nutrition will go out the window. Not that I will necessary make terrible choices; instead my meals will become sporadic, I won’t have a clue what I’m eating in terms of calorie density and macro breakdown and I won’t stick to the specifics like post workout carbs etc…not great if I have a specific body comp goal in mind (which most of the time I do and so do my clients).
Some people can easily live their lives like this and still hit their nutrition goals; they are pro’s at logging everything into My Fitness Pal and eat an ‘If It Fits Your Macro’s’ approach which basically is if it fits your macros for the day regardless of if it’s a snickers of a potato, you can eat it…sounds perfect right?!
Contrary to what a lot of people probably think I believe I am not totally against this approach. It definitely works for a lot of people, gives them flexibility in their nutrition choices, allows them to have a social life; and as long as the food isn’t inflammatory to their gut health (which is a whole different topic I won’t go into here), whether they require a deficit or surplus a calorie really is a calorie and it shouldn’t make much difference.
However….there is a difference between flexible dieting and IIFYM, I do the former NOT the latter, and here is why I don’t do it and I suggest to the majority of my clients they stick on the ‘clean’ side. Yes; a calorie is a calorie, but if you are ‘calorie restricted’ (i.e trying to lose fat) trust me when I say you want to make damn sure you get the most bang for your buck with the food choices you make.
For example, lets imagine my post workout meal consists of:
30g of protein
20g carbs
5g fat
So I could have around 100g raw chicken, 100g cooked pumpkin and 30g cottage cheese plus some veggies, or I could have a Protein Snickers Bar giving me roughly the same macros. If I am starving hungry, on limited calories the whole day and desperate for food I (personally) am not going to chose a tiny chocolate bar which will give me no satiety. Instead I would prefer to eat a proper meal where I get to eat a hell of a lot more food for its worth I have done it in the past and it doesn’t make me feel good or give me energy, in fact it leaves me feeling flat, irritable and unhealthy.
You could apply this to anything, pizza, pasta, chocolate, take out...by all means have them all….but first just compare it to the energy density and the amount of food you could get with something ‘cleaner’, it might not look as appealing but if you are in a deficit it can taste just as good!
So just a bit of food for thought (pardon the pun) next time you want to indulge in something ‘naughty’ and trying to work on that summer body…if you eat the right amount it might not harm your goals at all (hence why I don’t like the label good and bad foods). But more than likely you will be sitting down to just one slice of pizza rather than a full meal, and lets be honest who can normally stop there?! If you have amazing self-restraint than maybe an ‘if it fits your macros’ is for you, but if you would rather not spend your whole day logging in My Fitness Pal (I have been there and done that and its NOT fun) it might be worth considering a different approach.
Happy Eating!