Episode 29 Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Be About Being Better podcast, where we help people make evidence based sustainable. Small changes for their health that compounded the huge shifts towards a better, more vibrant life. I'm your host Abbie Stasior, a health and life coach, future registered dietician, a master's graduate from Columbia University, and a certified intuitive eating counselor.
And I believe that we can't make lasting or meaningful change single handedly. So I'm so happy that you're here so that together you can see that a diet free, sustainable lifestyle is possible, and you can leverage that to live a better life. And remember my disclaimer, This podcast is meant to give you general information.
And it's not meant to substitute or replace medical advice, a diagnosis or serve as treatment. Hello. Hello. Welcome back y'all to the Be About Being Better podcast. I am so happy that you're here. We are diving into today why My Fitness Pal is not your pal. It is not your friend. You do not have a friend in me, and this episode is for you. If. You feel like you need to track everything. Maybe you're using one of these apps, MyFitnessPal or something like it.
You feel like you need to track every single thing that you eat and you become guilty, or you feel stressed when you don't. And you have a lot of anxiety around this, especially if there's something on there that you ate that you're not able to log. Or if you're going to a place and you don't know what was in the food.
If that gives you a lot of anxiety, uh, this is definitely for. If you struggle to connect socially, Because you're worried about how you're gonna log or track your food, um, or you're starting to count up all the calories of what you're eating in your head. This episode is for you. This is something that we're gonna be talking about throughout listening to this podcast.
So if you're just finding us, please subscribe. Um, so that you can get notifications when we have new episodes every Thursday, but this is something that we're gonna introduce today, but it's gonna be coming up in, in various episodes in different ways as we dive into intuitive eating. We do have an intuitive eating 1 0 1 episode in the beginning.
If you scroll back and, um, I want to take each of those principles and start to dive into them a little bit more deeply to help y'all with intuitive eating even more. I'm just getting the sense that you all are listening. You wanna break away from diet culture, but how do we actually do that and where do we, where do we start with this?
And one easy way that we can start to heal our relationship with food is to get away. Tracking every single thing that we eat. And th this is a hard thing to break, especially if you feel this need and you're in the habit of currently tracking everything that you eat. So you have to give yourself grace in this process, and
you gotta to be patient with yourself. It's not gonna be easy. And I will say to preface all of this, I. Do see some benefit into getting a holistic view of your day and maybe logging a few days. Um, not necessarily on My Fitness Pal, but could be anywhere, just to give you that nutrition education for yourself.
To use it as data, as like, okay, you know, this is where I'm at and this is my baseline, and you can start to learn. Oh, here's the breakdown nutritionally of the foods that I like to eat. And you might learn a, a couple things and some things might surprise you. One thing that surprises most of my clients is that peanut butter, for example, or any nut butter, isn't very high in protein, and I feel like peanut butter nut butters in general are marketed to us as a really good protein source.
It has some protein in it, but it's a much better fat source. And fat doesn't make us fat. We need fat. Like we need fat, we need carbohydrates, and we need protein. So it's important to get all of those things in. And not butters are just a better fat source. They have some protein, but not a lot. So if you're using that as like your main protein source throughout the day, like we gotta loop in some other sources.
And I'm not saying that you need to go eat a whole chicken. , although chicken Turkey, fish, very like low fat protein sources , and they're very lean, super. Very high in protein, but I'm not saying that you have to eat that there are other vegetarian sources of protein that you could be eating as well.
We just need to be intentional about what those are, and so I think it can give you some good data on what are your patterns, where are you deficient and with the foods that you like to eat, what is that breakdown? Because all foods fit. Are diet, and when I say diet, I'm not saying a plan that you follow, but just in your nutritional profile, what you eat in a day.
All foods can fit. So if something doesn't have a lot of protein, it doesn't mean that we can't eat it. You can and you should eat it if you like it. It can just give you some data and perspective. How can I balance my whole day? How could I balance this meal? What else could I add? Not what are we taking away?
What else can we add to make this meal more balanced? Where I have adequate carbohydrates, fats, protein, maybe some fiber. I find that MyFitness PAL puts us at way too much of a caloric deficit. It is. It is severe. Most of the clients that tell me that they use MyFitness power have used it in the past, and I know from my own personal experience, it put me at 1200 calories, 1,200 yo.
That's the amount of calories that's adequate for a toddler. I, it is just not, it's just not enough fuel. It's too much of a caloric deficit for. . So it's important that if you're using any of these apps, which I'm strongly discouraging you from using them, but if you're in the habit, you need to make sure that you are personalizing your nutrition in there and you're not letting this app that is all about weight loss that is so immersed in diet culture.
You need to make sure that you are inputting what is gonna work best for you and your body to get to your goals. And this is something that I personalize for clients. The app automatically puts you at such a caloric deficit. So you need to have personalized nutrition and nutrition goals to understand what's best for you and your body to get to your goals and put that in the app if that's something you're using. Now, I'm not recommending that you use My Fitness Pal, but if you are using it or just using it , to get a couple data points, you need to make sure that you have personalized macronutrients and a personalized calorie breakdown so that.
You can put that in the app and change the percentages so you're not using and going off of what that app is giving you, because this app is so immersed in DIA culture, so focused on weight loss like that, that's the goal, and that that's not healthy and that's what we're trying to get away from because it's making it all about a number, not actually fueling yourself.
It's about the weight. and with this app, we gotta take it with a grain of salt. This app is run based on the people that use it. So you can, if there's a new food, like you know, new creamer out there or something, you can, as a user, upload the nutrition fax of that specific product. But that doesn't mean that it's accurate.
Like we have human error and people might be guessing or read something wrong, or it just might not be accurate. So we always have to take these numbers with a grain of salt. So when we're living so by the number, it's like we don't even know if that's accurate. And if you just search eggs, do you know how many choices for.
Come up and were those eggs cooked in oil? Were they cooked in butter? Were they scrambled? Are they not? Like how big were the eggs and how, how many egg whites did you use in your scramble? Like it can just be very subjective. And even if you're putting in Oh I a third of a cup, and you're trying to be so accurate, like what they have for a third of a.
Might not be like the exact brand that you were using, and even if it is, it might be, you know, recorded inaccurately. So we just have to take all these things with the green salt and not take that as, as gospel a as they say. Um, not, not take that as as the truth because we don't really know if it is. So it's better to.
Take the emphasis off of the numbers and more on how you feel and how your plate looks. I think it's better to look at various food groups, and what I recommend is when you have your plate to have half of your plate be filled with fruits and vegetables, a quarter of your plate protein and a quarter of your plate carbohydrate, and then fats can be mixed in.
Maybe you topped something with cheese, maybe got avocado, maybe you cooked with some oil. Things of that nature. Maybe I have a spoon full of peanut butter or a handful of nuts on the side, things of that nature. But that's how you know you have a balanced plate when you have multiple food groups together.
So let's focus on that and like, what can we add versus what do we need to take away? Or how do I plan out my day? Like I see so many people on tac, they're like, like the fake crying sound. It's like, oh, I gotta, you know, Forced myself to eat this bowl of cereal or to have these eggs at 9:00 PM when I just wanna go to bed.
Cause I haven't hit my protein goal for the day. And it's like, if we are just so beholden to these numbers, like that's just no way to live. Um, it, that's when, when food becomes forced like that, that's not a healthy relationship with. So we wanna take the emphasis off of the numbers and more on maybe the food groups.
And are we balancing those, balancing those out? I think that's, that's more important. And when we live by the numbers and we're just trying to hit these goals and hit our macros, it changes our eating habits in a way that we ignore our hunger cues. Cuz it's like, even if our body's saying we're hungry and you're getting those physical signs, you might say, Nope, I can't eat that.
I can't eat right now cuz I'm already over my macros for the day. You might be ignoring your fullness cues. You might feel full, but yet might be, I didn't hit my protein goal so I need to eat more. It's like, okay, but you're ignoring your body's cues. You're losing trust with yourself. You're actually hurting your relationship with.
And you might really want to eat something, but if that doesn't fit your macros for the day, for what you have left or what you need to hit your goals, you might choose something different based on what you're actually craving and what you want and what your food preferences are. Just to hit certain numbers, y'all, that is no way to live, and that's no way to build safety and trust with your.
So I recommend that we get away from My Fitness Pal. I think the negatives and how harmful it is to our relationship with food so much more outweighs any benefit that there is because you could get with a coach, you could get with me and I could teach you and I could tell you without you having to make an account and trigger yourself with my fitness file.
I could tell you. I know you eat a lot of peanut butter. I know you like that gif crazy for gif, choosing moms. Choose gif, but it's not a great source of protein. What else can we add? And that is a much healthier way to a approach nutrition and learn about it from a professional that that knows versus you having to, you know, risk hurting your relationship with food even more.
um, by triggering yourself on this app. I would say get away from it. I think the, the negatives definitely outweigh any, any positive benefit. I'm gonna be honest how I do things with my clients now. Cause I'll be honest with y'all. In, in the beginning I did use my fitness path with my clients,
and I was like, this just isn't sustainable. I wanna get clients away from this and. I don't like that we use it, so we don't use it anymore. This was, you know, very early. I mean, I started my business five years ago, so we've changed a lot since, so when you know better, you do better.
So we don't use it anymore. And what we do instead, I always make sure that my clients are okay with this and ask them, what are you comfortable doing? Because ultimately I do need a base. I need to see how they're eating to improve their nutrition and to give them personalized suggest. and I don't give out meal plans.
I, because me telling you to eat salmon and asparagus for dinner, like that's not gonna help you in any way. Number one, I don't even know if you like salmon or asparagus or if you would eat that. I want you to eat what you want and what's a part of your culture and what you enjoy and just what can we add to make it more balanced?
That's all. Keep it very simple. Nutrition is very, We make it so complicated. Diet culture wants it to be complicated cuz they want you to be so confused that you just follow their plan. And I was like, mm, no. Nutrition can be very simple and it's not very sexy to just say, eat fruits and vegetables, quarter car, quarter, quarter protein.
Keep it balanced. It's okay if it doesn't really look like a half a quarter. Quarter. Could look like a third or a third or third look more like a peace sign. There might even be a meal where you just have one food group and that's okay. It's one meal out of how many you're going to eat this. , how many you're gonna eat this year?
Give yourself grace. It's fine. You can go to an Italian restaurant and order pasta and get the bread and have a cup. Glasses of wine. You will survive and ortho will be okay. I don't want you feel guilty about that. I would just want you to enjoy that. So anyway, what what I do, instead of giving people a meal plan or having them log on an app, if clients feel comfortable with this, I'll have them send me photos just for a couple days at the, you know, start of when they start the academy, they'll send me photos and it's really, most people are taking photos of what they eat anyway, cuz Phone eats first.
so it's very easy and low tech because it's annoying. It takes a lot of time, energy, and attention to be logging every single, single thing that you eat. And looking up every single ingredient, like it takes a lot of time. How much where, how much farther along could you be in life? If you spent less time logging everything that you eat and everything that you consume on my fitness valve?
How many other things could you focus on if that's not enough of a call to get you to stop using the app? Hello. We got, we gotta get away from this. So anyway, what we do instead, they send a photo of what they eat in the whole day. So I can gauge portion sizes, their food preferences, their food patterns.
Like if I didn't get anything for breakfast, I'm like, Hey girl. Hey. Um, didn't see any breakfast. Did you have breakfast? No, I skipped breakfast. Oh, I just had a nice coffee. and that's okay. Cause I need to see a baseline because then I'm able to give that personalized feedback. Hey, we really wanna make sure that we're having breakfast.
Here are the benefits of eating breakfast. You're gonna have better blood sugar, you're gonna have better energy levels. It's gonna help balance your hormones. You're gonna feel you're gonna have more energy, attention, focus. You're gonna have to thrive throughout your day. You're gonna have, um, you're gonna be more in touch with your hunger and fullness cues throughout the day.
You're gonna have less craving. It's gonna lower cortisol. That's why it's essential to have, have breakfast. There's so many different benefits. So I give them the benefits and then I ask them, what would you like to eat for breakfast? What sounds good to you? What's easy for you? And if they say, I have absolutely no idea.
Do you have any suggestions? Then I can give some suggestions because that client asked me . They've given me permission to give some suggestions, and at that point then I would say, okay, here are a couple suggestions. Here are some things that other clients have liked. What sounds good to you.
They say, eh, I don't really like oatmeal, but I would try eggs. Okay, well how do you like your eggs? You know? So it's very personalized for that client, and it's a conversation going back and forth. What does that look like? So that I'm not telling them you need to have overnight oats. I could suggest overnight oats, but if they don't like that, they don't need to eat that.
Right. And then it gives clients an opportunity to say like, okay, I would be open to a. Do you have any smoothie recipes or what could I make with that? And then we're kind of talking about the ingredients. What sounds good to you? What's easy, what's accessible financially, what's gonna make sense for you?
So like, I'm not gonna be recommending that you'll get Keifer if you don't like that. You might not even know what that is, but it might also be too expensive for you. So totally fine. We gotta figure out what's gonna work best for you. And I could say, Hey, I see you're not eating breakfast. Here are the benefits of eating b.
What suggestions do you have? You might already know and you might say, oh, this was just a one-off day. I normally eat X, Y, Z. Okay, great. That's why we take an average of the days, and I can see on a few weekdays, first weekends, what are things looking like for you? What is a baseline? And I'm offered to, and I'm able to offer some personalized suggestions.
The photos are really helpful. I just learned so much about people and I can make really personalized suggestions and it's very low tech for the client. in my experience, really hasn't been triggering in any way. Uh, and if clients have said, Hey, I really think the photos wouldn't work for me, I could think of two clients that have said that since we started switching to this in the last couple years.
Um, then we didn't even do the photos at all. I just, you know, we had another way to figure out that their baseline and that was fine. Cuz some people have a history of eating disorders, you know, um, and that's too much for 'em. Okay, great. Well we're gonna do something else and we're gonna personalize it for you.
but for the majority of clients, this tends to be really helpful. Very low tech and low. Low trigger. Low trigger rate. , which is what I want, cause I wanna be helping you heal your relationship with food. Fortunately, we just gotta have a baseline somewhere. Because I'm online, I need to see how things are so I can personalize those suggestions.
So that's what I would recommend is getting some personalized support with this, and that's what we do in the academy. So head to the show notes and take our quiz to see which one of our health coaching programs could be for you. We always have open enrollment, Elmos interviewing people for our next class.
And if our next class for the academy doesn't start for a couple months, we have a program that you can start with right away. Our Begin Better program. And how I designed that curriculum, I looked at my most successful academy clients, the Be About being Better Academ is the program that I've had launched for over five years now and is, that's my baby we're, we've made it better and better and better.
Each class looks different. It's better based on the client's feedback. People fill out a survey at the end of every class and they tell us how we can make it better, and then we make those changes for the next class. So it's ever evolving. And so that's my signature program and those are the clients that I work with the most closely, spend the most time with them.
They get the most community, they get the most accountability. and we meet the most frequently. So that's really my signature program. But I launched that, you know, only a couple times a year. So in between, I take people through our Begin Better program. So to design that curriculum, I looked at my most successful academy clients and I was like, all right, these are the habits that they had coming into the program.
These were the mindset things that they already had. Let's teach people this before the program and to make clients even more successful in the academy. What would they need to know beforehand going in? So that's how I designed the Begin Better Program. It's like, what do you need to know as far as foundations?
And you get a lot of accountability in that program. And we just focus on one healthy habit for the. Just focus on one thing, like week one is just all water. We're just gonna focus on you hitting your water. You watch a 10 minute video, so the program takes 10 minutes a week. We all have 10 minutes to focus on our health.
10. You watch a 10 minute video, and for that week, I give you all of my tips, tricks, philosophies for that healthy habit. How do you weave it into your busy schedule? and how do you do it in a sustainable way? So I give you all my tips, and then we're talking in the dms throughout the week. Hey, like, how's your water goal going?
Hey, what even is your water goal? What challenges are we experiencing with hitting your water goal? So the whole week is just focused on that, so you can weave that into your schedule, and that's your sole focus. And then the next week we focus on movement. How are we gonna get more movement in? What does a good exercise routine look like for you?
What are you currently struggling with now when it comes to exercise consistency or exercise interest? So yeah, we just focus on 12 different healthy habits over the 12 weeks. We work to weave those into our busy schedule. So by the end, you have, you've learned so much about a non diet, sustainable, healthy lifestyle.
you have a really strong foundation and then you are ready to transfer into the academy. So a lot of clients will go through that program as they're waiting for the next academy class. And we normally host specials, you know, so right now you can get to that, into that begin better program for free, if you commit to the next academy class.
So that's, that's what, that's what we do. And cuz I wanna help y'all and I wanna help y'all year round. And I know that these things take time. and especially with my fitness balance tracking everything, it's, it's a really hard habit to break. So if you're someone that feels like they need to like log everything, just try and you're doing it every single day, just try one day a week, not, and just take small steps.
Ask yourself, what is one small change that I can make? What's one thing I can do to do this less? And if you are ready, Start tracking a lot less, but you still wanna track something. I think tracking protein is fine. Not that you have to log it on an app, but just to like learn, okay, the things that I like to eat, how much protein is in there?
And starting to learn your protein goal. What's a good amount for you? And it's hard to say on the podcast now, what's a good protein goal for you? Cuz I don't know. It depends on so many factors, but this is what we personalize in our programs. So starts thinking about protein, and I think if you don't worry about calories and you just worry about protein and getting your protein goal, normally the other macros will kind of fall in line.
Normally, you'll be around your calorie range and you'll feel better. Protein gives us so much energy, and that's how we build muscle. It's the most thermodynamic macronutrient. That means that we burn the most calories as we're digesting it, and it balances our blood sugar. Helps us build muscle.
It keeps us satiated in full, and that helps us to curb cravings. So it's just the, best macronutrient. It's my favorite, honestly. Uh, but I love carbs too, and I, I love all of them, but . Um, but protein is really great and that helped me when I was like, okay, I really wanna be intentional about nutrition, but it's a slippery slope and I don't wanna go tracking all of my meals.
And I just focused on protein. Didn't even worry about the. . I focused on drinking enough water and hitting my protein goal, and everything else just kind of fell into place. And now I feel like I intuitively know like what it looks like in a day for me to hit my protein goal without even thinking about the numbers of it.
I just know the foods and I can look at my plate and see the different food groups there. So visually, I know I don't need to rely on an app to tell me. I rely on my own body. I rely on my hunger cues, my fullness cues to tell. What I need more of and what I need less of. Most of the time it's what I need more of.
I'm not really taking much away, but you know when, when I say less of, it's like, okay, when you're full we need to stop , um, and not overeat or eat past or a point of fullness. So I think that can be a. Really helpful for people is just to see as visual, is my plate balanced versus feeling stressed or disconnected socially?
Cuz we're either counting up calories in our head or we're feeling the need to track every single thing that we eat leads to more stress, leads to more guilt, and we need less of that y'all. We really do Let me know what questions you have, send me on Instagram and I hope that this episode was helpful and I will see y'all in the next episode.
Talk to you soon.
Hey y'all. Thanks again for listening to the Be About Being Better podcast. I so appreciate you. If this episode made you laugh, smile, think about yourself or your life differently, in any way, making your life better, I empower you to share the show with three people who just like you, need to hear this message and have this type of transformation in their lives.
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