[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to the Macros Made Easy podcast. This is episode 77. I’m Emily Field, registered dietitian and nutrition coach, and I’m so glad that you’re here. It’s been a little while since I’ve sat behind this microphone, and while I’m genuinely excited to be back, I also know that I’m not returning to the podcast, the business, or even my work in exactly the same way that I left it.

[00:00:22] Emily Field: If you’ve listened to the show for a long time, you’ll probably notice some changes fairly quickly. The episodes are gonna be shorter and more focused, the topics are gonna extend beyond macros and nutrition alone, and the conversations are gonna reflect a much bigger mission than helping women hit a set of numbers in a tracking app.

[00:00:39] Emily Field: Macros are important to me. They are still an incredibly useful tool, and they remain central to much of the work I do. But macros were never the final outcome. Today, I wanna explain what became clearer to me during maternity leave, why I’m changing the structure and direction of the show, and what I hope the next season of the Macros Made Easy podcast helps you build, not just over the next few weeks or months, but over the next several decades of your life Before I went on maternity leave, I had a plan for how everything would go.

[00:01:10] Emily Field: I had content planned, ideas for returning to work, and a general picture in my head of what it would look like to step away, have a baby, recover, and eventually slide back into routines I had built before Alice was born. In my mind, I would take some time off, continue to stay loosely connected to the business, and then return with fresh energy and quickly pick up where I left off.

[00:01:31] Emily Field: And then, of course, I actually had the baby. My days became less predictable almost overnight, and the hours that used to feel available for writing, recording, coaching, training, planning meals, or simply thinking uninterrupted were suddenly broken into much smaller pieces. There were days I felt accomplished because I got outside for a walk with Alice, ate a real lunch, and unloaded the dishwasher before dinner.

[00:01:55] Emily Field: There were days when the idea of sitting down to create thoughtful content felt completely unrealistic because I was moving between feeding her, holding her, washing bottles or pump parts, trying to fit in my own meals, and hoping to get in a workout before the day disappeared. Even when I technically had time, I didn’t always have the same mental capacity I once did.

[00:02:15] Emily Field: And I definitely could not assume that I would sit down at nine in the morning, write uninterrupted for three hours, and emerge with a polished podcast outline. Sometimes I had thirty minutes, sometimes I had ten, sometimes I opened my computer, stared at the screen, and then heard Alice wake up. That experience changed the way I think about time, but it also changed the way I think about content.

[00:02:37] Emily Field: I became much less interested in producing something simply because it was time to produce something. I didn’t want to record a forty-five minute podcast episode because that is what I had historically done, especially when the most important idea could have been communicated more clearly in twenty minutes.

[00:02:53] Emily Field: I didn’t want to add more noise to a health and nutrition space that already gives women hundreds of things to monitor, improve, avoid, optimize, and feel guilty about. Stepping away made me more productive of my own capacity, but it also made me more respectful of yours. You may be listening while driving to work, walking the dog, pushing a stroller, folding laundry, making dinner, or fitting in a walk between meetings.

[00:03:16] Emily Field: You probably do not need me to give you thirty-seven tips or explain every possible exception to one idea. You need something clear enough to remember when the episode ends and useful enough to change how you approach the next meal, workout, stressful week, or season of your life, and that is what I want these episodes to do.

[00:03:37] Emily Field: Moving forward, most episodes will center around one primary idea rather than trying to cover an entire subject from every angle. That does not mean the conversations will be shallow. It means I wanna go deep enough to use one useful point that you can actually carry with you. An episode might help you understand why maintenance is not a passive waiting period between diets.

[00:03:57] Emily Field: Another might explain why I would assess first if you told me you were hungry all day, training consistently, and convinced the answer was to lower your calories again. We might look at a woman who believes nothing is happening because the scale has been slow, even though she’s lost inches from her waist, is lifting heavier weights, and is walking several miles most days.

[00:04:17] Emily Field: We might talk about a client who came to me expecting an aggressive calorie deficit, but who was already training for a marathon, was close to her goal weight, and needed more support for recovery and performance, not less food. Or we might talk about the woman who can follow any meal plan perfectly when life is calm but feels completely lost the moment she travels, eats at a restaurant, has a demanding work week, or has to choose dinner from whatever is left in the refrigerator.

[00:04:43] Emily Field: Those examples are often where the most important learning happens because most women do not need more generic information. They need help seeing how good nutrition and training decisions are made when real life enters the picture. The goal is for you to finish an episode and be able to say, “I understand that differently now,” or, “I know what I need to look at before I automatically assume I need to eat less, work out harder, or start over.”

[00:05:09] Emily Field: I would rather leave you with one idea that follows you into your week than ten ideas that disappear before you pull into your driveway Before we continue, I wanna take a quick break. When we come back, I’m gonna talk about why macros still matter and how the mission of this podcast has expanded far beyond just hitting numbers.

[00:05:28] Emily Field: Because the name of this podcast is still Macros Made Easy, I wanna be very clear that I’m not abandoning macros or pretending that they are no longer useful. Macros are one of the most practical tools I’ve found for helping women understand what their bodies need and how their food choices connect to their energy, hunger, muscle growth, recovery, body composition, and athletic performance.

[00:05:50] Emily Field: A woman may believe she has a slow metabolism when she is actually eating very little protein, sleeping poorly, doing five cardio workouts per week, or moving very little outside of formal exercise. Another woman may feel like she is overeating, but when we look at her intake, she’s consistently under-fueled during the week and then becomes ravenously hungry by Friday night.

[00:06:11] Emily Field: Someone else might be exercising six days per week and wondering why her body has not changed, only to discover she’s been trying to build muscle while eating 1,200 or 1,300 calories and nowhere near enough protein to support that goal. Macros can create clarity in all of those situations. They can show you that the afternoon snack you keep blaming on poor willpower may actually be the predictable result of eating a small breakfast, a salad for lunch, and very little protein before 3:00.

[00:06:40] Emily Field: They can also help you see why your workouts feel flat, why you’re not recovering, or why your cravings become so intense at night. They can also give you structure without dictating an exact meal plan, which means you can eat food you enjoy, share meals with your family, travel, dine out, and still understand how your choices support your goals.

[00:07:00] Emily Field: When well taught, macros can help you rely less on random diet rules and less on someone else handing you a plan to follow. That is still a major part of what I teach, but the goal was never to make you excellent at weighing blueberries. The goal was never to make you dependent on a food tracking app or anxious when you could not find the exact nutrition information for a restaurant meal.

[00:07:23] Emily Field: The goal was never for you to hit numbers perfectly every day for the rest of your life. Macros are a tool for building awareness, practicing better decisions, and understanding your needs. They can teach you what a satisfying breakfast looks like, how much protein supports your training, and what an appropriate portion feels like on your plate.

[00:07:43] Emily Field: Eventually, that knowledge should make you more confident and more independent, not more controlled by numbers Many women first enter my world because they wanna lose weight, calculate their macros, or figure out why their current plan is not working, and those are valid reasons to begin. But after years of coaching women, I’ve realized that those goals are rarely the whole story.

[00:08:06] Emily Field: A woman may tell me she wants to lose 15 pounds, but when we talk more deeply, what she really wants is to stop feeling uncomfortable in every photograph, have enough energy to enjoy her evenings, and feel like the work she’s doing in the gym is actually making her stronger. She may say she wants a flatter stomach, but she also wants to be able to carry her groceries inside without making multiple trips, lift her suitcase into an overhead bin, or get down on the floor and back up without thinking about it.

[00:08:33] Emily Field: She may want to change her body composition, but she also wants to stop spending so much mental energy wondering whether she’s eaten too much, whether carbs are making her gain weight, or whether one restaurant meal has ruined the week The women I work with want to feel capable. They wanna trust themselves around food.

[00:08:52] Emily Field: They want their workouts to create meaningful strength rather than simply leaving them exhausted and sweaty. They want a body that can handle a busy work season, disrupted sleep, travel, caregiving responsibilities, hormonal changes, injuries, holidays, and the unpredictable demands of real life. And more and more, they’re thinking about what their bodies will allow them to do in the future.

[00:09:15] Emily Field: They’re not asking, “How can I lose weight right now?” They are speaking, even when they don’t use the exact words, “What do I need to do today so I still live independently, travel, hike, lift, play, care for people I love, and feel at home in my body when I’m sixty, seventy, or eighty?” And I think about this in my own life too.

[00:09:37] Emily Field: When I carry Alice in her car seat, pick her up from the floor, hold her while walking around the house, or imagine the ways I wanna participate in her life as she grows, strength feels less abstract than it once did. I don’t only want a body that looks fit in the present. I want a body that allows me to keep saying yes to my life.

[00:09:56] Emily Field: I wanna be able to travel with my family, hike, ride my bike, lift weights, carry my own bags, and move through the world without constantly negotiating with physical limitations that I could have done more to prevent. Of course, none of us can completely control aging, illness, injury, or whatever the future holds, but we can build capacity.

[00:10:15] Emily Field: We can build muscle. We can practice habits that make our bodies more resilient. We can nourish ourselves well enough to recover, adapt, and continue participating in the lives we’ve worked so hard to create, and that conversation is bigger than macros alone. It includes strength training, recovery, sleep, metabolism, stress, mindset, daily movement, flexibility, and the ability to adjust your expectations without abandoning yourself.

[00:10:43] Emily Field: The business has been moving in this direction for years, but stepping away during maternity leave helped me finally clearly put language around it. If you’ve been listening for a while, none of this will feel completely new. I have talked about strength and recovery and mindset, metabolism, habits, and the importance of building a body that supports your life, not just shrinking it.

[00:11:05] Emily Field: The broader mission of my work has been clear for a long time, helping women build strong, resilient bodies that they can trust for the rest of their lives. What is changing is not the mission. I’m doubling down on it, and I’m changing the way that I deliver it. Instead of trying to cover every angle of a broad topic in one long episode, I wanna take a more succinct, focused dive into one idea at a time, keep the conversation narrow enough to be useful, and make sure you leave with something tangible you can actually apply.

[00:11:34] Emily Field: That might mean showing you how to create a busy season version of your health plan instead of assuming you failed because you can’t execute the ideal version. It might mean explaining why a frozen meal with added protein and vegetables can be a better choice than skipping dinner because you did not meal prep.

[00:11:50] Emily Field: It might mean helping you see why a consistent thirty-minute strength session can be more valuable than a perfect five-day plan you rarely have the capacity to follow. Or it might mean reframing a season of weight maintenance as evidence of tremendous skill, even when the old version of you would have called it lack of progress.

[00:12:08] Emily Field: The goal is not to give you more information for the sake of information. It’s to help you walk away from each episode with a clearer way to think, a practical decision to make, or a useful question to ask yourself. A strong and resilient body is one that is properly fueled, supported by muscle, able to recover, and capable of adapting when life changes.

[00:12:30] Emily Field: That does not mean that you’re no longer allowed to care about fat loss or aesthetics. You are allowed to want to fit in your clothes differently. You’re allowed to want to feel leaner, more athletic, or more confident when you look in the mirror. But I want us to keep asking what we may be sacrificing in pursuit of those goals.

[00:12:47] Emily Field: Are you losing weight while preserving your muscle and strength? Are you eating in a way that you can realistically continue, or are you creating a temporary version of your life that only exists while you’re dieting? Are you becoming more confident in your choices or more dependent on rules? Are your workouts building capacity or simply helping you burn as many calories as possible?

[00:13:08] Emily Field: Is the strategy making you stronger, more capable, and more resilient, or is it only helping you take up less space? Those questions have shaped my work for a long time, but moving forward, they will shape the podcast even more intentionally, and each episode will be designed to help you do something useful with the answer.

[00:13:28] Emily Field: In the episodes ahead, we’re gonna explore what it means to build a strong body rather than spending your entire life chasing a smaller one. We will talk about muscle as something you contribute to over time, much like a retirement account, because the strength and muscle you build now can support your mobility, bone health, metabolism, and independence later.

[00:13:46] Emily Field: We’ll talk about midlife metabolism and separate what truly changes from what gets exaggerated by an industry that benefits when women believe their bodies have suddenly become broken. We’ll talk about what quality weight loss should preserve, especially for women using GLP-1 medications or anyone who’s eating in a calorie deficit.

[00:14:05] Emily Field: We’ll discuss convenience foods, not as evidence that you’ve failed to prepare, but as tools that can help you consistently feed yourself during the busiest parts of your life. We’ll talk about why food morality is not the same thing as nutrition skill, why maintenance is an active and productive phase, and why the answer to hunger, fatigue, poor recovery, or a plateau is not always another calorie cut.

[00:14:30] Emily Field: Some episodes will give you practical framework you can apply right now. Some will show you how I think through a problem as a coach, including what I would assess first and what I would not change yet. Some will use client stories because it’s often easier to recognize your own patterns when you see them reflected in someone else’s life.

[00:14:49] Emily Field: Others may be more personal and reflective, especially as I navigate motherhood, postpartum recovery, returning to work, rebuilding routines, and deciding what consistency looks like in a very different season of my own life. The central questions behind the podcast are now much more clear. What helps a woman become stronger and more capable?

[00:15:09] Emily Field: What quietly makes her body less resilient over time? What does she need to understand differently in midlife? What does this look like in real life rather than only on paper? And what skills will help her rely less on diets, motivation, and outside direction? Those questions give us plenty to talk about You may have originally found this show because you wanted to know how much protein you should eat, whether your calories were too low, or how to make macro tracking work when you eat at restaurants.

[00:15:39] Emily Field: You may have been trying to lose weight, gain muscle, improve your workouts, or simply stop feeling confused about food. We will continue talking about all of those things, but I hope you stay for a larger conversation because I don’t wanna only help you become better at tracking what you eat. I wanna help you understand your body well enough to make informed decisions when your goals, schedule, appetite, training, or life circumstances change.

[00:16:03] Emily Field: I wanna help you know when it makes sense to pursue fat loss and when the better decision may be to maintain, recover, build muscle, improve your habits, or simply create more stability. I want you to recognize that consistency will not look identical in every season, and that having a reduced capacity plan is not the same thing as giving up.

[00:16:23] Emily Field: I want you to use macros when they are useful, step away from detailed tracking when you’ve developed the skills to do so, and return to them without shame when you need more structure and clarity. The promise of Macros Made Easy was never simply that you would get good at logging food. The promise was that you would understand how to eat in a way that supports your goals and fits your real life without relying on rigid plans, unnecessary restriction, or constant outside direction.

[00:16:50] Emily Field: That promise is still at the center of this work. We are just placing it inside of a bigger, more meaningful outcome. That’s why I’m changing the Macros Made Easy podcast. The episodes are becoming shorter because I want each one to have a clearer purpose and leave you with something that you can actually remember and use.

[00:17:07] Emily Field: The topics are becoming broader because nutrition numbers alone cannot build the kind of body or life most women ultimately want. And the mission is becoming more visible because stepping away has helped me recognize that this work has always been much more than helping women become smaller. Macros remain an important tool, but they are not the destination.

[00:17:28] Emily Field: The destination is a body that allows you to fully participate in your life, a body supported by strength and muscle, a body that can adapt to hard seasons, and a body that helps you move into the future with confidence, resilience, and as much independence as possible. I’m coming back from maternity leave, but I’m not coming back exactly the same.

[00:17:49] Emily Field: My capacity is different, my priorities are different, and the mission is clearer. I’m excited to be back, and I’m even more excited about where we’re going next, so I’ll see you in the next episode

Emily Field (00:00:00) –  Welcome to episode 28 of the Macros Made Easy podcast. Today we’re discussing how to maintain your macro goals while traveling. Whether you’re flying across the country or hitting the road for an adventure. We’ll be sharing practical strategies, tips, and ideas to keep your nutrition on track throughout your journey. First, we’ll cover planning. Learn how to research food options at your destination to find meals that fit your macros, dietary preferences, and budget. We’ll discuss leveraging apps and websites to scout out restaurants offering healthier options. Next, we’ll dive into packing for your trip. Discover the best portable snacks such as jerky, nuts, and popcorn to keep your energy up on the go. Whether you’re flying or driving, we’ll provide tips on prepping meals that comply with travel regulations and are easy to transport. You’ll get ideas for snacks that don’t require refrigeration and keep you satisfied throughout your trip. Finally, we’ll address the challenges of longer road trips where convenience stores and fast food restaurants are often the only options. We’ll explore what’s available at convenience stores and share strategies for customizing fast food orders to make healthier, protein rich choices.

Emily Field (00:01:01) –  Tune in for all this and more to ensure your travels don’t derail your pursuit of a healthy lifestyle. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietitian that specializes in a macros approach. In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals. We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients, how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits. I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition. So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too. There is absolutely going to be some planning ahead, some research, and some preparation that has to come together when you are tracking macros and traveling. So the first piece I want to talk about is researching those food options at your travel destination, because that’s essential if you’re focused on tracking macros.

Emily Field (00:02:01) –  Planning ahead enables you to align your meals with specific protein, carb, and fat targets, ensuring you stay on track with your nutrition goals. Now, I’m not saying you’re going to research every single place you go during your trip and pick something from the menu and decide how it’s going to fit your macro targets. However, I do encourage you to look at menus ahead of time, because this is going to allow you to know if there’s any option there for you. Is there something that you could track if you wanted to? Could you easily estimate what’s on your plate? Is it healthy and wholesome? Does it have some sort of semblance of a balanced meal with protein, fat and carbohydrate? I don’t know how many people tell me that their family is the type to fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to eating while traveling, they’re just going to figure it out as it comes. But anyone who’s tracked macros for any length of time knows that that will never work. You’ll never stay on track with your higher protein needs, especially if you’re an active strength training person.

Emily Field (00:02:57) –  You will not stay even near your calories, because if you’re eating out for every single meal of the day, it’s going to absolutely blow your calorie needs out of the water. There is a bit of planning and researching that kind of comes into this first step. You have to think forward, even if that just means where am I eating out across this trip? Is there something for me on the menu? Can I make some semblance of a well-rounded meal here? We’re just talking basic forward thinking here. Try to embody the person who values eating in regular intervals, eating well-rounded meals, staying on top of their nutrition while away from home. You can be that person that cares about the nutrition while away from home. We’re not talking about obsessing and bringing a food scale to the restaurant, or mapping out your macros every single day. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about knowing when you’re going to eat, maybe basics of that menu, knowing that there’s something for you, honoring that you need some protein, fat and carb at that meal, just simple things like that.

Emily Field (00:03:57) –  And it does take a bit of forethought, but that preparation stage helps you avoid unexpected surprises due to regional variations in cuisine and food availability, and that allows you to make an informed choice that meets your dietary needs. And if you have somebody that you’re traveling with or you yourself have allergies or specific dietary restrictions like gluten free or vegan diets, researching just a little bit ahead of time ensures that you can find that suitable option so you can have a safe and enjoyable dining experience wherever you go. I will also say that if you know the typical cost of a meal in advance, you can make more informed choices about where you want to eat and how much you want to spend, so you’re not compromising your budget to embrace those cultural experiences that come with eating while traveling. So some of my favorite ways to perform this research is to leverage online resources like Yelp, TripAdvisor, maybe even Google reviews, where user generated feedback can highlight the restaurants with suitable options. I also like social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook because I can see menus, I can look at pictures, I can see recent pictures of the menu and the restaurant.

Emily Field (00:05:10) –  I can also see where they are on the map as compared to where I’m staying. This is also really important to me I’m not going to be driving 20 or 30 minutes for something I could easily walk to, or I’d rather walk to while on vacation. So the way that I would use Yelp or Instagram, Google reviews all of this is to use specific words in my search. I might draw on the map where I’m staying and look for restaurants that are near me, but I might look for words like farm to table or wholesome or gluten free or vegan friendly, maybe protein rich or low carb, because if that’s kind of trickling through some of the menus and like the restaurant has maybe made it apparent that they cater to those specific dietary requests, it’s likely that they’re going to be a bit more wholesome. They’re going to be a bit more ingredient forward, maybe quality forward than other places that might just have bar food, for example. So my favorite things to search for would probably be farm to table small plates or protein rich.

Emily Field (00:06:13) –  Those usually reveal some results that I can work with. And then from there, I’m doing a little bit of digging to look up where the restaurant is, what the menu looks like, how expensive it is, etc. I will say to you, if you completely skip this step and you do not work ahead by researching or mapping out where you’re going to go, feel free to talk to hotel staff or even the host of your Airbnb where you’re staying, because they’re going to be able to find those hidden gems, those healthier, maybe more popular spots, and provide some recommendations based on your specific criteria. They love to do that. That is their job. They want you to have a great day. They want you to come back. So really utilize or leverage those resources if you have to. Another way that you might be able to leverage technology to find dining options for you when you’re traveling is to use the tracking app that you use to track macros to find suitable options in the area. So if you find something that maybe looks like a chain or it looks super popular, you may try popping the restaurant right into your chronometer, your MyFitnessPal, your macros first database, and seeing if any of that nutrition information, the menus, any customization options kind of come up there.

Emily Field (00:07:23) –  There is. I mean, these apps have extensive databases for restaurant meals. It may not be exact. One thing I tell clients all the time is that you might not find your Ma and PA option on the app, but what you could do is find something similar from a chain. So when you’re first starting to track macros and you have no idea what the nutrition content is of much of the restaurant food you eat, maybe take a look at Applebee’s or Chili’s or Red Lobster or Domino’s or whatever it might be that has something similar, like a wide range menu that has a similar option a Caesar salad, fajitas, steak and baked potato, things like that that you can get an idea of what a restaurant portion and restaurant calories and macros look like for a dish like that. So you know how to properly assess what you might be eating in the restaurant that you’re eating at. So even though there might not be an exact match for the meal that you’re eating at a restaurant, you can certainly get a good idea.

Emily Field (00:08:22) –  And that can help you wrap your brain around your needs, like leveraging the food that you’re about to eat in your needs. I have a lot of luck with health and fitness blogs as well, so just doing a general search for travel blog of the area that you’re going to, and typing in words like macro friendly or healthy options. There’s going to be somebody that’s written about this somewhere. So consider reviewing some of those blogs and some of those websites, maybe even review forums like Reddit to get insight and firsthand experiences from other travelers that can help you find some of the best dining options that fit your needs while on the road away from home. So it’s very possible when you’re traveling, that you are not going to meet your macro needs from restaurant food alone. And this is where packing comes into play. You’re going to want to bridge the gaps in your nutrition with a few portable, macro friendly snacks. I always recommend packing something, usually on the protein side because this is the harder macro to get, especially while you’re traveling, it’s harder to get.

Emily Field (00:09:24) –  In general, you have to put some focus there, but when you’re traveling, this is going to be the least available macro to you. And this is because restaurants cook with a lot of fat. There tends to be a lot more availability of carbohydrates when we travel. Quick, easy snacks tend to be fat and carb rich. They don’t tend to be protein rich because that is the most expensive ingredient. So when you’re traveling, I highly recommend bridging the gap with some packable portable snacks that are more protein rich. So I’m going to share with you some of my top snacks that I might consider bringing on a trip. I’m just leaving this trip very open ended. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going. Okay, so let’s first talk about protein again. The macros that’s going to take the most work for you to get while traveling. I just think it’s a pretty good idea to get in the habit of packing protein powder. Some pre-portioned individual serving packs. You don’t have to bring your whole jug.

Emily Field (00:10:18) –  That can be a really great way for you to add to your breakfast. That’s going to tend to be pretty low in protein, or to bridge a gap between if you’re out all day dinners, not till 8 p.m., you gotta stave off some hunger. That would be a great way to stave off some hunger without walking into dinner, wanting to eat your hand. So protein powder is a pretty good I mean, obviously very portable way to bridge that gap and meet that need. You could also do protein bars. You’re going to want to choose bars that have a pretty good balance of protein, fat and carb, or a higher ratio of protein to carb and minimal added sugars. Some of those bars can be pretty high in calories, so if you are watching your calories, trying to stay in a deficit, or trying to stay under a calorie amount because you’re trying to lose weight or lose fat, I would go cautiously on the protein bars and just make sure you’re looking at labels. Another pretty easy portable protein option is beef jerky or meat sticks.

Emily Field (00:11:13) –  These are usually individually packed or small portable bag. This does not require any refrigeration. And again it’s something that you can snack in between meals. You can add to a breakfast or lunch if your protein is lacking for that meal. So we’ve talked about on previous episodes how fats in your diet seem to keep you fuller longer. So if you’re somebody that tends to get pretty hungry while you travel because your routine is thrown off, maybe it would be worth considering bringing some nuts and seeds. Or maybe some nut butter packets, things like that. Those are single serve. Maybe almond butter, peanut butter or some other seed butter or nut butter, but also like walnuts, almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds something like that can absolutely bridge a gap in your nutrition there. It’s nice and easy to snack on. It provides that crunch. I like to put those nut butter packets right on to a banana or an apple, which is usually easy to obtain if you’re at a hotel or you are staying at an Airbnb and you do have some options to bring food.

Emily Field (00:12:11) –  I don’t know that I would pack a ton of fat, rich foods just because you know you’re going to get enough, probably by eating out, but I just wanted to put that there. As far as carbs go. These can be really great portable options to add to a meal or to. Again, bridge gaps provide you with some quick, easy energy if you’re out and active on your trip. I love instant oatmeal packets. These are obviously very easy to pack. They’re very flat. They can be prepared with just hot water. You can certainly add to this and I have before, especially if I have the option for refrigeration, maybe I’m doing a little bit of Greek yogurt. I’m throwing in some berries. Maybe I throw some nuts on top. Now I’ve got a very well-rounded meal there, but I’m just saying instant oatmeal packets can just it can become something other than just that oatmeal packet. Or it can simply just be that for a quick and easy snack. I also love a good rice cake again, that can be topped with nut butter.

Emily Field (00:13:04) –  Or you can throw some Greek yogurt or cottage cheese on that. Made a little bit of honey. Depending on what your travel situation is, or you have the ability to bring that or store it at an Airbnb. Dried fruit tends to be very easy to travel with. I love doing like dried mango or banana chips. I love raisins and craisins when my carbohydrate needs are high, or if I know I’m going to have a very active vacation. This is how I bridge my carbohydrate gaps, because it’s unlikely that you’re going to find a very high carb restaurant meal without also getting like a ton of fat as well. Again, we’re very open ended on our travel situation here. I’m not saying your air travel or car travel at this point, but I do think popcorn can be a really great crunchy snack like carbohydrate rich, crunchy snack. It’s also a whole grain. It can be a vehicle for other things, as in a trail mix, a very a much lower calorie trail mix than what you would buy at a convenience store from the grocery store.

Emily Field (00:14:02) –  Because it’s not mostly nuts and seeds, it’s going to be mostly popcorn with added nuts and seeds, maybe a little bit of chocolate, something like that. So again, it could be pre-portioned. You could have it already as a recipe in your food diary, and you could log that as you wish throughout your trip. The last thing I’ll note here about packing is that you might consider some hydration aid, some electrolyte packets, some mineral packets, something to add to your water because we are at a pretty high risk of dehydration while we travel. And we know that dehydration can oftentimes be mistaken as hunger. And so I would hate for you to feel miserable throughout your trip because you’re actually just dehydrated. Again, we are in a different climate. Oftentimes we’re in air travel. We’re in the airport. All of these things can just dry you out. And instead of just having plain water, which is I mean, it’s great. It’s a good start. We need those minerals and those electrolytes to pull that water into our cells and keep us hydrated.

Emily Field (00:15:00) –  We do a lot more when we add something to our water, like electrolytes, like minerals. For our hydration status, just keep a water bottle on your packing list. You’re going to use it. It’s something that you’re going to want if you travel by air or if you travel by car. It doesn’t matter. Just having it on your list and making sure it’s near you when you travel is going to help you from the perspective of staying hydrated, but also can lead to better GI symptoms, which sometimes can be a problem for people when they travel. One thing that I’ve been loving lately, a cute little hack, if you will, is using ChatGPT to help me with a packing list. Yes, I do know how to pack for myself. I’ve been traveling for many years. I am very organized when it comes to traveling, but the idea of making a list can sometimes be the real challenge there. So especially if you’re somebody that really takes their nutrition seriously and they want to stay on track with their macro targets, I would say use ChatGPT to help you just get a head start.

Emily Field (00:15:57) –  I just recently used ChatGPT to organize a packing list for me for a seven day trip. Told them the climate, told it the climate. It’s not a person told it. The climate kind of what I would be doing that it was air travel. And then the second prompt that I did for the ChatGPT was about packing food, giving me some ideas of what I might have to bridge some gaps in my nutrition. I mean, a lot of it was review, but it was helpful just to have it in one place. Just copied and paste that answer from that prompt into a note on my phone so it’s easily accessible when I go to the grocery store or when I’m running around town for a last minute thing. So again, just a quick little tip there in the spirit of using technology to help us. It is one thing that has been helping me a lot, and now that I’ve done it once, I can totally see myself using this for future trips. I’m headed to the cabin and I have very little fridge space and very few options at the local grocery store.

Emily Field (00:16:55) –  What are some things that I can bring to make sure that I have some well-rounded options? Or I’m going on a three day road trip out west. What can I expect for fast food options and convenience store options on my way? What should I bring that is cooler, safe for three days? Things like that? I really do think that embracing technology in this way can help reduce the challenge that comes up in our brain. It’s just a for whatever reason, sometimes people get really bent out of shape when they are thinking about travel and macro tracking and being off their routine. So this is just one way that we can help ease that stress in our brain and be a bit more organized. Okay, so I told you before that I was just sharing some general tips and ideas for food, regardless of whether that’s air travel or car travel. Now, I want to talk a little bit about that whole TSA thing, because this oftentimes comes up with clients like, what am I allowed to bring? I didn’t even know I could bring that, etc. so let’s talk about that and then maybe some meal ideas and some snack ideas that would be helpful for air travel versus car travel.

Emily Field (00:18:00) –  Okay, so here is straight from the TSA website. You can bring pretty much any solid packaged food on the plane, as long as it fits in your carryon. And that’s bread cooked meat, hard boiled eggs, candy, cereal, cookies, crackers, chips, dried fruit, nuts. But you can also do things like sandwiches and wraps, pizza, pasta, salads those are all great fine options to go through TSA at the airport and take with you. So the liquid question always stumps people. We know that liquid and liquid ish things. If you bring it on a plane, it needs to be about 3.4oz or less. So if you’re making a sandwich, absolutely you can bring if it’s already part of your meal. This is on the TSA website. It’s basically if it’s in in a part of your meal, that’s not what’s going to stop you. It’s usually if you have something separate from your meal, separate from your sandwich or your wrap or your pasta or whatever it might be. So that could be like hummus, cream cheese.

Emily Field (00:19:01) –  If you do a nut butter like peanut butter and jelly, honey, maple syrup, jellies, jams, oil and vinegar, make a salad dressing, salsa you could even do. This is like cottage cheese. This is Greek yogurt, things like that. So if it is a liquid ish item, a liquid ish food, and it’s already on a sandwich, or it’s already on a salad, it’s safely packaged and contained in your carryon, you’re definitely going to be fine. The rule is if you can spill, spread, spray, pump or pour it out and it’s larger than 3.4oz, then it’s going to have to be in a checked bag or TSA is going to throw it out. Now for me, this is game changer. This is avoiding nasty airport food by taking a sandwich or wrap or like a little protein like bento box that I mimic from Starbucks or something like that. It saves me money because everything at the airport is so expensive. It also is that safety insurance. If my flight gets delayed or changed and I’m not stuck in the airport with no option.

Emily Field (00:20:05) –  So I highly recommend that you think this through and consider just the simplest things of a sandwich, a wrap, leftovers that you would have otherwise thrown away because you’re going to bounce out of town for a few days. It can be so, so helpful and provide you that base that you need to have a really good travel day, because we know how long those travel days can be. And so you’re not, like, gnawing off your hand when you get to your travel destination. And probably more than willing to throw out your macro targets and your healthy eating habits just to get something in your mouth. So let me share a couple of ideas for you. I obviously have been referencing sandwiches and wraps. I just think that this is a really easy, portable option for both air travel and car travel. But if I was doing air, maybe it’s like a turkey and avocado wrap with a lot of non-starchy vegetables, something that doesn’t necessarily need refrigeration. It can be eaten lukewarm, but if you’re in the car and you have some like cooler space, maybe it’s like ham and cheese or a chicken salad wrap, maybe a tuna salad wrap.

Emily Field (00:21:08) –  I also love, like salads in a jar where you layer your ingredients, putting like the wet ingredients on the bottom, and then you layer up with all of your other non-starchy vegetables and cheese and things like that. So maybe like a Greek salad in a jar for air travel. Totally legal. From a TSA perspective, you have a very minimal amount of liquid and everything is self-contained in a jar. Fits into your carryon just fine. But if you’re in the car and you have some cooler space available, maybe you’re doing pasta salvage or you’re doing overnight oats. These can be great options for you to kind of keep you full and satisfied for longer trips. When it comes to like fruits and vegetables, I love like apple slices with some nut butter, maybe some baby carrots and hummus, or sliced bell peppers and hummus. Something like that. That works for obviously both air travel and car travel. You probably are less likely to take cut up fresh fruit in an airplane, but certainly could. I’m thinking like portable fruit in your carry on apple, banana, orange, cuties.

Emily Field (00:22:11) –  Things like that can totally work as single serve fruit options. You might be more likely to take your sliced veggies with some ranch dip if you’re in the car, because you can kind of keep that colder. Again, that fresh fruit that’s cut up like watermelon, pineapple, berries, it’s probably going to be a little bit easier in a car than it is going to be in air travel, just because of the juices and how easily some of those fruits can get bruised. If we’re talking like protein rich snacks, you can absolutely travel with hard boiled eggs when you travel by air. You could also do jerky or meat sticks. We’ve got beef, turkey, chicken, salmon. There’s a lot of options these days. But in the car that might be Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. Could be meat and cheese roll ups, things like that. We’ve already kind of talked about how nuts and seeds and some of those carbohydrate rich snacks that are shelf stable. Those are going to be perfect for both air and car travel.

Emily Field (00:23:05) –  So I won’t repeat those. But some of the advantages of traveling by car and having some option for refrigeration and cooler space would kind of allow you to do more like the chilis or the soups, maybe like a Greek yogurt based parfait. You could do like quinoa or kidney bean, like black bean salad, something like that. Roasted veggies, maybe some grilled chicken in there. There’s a lot of different options here. And when I am feeling like I have zero ideas for what to eat, my first place I go to is Pinterest. And I use search terms. Because Pinterest is a search engine. It’s just a visual search engine, and it returns way better results than Google for food, in my opinion, especially for recipes and things like this. Searching for things that are road trip friendly bowls, road trip friendly salad in a jar, road trip friendly high protein meal. Something like that is going to reveal a lot of different options that can kind of jog your creativity and kind of get you thinking about your next travel experience and what you might want to bring.

Emily Field (00:24:11) –  I hear a lot of people get frustrated about the idea of navigating convenience stores and gas stations when it comes to hitting your macro targets, and while sure, in a perfect world, you have planned your car travel in a way that you don’t need to necessarily eat at fast food restaurants or convenience stores. But that’s just not real life. And there will always be a situation where you need to stop and you need to eat something. And rather than starve and eat your hand when you get to your destination, I would like you to feel confident that there are some options at convenience stores. And of course, this is going to be regional. I tend to travel mostly by car in the Midwest, and there really have been some much better options in my last ten years than maybe there were when I was a kid. Here are some of the things that I’m looking for at a convenience store when I’m on the road. Number one is, are there any Whole Foods? There are convenience stores with Whole Foods, things like apples, bananas, pre-cut fruit cups.

Emily Field (00:25:12) –  I love grapes or watermelon or cantaloupe, whatever that might be. There’s also veggie snacks that are usually paired with hummus or some other healthy dip. Sometimes those dips can get pretty high calorie, but again, you are looking at labels. You’re making good decisions for yourself based on your needs. I also think another great whole food option at a convenience store can be those nuts and seeds. Those are going to keep you fuller longer. They’re going to be fun to snack on in the car. So something like a plain or lightly salted individual packet of nuts or seeds. I want to avoid things that have added sugars or a ton of salt. Now, when it comes to finding protein rich snacks, obviously you’re at a convenience store. You’re probably going to find some sort of jerky. I’m not usually loving the options that I see at a convenience store. They tend to be pretty high and they could be high in carb. I can also be very high in fat just because that’s what makes jerky like edible.

Emily Field (00:26:09) –  You’re not like ripping flesh, it makes it more chewy. So I’m not loving always what I see for jerky at convenience stores. But there are some really great brands out there, so you can always check labels. You can look at, you’re looking at nutrition labels anyway. You’re going to find the best option for you. I think like a lower fat option is definitely going to be a turkey jerky or a chicken jerky. You’re going to be looking for minimal added sugar and as little preservatives as you can find on that label. More likely, you’re going to find something like a protein bar or something like hard boiled eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. Those individual cups are great. I’m also seeing more often. I’m seeing those ready to drink protein drinks, particularly from fair life or from Premier Protein. Those can be in the refrigerated section and they’re just like a ready to go pop the top protein drink that can complement any other, like whole foods that you might find in a convenience store. Many of the convenience stores that I might find myself in the Midwest do have some prepackaged, healthy meals, so they might be like a salad or a wrap or a sandwich.

Emily Field (00:27:15) –  They’re not bad, especially if you’re in a bind and are trying to avoid fast food or there’s really nothing on your radar, that’s what’s going to keep you full and satisfied. It’s going to be some sort of rounded option that will not totally derail your macro goals. You might also see those nut and fruit packs or like a cheese in nut pack. Sometimes they do like meat and cheese. If you just again looking at the label, making sure it’s not completely blowing the water for your fat targets because they can be pretty high in fat with the nuts and the cheese and the high fat meats, but they’re can sometimes be really good options there for a little bento box. Or we call them like adult Lunchables, which are always fun. Some people can get really bent out of shape about convenience stores and gas stations, and the reality of the situation is that fed is better than not. And when you’re picking apart these little micro decisions about food, always judging whether or not that food is good enough for you, or if it’s perfect or if it’ll fit your macros ideally.

Emily Field (00:28:16) –  That’s the mindset that keeps you stuck. That’s what’s going to keep you from progressing and seeing success not only in a macro approach, but in any health goal. So I really encourage you to get comfortable with the idea that at fed is better than not, and that meeting your nutrition needs with maybe perhaps the not the most high quality food is completely okay. So we can’t have an episode about tracking macros and navigating your nutrition goals while traveling without talking about fast food restaurants. And many people fear fast food restaurants is like something that will completely derail them from their macro targets. And that’s absolutely not true. There are likely something on every single fast food menu that you could eat, and that could be a really good, viable option for you. So let’s talk about some strategies for navigating fast food restaurants. One of the most basic tips would be to choose grilled options over those fried items, to cut down on the unhealthy fats and the calories. You can also customize your order by requesting sauces, dressing cheese on the side.

Emily Field (00:29:18) –  You can add extra vegetables to sandwiches and burgers. People don’t do this, but you can absolutely leave that mayo off or leave the dressing on the side, or hold the cheese, or leave the cheese on the side. You can ask for more onion. You can ask for more lettuce. You can ask for more tomato on those burgers and sandwiches. You can swap those high calorie sides like fries for a healthier option like apple slices or salads in many cases. but if you are tracking, you likely know that a small side of fries is not that big of a deal. So if you would like to enjoy some fresh hot fries, you’re just going to want a portion control, which is my next tip. You know those portion sizes, they are going to be pretty insane. So I think it goes without saying that watching your portion sizes by ordering smaller portions and sharing with your travel companion can be a really good idea. You can focus on protein rich meals on the menu, like grilled chicken or turkey or fish.

Emily Field (00:30:15) –  You can save calories and carbohydrate macros by ditching the sugar sweetened beverages and doing something that’s unsweetened, like iced tea, or doing water or a diet version of your favorite soda drink. Most fast food restaurants have an option for salads, so you could pick one of those with a grilled protein option. Plenty of vegetables you’re going to use a lighter dressing to kind of keep calories in check, but the real hero here is likely to just be using your chronometer, your macros first, your MyFitnessPal food database, your tracking app to find food options that are best for you at a fast food restaurants. Because they have multiple locations, they have to have a standardized menu. And the nutrition information is available online and therefore it’s uploaded into the database. So you could just check the nutrition information, I mean, on the website, but also just using your app mix and match options, hold ingredients, add ingredients, and kind of play out what you would like to eat at a fast food restaurant before you even go.

Emily Field (00:31:15) –  It’s a little bit easier for me to get kind of down and dirty with the specifics at different fast food restaurants, maybe better choices versus less than ideal choices if I have text to work with. So rather than rattle off a bunch of choices at McDonald’s or Subway or Starbucks, whatever it might be, I will just put those in the show notes and you can kind of click there and go over to my website to view those. So just click on the show notes if you’d like more of that detail hitting your macro targets, or at least just staying in line with your health goals while traveling is entirely achievable with some planning, research and preparation. By spending just a little bit of time researching food options at your destination, you can align your meals with your nutrition targets and avoid dietary surprises. Leveraging online resources and apps helps you find macro friendly restaurants, while packing essential snacks ensures you have healthy options on the go. Whether you’re flying or driving, mindful eating, and strategic choices at convenience stores and fast food restaurants can keep you on track.

Emily Field (00:32:12) –  Remember, the key is to stay informed, plan ahead and make conscious decisions, allowing you to enjoy your travels without compromising your health goals. Thanks for tuning in to episode 28 of the Macros Made Easy Podcast and happy travels! Thank you so much for listening to the Macros Made Easy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the one you’re listening to right now to share it on your Instagram Stories, and tag me at Emily Field so that more people can find this podcast and learn how to use a macro approach in a stress free way. If you love the podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and a review. Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at emilyfieldRD.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

Emily Field (00:00:00) –  Welcome to episode 27 of the Macros Made Easy podcast, where we explore the intersection of nutrition, health, and lifestyle choices. In today’s episode, we dive into alcohol, especially in the context of tracking macros and pursuing body composition goals. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietitian that specializes in a macros approach. In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals. We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits. I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition. So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too. Before we get into the specifics of alcohol, let’s start with a quick refresher on macronutrients, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.

Emily Field (00:00:58) –  Proteins are crucial for tissue repair and growth, providing four calories per gram. Fats serve as a concentrated energy source, offering nine calories per gram, while carbohydrates are main energy source provides four calories per gram. What makes alcohol unique is its role as a fourth type of macronutrient, providing seven calories per gram almost as much as fat and more than proteins and carbohydrates. However, unlike these macros, alcohol does not offer essential nutrients like vitamins or minerals. In this episode, we’ll explore how alcohol affects your body beyond just caloric intake. It alters your metabolism with the body, prioritizing its breakdown over nutrients like fats and carbs. This can impact the liver’s function and nutrient utilization, potentially hindering overall metabolic efficiency. Moreover, we’ll discuss practical strategies for enjoying alcohol while maintaining body composition goals, from choosing lower calorie options like clear spirits and light beers to the importance of hydration in moderation, we’ll cover how to integrate alcohol into a balanced lifestyle. So let’s dive into the ins and outs of alcohol as a macronutrient, and how you can handle its consumption while working towards your health and fitness goals.

Emily Field (00:02:09) –  All right, let’s just do a quick refresher on macronutrients, just to really set the stage for what alcohol is and how many calories it provides. Like we mentioned in the intro, proteins are essential for building and repairing tissues. They’re composed of amino acids. They provide four calories per gram and play a crucial role in your muscle growth and maintenance. Fats serve as a concentrated energy source and are necessary for hormone production, cell membrane structure, nutrient absorption. They provide nine calories per gram. Carbohydrates are the body’s primary source of energy, and they include sugars, starches, and fiber. They provide four calories per gram on are important for a lot of different things, but specifically in the context of what we’re talking about today for fueling your muscles and for supporting your central nervous system. Now, alcohol is considered a fourth type of macronutrient because it provides energy calories much like proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. But unlike those other macros, it does not provide essential nutrients like vitamins or minerals. Your body really can’t do much with that energy that it provides.

Emily Field (00:03:17) –  As you can kind of tell already, alcohol is seemingly energy dense. It provides seven calories per gram, making it almost as calorie dense as fat, which is nine calories per gram and more than carbohydrates in proteins. So compared to proteins and carbohydrates, which provide four calories per gram each, alcohol contains more than double the calories per gram. This higher caloric density can significantly impact daily caloric intake and overall energy balance, which is one of the biggest realizations I witness clients make during coaching when they see how much their alcohol is contributing to their overall caloric intake, and kind of deducing that that consumption is preventing them from seeing the changes they want to see in their body. Let’s run through some practical examples that I see often with clients. So one example is probably an older version of me. You love going to breweries. You love trying new beers. You know, in the context of skiing, cycling, snowmobiling, boating, all the things you like to do outside. Maybe beer is a part of it.

Emily Field (00:04:22) –  So let’s just say you’re on the cycling team, or you run a quick five K this summer, and those activities really can center around beer at the end. Let’s say you enjoy four beers on average, and they’re the yummy hoppy kind. Not necessarily light beers. Obviously, calories on beer like this can vary greatly depending on the alcohol by volume. You know, any additional starches or sugars they’re putting in the beer to flavor it differently. But let’s just say on the low end, that’s about 180 calories per beer, maybe up to 220 calories per beer. And if you’re doing tasters, maybe you’re trying a little sample of this and that. You can see how that might add to your intake. So in the context of macro tracking, and we’ll talk about this very specifically later on in the episode. But in the context of macro tracking, we’re going to want to carve space for that alcohol. It’s going to take up the place of where you would normally have food based fats and carbs. So in order to carve out the space to stay on track with your macro targets by the end of the day, stay on track with your calories.

Emily Field (00:05:22) –  By the end of the day, you’ll need to find room for those four beers by cutting out 180 to 220g of carbs, or 80 to 97g of fat. Now that’s a lot to accommodate in your macros if you want to stay on track with your targets. For many of you, that’s all the carbs you have. That’s all the fats you have in a daily recommendation. So, you know, if we’re really trying to be realistic about accommodating for calorie rich beers, it might be tough to do. Now here’s another example. Let’s just say you love wine. You have a couple of bottles hanging around in your house at all times. Maybe you open a bottle of wine on Wednesday night when you’re cooking and you don’t want it to go bad, so you drink it across two days, Wednesday and Thursday night, and we’re looking at an extra 650 to 800 calories across two days. That whole bottle of wine, kind of depending on how sweet that wine is, how dry that wine is, is likely to be somewhere in that range of 650 to 800 calories for the whole bottle.

Emily Field (00:06:23) –  Then let’s just say it’s the weekend you choose not to track macros because your routine is totally thrown off. It’s pretty normal for you to ditch tracking on the weekend, and without tracking for accountability, you go over on your macro needs with food and alcohol. In a third example, let’s just say you’re meeting your girlfriends for brunch on the weekend. That’s Bloody Marys and mimosas all around. Across three hours you have three drinks totaling about 500 calories on the low side, maybe 750 on the higher side. If you’re tracking macros, this means you’re trying to accommodate. You’re trying to carve space for about 125 to 150g of carbs, or 55 to 80g of fats. And of course, this is all estimation. I’m just totally throwing out numbers here, and I’m just setting the scene here for how calorically dense. Alcohol is, especially if you have never tracked alcohol. You’ve never attempted to track alcohol. It’s quite possible that you’re living in the dark for how calorically dense, how much energy, how many calories this macronutrient is providing you.

Emily Field (00:07:22) –  Now notice in those three examples I tried to say, if you want to stay on track with your macro targets and calorie goals, you’ll need to accommodate this much space for this alcohol. And this is really important. I want to call this out. It’s not realistic to expect that you’ll be able to eat to your macro targets every single day, forever, until you get to your health, your body composition, or athletic performance goals. You will at some point, intentionally or unintentionally, miss your targets. That said, there might be a season where it matters more to you and you really want to push yourself, but you have to weigh the pros and cons of sacrificing calories for alcohol that could otherwise be used for food. Okay, so in other words, you are in the driver’s seat of deciding whether or not you want to carve space for that alcohol, or it means more to you to not carve space into eat those calories instead to reap some nutrition from those calories. Instead, I should say this here, but I want to remind you that this podcast episode is not here to shame you about your drinking habits.

Emily Field (00:08:23) –  I’m pro accountability, pro mindfulness, pro awareness of your drinking habits. And part of that means you’ve got to take a look at it. You got to take a look at how much energy this is providing you throughout your week. Because if you have goals to lose fat and gain muscle, it’s quite possible that alcohol is hindering you from getting to those goals faster. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can choose the pace at which you move towards those goals. If it’s not as super important to you that you get there quickly, maybe you don’t need to mind the alcohol content of your diet as much. If you are interested in getting to those goals very quickly, very efficiently, as effectively as possible, then yes, you’re going to have to mind your alcohol habit and it’s important that we talk about it. Alcohol affects your body in multiple different ways. And one of the main ways that I want to talk about today is the metabolism of alcohol. So there is a priority put on alcohol when it is present in the body to get it out of the body.

Emily Field (00:09:23) –  Because it is a toxic substance, it is a high priority item to break it down and to dump it out. And as a result, when alcohol is consumed, the body is going to prioritize that metabolism over any other nutrients. So that means that while alcohol is being processed, the metabolism of carbs, fats, proteins all slow down. And as a result, the essential nutrients may not be efficiently utilized for energy production and other bodily functions during that time, alcohol is being metabolized. Okay, so essentially you’re putting a pause on burning fat for fuel. You’re putting a pause on building muscle mass out of the protein that you’re eating. You’re putting a pause on getting carbohydrates to your brain or your muscles in order to think clearly or to be active. Okay, so all of that is paused even in a calorie deficit. So you’re working really hard and trying to stick and adhere to your calorie deficit. You may be creating that deficit across the whole week, and maybe you’re even doing such a great job to carve out space for that alcohol by holding back on carbs and fats in order to make space for those couple of drinks a week.

Emily Field (00:10:38) –  But even when we drink, you have to recognize that it is a toxic substance to the body, and all of that other metabolism is paused. So you have been turning body fat into fuel and burning fat. You are losing fat in the way that you want because you’re in a calorie deficit, but that metabolism is going to be paused when alcohol is present. Of course, when we talk about alcohol, we think of the liver, but there is a particular impact on liver function and metabolism. When we drink alcohol, in particular, the liver plays a central role in metabolizing alcohol. It’s converting the alcoholic we drink into acetyl aldehyde and then to acetate, which is further broken down into water and carbon dioxide. So this process requires significant liver resources, diverting attention away from its primary function, such as processing fats and carbs. So you can kind of see how that all goes together. You know, maybe this is a side note, but we’ll absolutely talk about this at the end of the episode about what are some best practices to metabolize alcohol quicker, how to reduce the impact that alcohol might have on your metabolism by doing particular things before, during and after drinking.

Emily Field (00:11:46) –  But I mentioned that acetate is broken down into water and carbon dioxide, so there is some research to support that. Maybe you can aid your body in getting alcohol out of the system faster by getting in a workout the next day. So by getting your heart rate up and your breathing a little bit heavier, you’re releasing carbon dioxide. You’re sweating a bit. You. May be able to aid the body in getting rid of that acetate, which can build up. This is what is essentially our hangover. We’re getting that toxic substance out of the body. We’re aiding our body in metabolizing it faster. So we’re talking about the effects of alcohol on the body. And I think all of us have the experience of feeling pretty dehydrated after drinking. Some of us will even wake up the next morning and step on the scale and see a 2 or £3 weight loss. And that’s not real body fat loss. That is simply water shifts. Because alcohol has a diuretic effect on the body, you increase your urine production and that can promote dehydration if you’re not consuming water alongside your alcohol.

Emily Field (00:12:52) –  Most of us can probably handle a little bit of dehydration every once in a while. It’s not going to have super long lasting impact, but you should understand that our hydration is absolutely impacted by minerals and electrolytes as well. Minerals and electrolytes. I will use interchangeably. Electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium are essential for muscle function and nerve signaling, maintaining fluid balance. And so alcohol induced dehydration can lead to imbalances in those electrolytes, resulting in things like muscle cramps, fatigue, and headaches. So some of the things that you might associate with a hangover might be due to the fact that you’ve increased your urine output, you are feeling a bit dehydrated. Maybe there’s a bit of imbalance in your electrolyte status. Okay, so to review alcohol affects your body in a number of ways. The main thing I want to talk about is the metabolism priority. You’re diverting attention away from metabolizing nutrients, as you typically would because alcohol is present is a toxic substance to the body. Its main priority is to break it down and get it out of the body ASAP.

Emily Field (00:13:58) –  So as a consequence, we are going to see some liver processing differences. We’re not going to see the same sort of processing that we normally would. Our primary function, such as like metabolizing fats and carbs goes away. Okay. We also see some effects on hydration and electrolyte balance. And that can have higher or lower impact on you depending on how active you are. If you’re drinking water alongside your alcoholic beverages, if you are practicing moderation or not, I will just leave it at that so you understand some of the consequences we’re talking about when we get into kind of that impact on your health goals, your body composition goals. Okay, now I am specifically trying to speak to the person who has goals to gain muscle and to lose body fat. When it comes to the people that I typically work with, this is the main bell curve in the middle there. Most people have those goals. They want to get leaner, stronger and fitter and boil that down. They want to see some muscle gain or maintenance.

Emily Field (00:15:06) –  They want to see some fat loss so they can reveal the strong physique that they know they have hiding in there. Okay, you should understand that alcohol has an impact on these goals. Okay. So let’s just say your main priority right now is to gain muscle support, muscle repair. You want to recover appropriately. You are pushing yourself in strength training for the main goal of building a stronger physique. Understand that alcohol is going to significantly impact your muscle protein synthesis, so building new muscle, it’s also going to impact the recovery from your workouts. Again, recovery from strength training workouts, in particular by interfering with the body’s ability to repair and then build new muscle tissue. It impairs the signaling pathways involved in protein synthesis, leads to dehydration, which exacerbates your muscle soreness and slows down recovery and negatively affects hormone balance, particularly testosterone, further hindering muscle growth and repair. So those three items are the ones I really want to highlight for that person who is so wanting to see bigger, stronger muscles. They want to see their efforts in the gym come to fruition in their body composition.

Emily Field (00:16:17) –  You may consider reducing or minimizing your alcohol intake. As for fat loss, alcohol absolutely can disrupt your fat loss efforts due to its high caloric content. Again, we’ve talked about how alcohol provides seven calories per gram, which can quickly add up and lead to a caloric surplus. As we’ve already talked about, when alcohol is present, the body prioritizes metabolizing alcohol over any other nutrient, slowing down fat metabolism, and increasing fat storage. Lastly, alcohol can disrupt hormone balance, raising cortisol levels and promoting fat storage, especially in the abdominal area. I’m speaking specifically to the person who’s complaining about belly fat gain out of any other area of the body, whereas, you know, you might have gained maybe equally across all areas of your body in your younger years. As you age, you’re noticing, you know, kind of just right around the abdomen. That’s where you’re storing your body fat and you drink alcohol. There may be a link here. I would also say that if you are a woman in perimenopause and approaching menopause, we have a switch from your hormone balance being kind of like navigated or, you know, being ruled by your ovaries over to your adrenal glands as that ovary function kind of shuts down.

Emily Field (00:17:35) –  And we’re transferring the responsibility over to the adrenal glands, which are responsible for releasing cortisol and supporting our stress response. This is typical. This is good. This is a normal thing. But you’re putting added pressure on the adrenal glands because of the stress alcohol adds to the system. You’re just kind of doubly taxing it. Right. And that’s probably the simplest way I can put it, is you’re doubly taxing these organs that are already so taxed due to the changes that you’re experiencing with perimenopause and menopause. So it might be in your best interest to moderate your alcohol consumption if your goals are to really make an impact on that belly fat that you are so concerned about. Okay, so we’ve been talking about alcohol’s impact on your goals to gain muscle and to lose fat. And while it’s super fun to talk about metabolism and hormones, we can’t really forget the low hanging fruit here, which is that alcohol, just simply put, impacts your appetite and impacts your food choices by increasing cravings for high calorie, high fat, and high sugar foods simply due to its effect on the brain’s reward centers.

Emily Field (00:18:46) –  That’s it. You know, like, even if we ignore all the fancy jargon that we’ve just been talking about, simply put, it just affects our brains reward centers. It impairs our judgment and our decision making, which can lead to poor food choices that can derail you from hitting your macro targets. Further, we are drinking usually in social settings, and that can result in late night eating, which also negatively impacts the metabolism and fat storage. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, you know, if I could just teach my body to crave celery and carrots, I would not have a problem with my weight. And yeah, I wish that were true. We cannot do that. The brain’s answering the call. It is simply responding to a low fuel, low nutrient situation. I’ve already shared that alcohol is diverting our body’s attention away from metabolizing fats and carbs. It can’t do anything with those calories that you’re consuming throughout. Hall. So the cells are still hungry. The cells are like, hey, we we still need energy, we’re still deprived.

Emily Field (00:19:49) –  So they’re sending signals to the brain, hey, I need to eat. I need to eat something now. I need high sugar. I need high carb. I need high fat because these things will get the job done quickly, okay? You’re never going to crave carrots and celery. You’re always going to crave the crunchy, salty, savory stuff, especially after consuming a few drinks. And then couple that with your brain’s reward centers being altered. It’s going to be pretty loud messaging with very low resistance, really loud messaging from the brain to eat those foods that you would otherwise probably not eat. They would not be on your plate, especially if your goals are to lose fat and to gain muscle and you’re really sticking to your macro targets, coupled with the fact that you have very low resistance, those reward centers are highly active. You’re not going to have a lot of willpower to resist those temptations. But I don’t want to leave you in this episode feeling completely defeated, thinking you can never take another drink.

Emily Field (00:20:42) –  If your goals are to gain muscle and lose fat. That’s absolutely not what I’m trying to say. Certainly you can enjoy alcohol in moderation, and let’s talk about what that means. Let’s talk about some practical tips for enjoying alcohol while also being on a macro tracking journey. The first tip I’m going to have for you is to obviously counter alcohol towards your macros. Okay, this is key. This is building accountability for your choices. It’s shedding awareness, putting a flashlight onto the habit, which in and of itself can be very powerful. There’s many clients who, you know, I haven’t said anything about their alcohol intake. I have never recommended that they cut back, but simply logging it and seeing how much food they have to give up in order to accommodate those drinks changes the behavior for them. It no longer feels as important to take a drink because they know how good it feels to be well fueled with that food. So if you are tracking macros, I highly recommend that you account for those calories from alcohol, just as you would for any other food or drink, and this is going to ensure that you stay within your caloric goals for the day.

Emily Field (00:21:50) –  This is like best case scenario. Okay, so this is in a situation where you’re not ignoring your macro goals. You’re not purposely over eating or over drinking them because of a social situation or a celebration or something like that. This is for the person who really wants to, you know, make as big of a dent or as fast as the dent as they can and their body composition goals. They still want to enjoy alcohol. When you log your alcoholic beverage in your food tracking app, it might look a little confusing. So let’s talk about that a little bit. So between chronometer macros first and MyFitnessPal, some of the top apps that I recommend, if you are tracking macros, you’re going to search the database for something like a skinny margarita or a hoppy beer or a red wine, and you’re going to log it and you’re going to notice that there were really no macros adding up there. There were only calories adding up there. And that is because alcohol is a non-nutritive food. There is not a requirement to accommodate those macros on a food label.

Emily Field (00:22:48) –  You’re only going to see the calories, not the macros. And we care about macros more than we care about calories. So you have a choice. And I would say if you’re new to this, I highly recommend doing the math and figuring out how many carbs or how many fats you would like to give up in order to accommodate that alcohol. This is a very good visualization exercise. Okay, so in each one of those apps, you have the option of doing the Quick Add feature, or just simply logging carbs as a gram or fats as a gram, dialing it up as high or as many or as little as you want. So this is how I would accommodate that. I would say, I’m going to have three drinks today. They are around 120 calories each. Let’s just say it’s three glasses of wine. I’m going to take 120 calories times three drinks. That’s 360 calories coming from wine. I’m going to divide that by four four calories per gram to carve space out of my carbs for that, or I’m going to divide it by nine to carve space from my fats for that.

Emily Field (00:23:52) –  All right, so 360 divided by four is 90g of carbs that I’m going to hold back to accommodate that alcohol, or 360 divided by nine is 40g of fat that I’m going to hold back from eating. I’m not going to eat that many fats. I’m going to probably have a lighter fat meal or a lighter carb meal to accommodate the fact that I want three glasses of wine now. That’s I guess that’s step one. That’s probably the easiest way I could describe it. There are calculators out there where you can use like kind of a slider, and you can say, I want to have some carbs and some fats to accommodate this alcohol. I don’t want it all to come from carbs or all to come from fats. So I will link that in the show notes. Some of my favorite calculators. Last note here is that a special shout out to macros. First, this app is amazing and they have an. Alcohol calculator built right into their app so that you can use that slider. What I mean by that is you’re going to put the total calories of your alcoholic beverage by doing a quick Google search or quick database search.

Emily Field (00:24:54) –  Finding out how many calories about your alcohol content for the day is going to be, and you can slide between fats and carbs. You’re basically translating the alcohol macros to carbs and fat macros, if you see what I’m saying. And macros first built it right into their app, which I think is really, really cool. Okay, so you already heard me kind of talk about how you might adjust your macros on days that you plan to drink, and that requires a bit of planning ahead. So if you know you’ll be drinking, you’re going to plan your meals for the day accordingly, and you’re going to choose to consume fewer carbs or fats to accommodate those extra calories from alcohol. Notice I’m not saying protein. Protein interferes with muscle protein synthesis, so we want to make sure that you get enough protein throughout the day to support that muscle maintenance and repair. This one is not touched on days that you are drinking and days that you are not drinking. You’re going to prioritize protein rich meals. You’re going to try to hit your protein target like you normally do.

Emily Field (00:25:54) –  You’re only going to be holding back or altering the fat or carbohydrate rich foods in your diet in order to accommodate that alcohol, okay, you’re going to adjust your consumption of those two macros, the fats and carbs, in order to accommodate and fit alcohol into your total daily calories without exceeding your goal. So that might look like, you know, if you’re going to hold back on carbs, for example, to accommodate that alcohol, maybe you’re going to have steamed vegetables with your dinner instead of a baked potato or rice. Maybe you will skip the bread basket before a meal at a restaurant. You’re going to avoid desserts and snacks in the break room that are carb rich. Instead of things like toast or bagels at breakfast, you’ll skip that and instead have a protein rich meal that is lower in carbs. Maybe you’ll skip the tortilla, or the rice cakes, or the oats, or whatever it may be, and your breakfast and lunch meals in order to carve space out of your carb target in order to accommodate that alcohol.

Emily Field (00:26:54) –  It’s things like you might have those extras in your day, like fruit juice or cereal or honey or maple syrup or, you know, fresh fruit, whatever it might be. You’re cutting back on those in order to accommodate the space that alcohol is going to take up from carbs. Alternatively, if you wanted to adjust fats, maybe you’re doing things like opting for a leaner cut of meat instead. The fattier cut of meat because you need to save those fat macros for the alcohol. You’re going to prepare your meal without as much oil. You’re going to skip cheese or bacon or avocado on your salad or sandwich. You’re going to use a vinaigrette based salad dressing instead of a cream based salad dressing. Maybe you cut back on your portion of nut butters or seed butters, coconut products, things like that that you might add to your breakfast and lunch in order to accommodate the space that alcohol is going to take instead. All right, so as you can see, it’s going to be easier to accommodate alcoholic beverages.

Emily Field (00:27:51) –  If they are lower in calories. It’s going to be tough to have three drinks and make space for those drinks if they are. Each 200 calories, 200 300 calories we really difficult to stay on track with your calories and macros. At the end of the day if those drinks are super high calorie. So some of the things that I would recommend just high level, low calorie alcoholic beverages that might be better for you if you are trying to chase those body composition goals as quickly and efficiently as possible, you’re going to opt for simple drinks. Things with fewer ingredients with no added sugars, for example, vodka or tequila soda. It’s going to be much lower in calories than a sugary cocktail, a lighter beer, or dry wine. They’re going to typically have fewer calories than regular beers or sweeter wines. You’re going to avoid mixers that are high in sugar, things like soda, tonic water, fruit juices. They’re going to add significant number of calories to your drinks. Instead, you’re going to opt for a diet soda, club soda, or water as mixers instead.

Emily Field (00:28:55) –  There’s a lesson to be learned in moderation and setting limits here. I think this is probably where most people get stopped up. They don’t want to make a plan for their alcohol. They want to just go in and just say, I’ll figure it out. And that usually doesn’t work. Again, I’m pro mindfulness, whether that’s with food or alcohol. I want you to visualize your day. I want you to be thinking forward instead of being so reactive with your food choices and your drinking habits. So I would love for you to determine before you go out, how many drinks you’re comfortable with consuming without negatively affecting your pursuit of your goals, you’re going to stick to these limits to avoid not only excess calories, but also from feeling so terrible you can’t work out the. Or it negatively impacts your sleep, or it leads to intense cravings and it’s spilling into the next 2 or 3 days. That’s what we don’t want. Okay, so it’s both the calorie stuff, but also the alterations in our sleep and our cravings and impact on our other health habits like exercise.

Emily Field (00:29:58) –  We have a number of ways that we encourage moderation and drinking. And here are just some of the things that we talk about with clients. Number one would be rotating one alcoholic drink with water. For every one alcoholic drink you have a water. Don’t drink alcohol before a certain time of day, or don’t drink alcohol after a certain time of day. So for the person who’s, you know, knows that nothing good happens after midnight, maybe they’re setting a limit on the time of day that they stop drinking. Or maybe if they’re on vacation, they’re not drinking before a certain time of day. So really narrowing that window in which alcohol is consumed can be a really helpful. Instead of limiting the number of drinks they’re setting boundaries on time of day that they’re drinking. Another moderation tactic is to swap between a non-alcoholic or mocktail version of the drink that they like to have. So a na beer for every alcoholic one, or a Nar seltzer, or a mocktail for every alcoholic seltzer or cocktail that they have.

Emily Field (00:30:58) –  Listen, na beers have come a long way from our one and only choice of duels from like 15 to 20 years ago is no longer the case. There are a lot of Na beer choices, a lot of Nar mocktail choices out there, and a seltzers. So if you’re the type of person that really just needs something in their hand and a social situation, or you don’t want to answer to the fact that you’re not drinking for whatever reason in any situation, you’re welcome to alternate your alcoholic beverages with Nar versions and see how that fits. See how that works for you. Our clients are also usually sticking to one type of alcohol per occasion. They’re not mixing it up. You’re not doing tequila and then wine and then beer, because that typically leads to feeling really terrible the next day. Again, decide how many ahead of time you’d like to have and accommodate that in your food diary ahead of time. Carve that space out early so you know how to eat around it in order to hit your macro targets and calorie goals while accommodating the alcohol.

Emily Field (00:32:00) –  My last tip would be to consider mixing your own drinks so that you can control exactly what’s in them, and exactly the serving size that’s coming from alcohol. When I go out on the boat and I like to have alcohol, I know that I’m going to be sitting in the sun for multiple hours and that can make me very thirsty. The drive to want to consume a lot of alcohol is high. Like it’s I’m thirsty, I want something in my hand. I want to cool off. I want to consume the beverage before it gets warm. So one of the things that I do is I take a big tumbler and I measure out the tequila or the vodka or whatever I’m having in my tumbler, and then fill the rest with water or a zero calorie mixer. And that full, full drink stays cold. It hydrates me. I’ve already measured out and accommodated the macros for the alcoholic beverage. I’m not caught in a situation where it’s easy to over drink, so mixing your own drinks can be a great way for you to learn what an actual serving size looks like with alcohol.

Emily Field (00:33:02) –  A typical serving size is one thing, but a restaurant or a cocktail bar might do more or less of that. Certainly, if you’re at somebody else’s house, a pour can get pretty heavy handed. So, you know, mixing your own drinks can be, even if it’s just at home, can be a really great way for you to visualize how much an ounce and a half of liquor, or five ounces of wine or 12oz of beer. Really what that looks like. All right, so in this next section, I want to talk about some common mistakes and misconceptions about alcohol and macro tracking, because we’ve definitely seen it all when it comes to coaching. And this may sound silly, but the number one thing that we see is that calories in alcohol don’t count. And if you’ve gotten anything from this episode, you know that’s not true. If anything, it’s a very calorically dense beverage, but I don’t know what it is. It’s like beverages don’t count. The nutrition label for alcohol can be really deceiving.

Emily Field (00:33:55) –  And even if you are somebody who likes to flip food over or likes to flip their beverages over and look at the calorie content or the nutrition label, it can be pretty confusing. You’ll see a hundred calories for that seltzer, but zero grams of carbs zero all the way down on that nutrition panel. It looks pretty deceiving. It doesn’t contribute any macros, and we know that is because alcohol is a non-nutritive food. It is not required to be put on a label. Alcohol as a macronutrient is not labeled on a food label. So people see those zeros when they’re macro tracking. They think it’s a free food I suppose. So number one misconception is yes, alcohol is a calorie contributing beverage. It will impact your. Were all calorie goals. Staying at your macro and calorie targets means you have to accommodate that alcohol into your day. The second biggest thing I see is people ignoring the calorie content of mixers in their cocktails. So there’s obviously many mixers that are used in cocktails like regular soda, tonic water, fruit juices, and they contain significant amounts of sugar and calories.

Emily Field (00:35:05) –  So you might be accommodating the alcohol in that margarita, or that rum and Coke or that screwdriver or Bloody Mary or something like that, but you’re forgetting to add the calories of the mixers. So, for example, a regular soda mixer can add about 100 calories for an eight ounce serving. And those sugary cocktails like margaritas, pina coladas, daiquiris those can contain 300 to 500 calories per serving, significantly increasing your overall calorie intake. It’s a super common misconception that mixers then added ingredients don’t contribute much to your calorie count, but they can easily double or triple the calorie content of your drink. Now, quick sidebar here you might be thinking, oh man, what do we do when it comes to accommodating those calories in your macros? You know, we talked about the macro math of accommodating alcohol. I would simply find the full calorie amount for your drink divided by four to count as a carb divided by nine to count it as a fat, or using a calculator like the ones I’ve kind of mentioned to slide between the two to accommodate some calories from carbs and some calories from fat.

Emily Field (00:36:14) –  So there’s no reason for you to be doing the alcohol content separate from the fruit juice, from the soda, or whatever. Just take your whole drink. Find the total calories or rough estimate of the total calories divided by four divided by nine, or find a split between the two. Another misconception that people have about alcohol is just simply misjudging serving sizes. Many people are just simply unaware of what constitutes a standard drink, with the serving size being 1.5oz for spirits that your hard alcohol, five ounces for wine and 12oz for beer. And at home it’s easy to pour more than a standard serving, leading to the unintentional increase of calories the overconsumption of your needs. So it’s super common to underestimate the number of drinks you’ve consumed, as maybe a large wine glass can hold one and a half to two servings of wine, and they’re often counted as one drink. I mean, I certainly learned this lesson early on when I was in my macro tracking journey. I have a specific wine glass that I love to drink out of, and it’s very tall and it’s got a wide base.

Emily Field (00:37:19) –  And so I would fill it to the same exact line that I might fill another smaller glass of wine, another smaller container, and in it, unknowingly consuming one and a half, maybe two times as much alcohol as I thought. We should also note here that restaurants can do the same thing. You know, they’re serving maybe a six ounce pour or a nine ounce pour, which is already more than the standard drink. And when I tell you estimated calories for wine, for example, might be one 120 to 130 calories, that’s for five ounces. But if you’re being served six or 9 or 12 or multiple glasses, whatever that might be, you’re certainly going to be consuming more than 120 calories times however many servings you just had. The last misconception that I’ll touch on is that many people mistakenly believe that consuming healthy foods allows them to drink alcohol without considering its calorie content. I eat healthy, i.e. organic. I exercise regularly, so I don’t need to worry about my alcohol consumption. Alcohol absolutely does contribute to overall calories, and it can lead to a calorie surplus if you’re not tracking.

Emily Field (00:38:36) –  If you’re not in check with this. Eating nutritious foods is a good thing. It’s going to help you maybe detox that alcohol appropriately, you know, have a good base before you start drinking to avoid a hangover. It might even prevent a hangover, but it doesn’t fully nullify the calorie impact of alcohol. The body processes these calories, affecting your weight and your health goals, regardless of your diet. Regardless of how healthy your diet is, there’s also a common tendency to justify increased alcohol consumption after eating healthily, or maybe even working out, and that person is significantly underestimating its dietary impact and potentially could hinder your body composition or your fitness goals. Alcohol provides empty calories. It lacks nutritional value beyond just providing extra energy, energy that your body can’t really do much with. And disregarding this can compromise the benefits of your healthy diet. So to close out this episode, I want to leave you with some rapidfire practical tips for enjoying alcohol while pursuing body composition goals. Because I am not the coach that is going to tell you that you have to go sober in order to see body composition change.

Emily Field (00:39:46) –  However, I am pro mindfulness, pro accountability, pro awareness. So that means that you get to decide how much, how often, if at all, alcohol fits while you’re pursuing these goals. Number one tip is to plan ahead and track your consumption ahead of time. Determine how many drinks you’re going to have and stick to it. You’re going to track your calories or the macros for those alcoholic beverages. By being mindful of those portion sizes and mixers used, you’re going to adjust your macros on the days that you plan to drink. Adjusting your macronutrient intake to accommodate the calories and alcohol is imperative if you want to stay on track with your macro targets and calorie goals. Best practice is probably to opt for lower calorie options. When it comes to alcohol, you’re going to want to opt for clear spirits like vodka, gin, or tequila and pair that with low calorie mixers like soda water or diatonic. You’re going to opt for lighter beers or drier wines because they generally have fewer calories than their regular counterparts.

Emily Field (00:40:47) –  You’re going to avoid sugary mixers, so steer clear of cocktails with sugary mixers added syrups, because these can significantly increase the calorie content of your drink. You may not even be aware of how many calories it’s contributing and therefore, you know, sending you over your calorie targets for the day. Those macro goals for the day. To avoid dehydration, you’re going to alternate with water. Drink a glass of water between alcoholic beverages to stay hydrated and help mitigate the dehydrating effects of alcohol. Consider drinking water before and after consuming alcohol to maintain hydration levels and support. Overall, you know, great bodily function as you detox that alcohol out of your system. I would love for you to consider the timing of your nutrition around drinking. Eating before drinking can slow alcohol absorption and reduce its impact on your metabolism and hormones and your blood sugar levels, which will make it easier for you to avoid overeating later on in the night or giving into cravings. Having some disruptions in your appetite, things like that. I’d also recommend that you eat after you drink if you can.

Emily Field (00:41:56) –  I don’t know how realistic that is, but prioritizing nutrient dense foods or nutrient dense drinks to support recovery and replenish those essential vitamins and minerals can be super helpful for avoiding a hangover, which again, is a whole different story. If we’re talking about a hangover impacting our next day. And what kinds of food choices do you make when you have a hangover? What kind of choices do you make around workouts and recovery? When you have a hangover? Probably not great. So consider nutrient rich, colorful foods, especially those B vitamin rich foods and drinks can be super helpful after drinking to help you avoid a hangover, I would love for you to start paying attention to how alcohol impacts your progress. I want you to observe its effects by seeing how it affects your sleep, your energy levels, your workout performance, and then adjust accordingly. You have a lot of data. If you’re tracking macros, you have tons of data from the previous weeks and months of tracking. That is insight for your future choices. So consider using that to your advantage so that you can learn from what you’ve been through and change course if necessary.

Emily Field (00:43:02) –  Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to practice mindful drinking by savoring each drink, enjoying the social aspects that drinking can bring. There’s no doubt that alcohol is social and cultural and ritualistic. There are so many great aspects about sharing in an alcoholic beverage with friends, or after doing something collectively, you know, as a part of. A meal like we’re never going to be able to, at least for me, not going to be able to untie those things. And I don’t want to, but I do want to be mindful of my consumption and decide when it’s appropriate or not. I’m thinking of apres ski and meeting up at the brewery after a long bike ride or, you know, warming up with a boozy hot cocoa after snowmobiling. You know, alcohol on boats and in the summer while swimming and like, things like this, like alcohol goes together with many of my favorite things. And I’m just speaking from experience and echoing some of the experiences that my clients have. I’m not interested in untying that.

Emily Field (00:44:06) –  They go together for me, but I can absolutely become more mindful of my consumption by savoring each drink, by enjoying the social aspect of the physical aspect of whatever I’m doing. It’s not about the alcohol. The alcohol is not making or breaking that event or that experience. It’s only adding to it. And if there’s a time where it truly isn’t adding to it because I’m thinking about my calories, I’m thinking about how this is impacting my bigger overall goals for athletic performance or body composition or health in general, that I’m going to stop drinking, I’m going to moderate my drinking better. So treat this like an opportunity for you to decide where it belongs, when, how much. All of that last tip here is to incorporate exercise in that active lifestyle, because having a consistent exercise routine can help support metabolism and energy expenditure, so you can mitigate the effects that overconsumption of calories from alcohol can have. Okay. Also, we kind of talked about this before, but sweating and you know, breathing carbon dioxide in water is how we get the alcohol out of our system.

Emily Field (00:45:12) –  So consider getting a workout in and getting a sweat session in, and maybe a sauna session that can help you detox a little bit faster and mitigate the effects that we’re seeing from alcohol. In this episode, we talked about the relationship between alcohol and tracking macros. We started with a quick review of the main macronutrients proteins, fats, and carbs, and then introduced alcohol as a fourth macro. We talked all about its nutritional value, calorie content, and how it affects your metabolism, liver, and hydration. We also shared some practical tips for enjoying alcohol while still hitting your body. Composition goals like tracking your drinks, adjusting your macros, picking lower calorie options, and the importance of moderation. By understanding these points, you can make smarter choices about drinking and stay on track with your health and fitness goals. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you next time on the next episode of Macros Made Easy. Thank you so much for listening to the Macros Made Easy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the one you’re listening to right now to share it on your Instagram Stories, and tag me at Emily Field so that more people can find this podcast and learn how to use a macros approach in a stress free way.

Emily Field (00:46:23) –  If you love the podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and a review. Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at www.emilyfieldRD.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to Macros Made Easy. I’m Emily Field, registered dietician, and I think today’s episode is gonna feel like a little bit of a reset, but also reinforcement. Because if you’re already using macros, even loosely, this is going to strengthen your confidence in what you’re doing and help you see why this approach works so well.

[00:00:18] Emily Field: And if you’ve been circling macros, maybe curious, maybe inconsistent, maybe with one foot in and one foot out, this might be the episode that helps you finally commit to it fully. Because here’s the reality we’re all navigating right now. There is more nutrition information than ever before, and somehow more confusion than ever.

[00:00:38] Emily Field: You’ve probably felt this. One person says to eat low carb, another says to eat plant-based, another says to eat less, another says you need to eat more. Now GLP-1 medications are part of the conversation, supplements, hacks, influencers. It’s everywhere. And even if you know about macros, even if you’ve tried them, it can still be easy to get pulled into the noise, to start second-guessing what you’re doing, to wonder if there’s something better, faster, or more effective.

[00:01:06] Emily Field: And that’s the part I wanna clear up today, because the issue isn’t that you need more information, it’s that most people don’t have a way to filter the information they already have. They don’t have a framework, and without a framework, even good information becomes confusing. So in this episode, I’m gonna walk you through how macros actually solve that problem, not as another method, but as a method that helps everything else make sense.

[00:01:30] Emily Field: And before I ever taught this, before this became what I’m known for, I had to figure this out for myself first. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietician that specializes in a macros approach. In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients, how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits.

[00:02:02] Emily Field: I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition. So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick, or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too. This is where I’m probably a little different from what you might expect when you think about someone who teaches macros.

[00:02:22] Emily Field: I didn’t start with macros. I actually started in a place that I think a lot of people can relate to, doing what I believed was healthy, but still not feeling my best. When I was studying to become a dietician, I was eating the way I was taught was ideal. I was prioritizing fruits and vegetables, leaning more vegetarian at the time, and trying to make what I thought were good choices.

[00:02:42] Emily Field: But I was also a broke grad student, so a lot of my meals looked like frozen healthy meals, turkey burgers, black bean burgers, low-calorie yogurt, cereal, things that felt convenient and aligned with what I had learned. My days were long. Between classes and my dietetic internship, I was constantly on the go.

[00:02:59] Emily Field: I relied a lot on protein bars just to get through the day, and I was tired. I was really tired. I was known as the snack lady because I was always reaching for something to eat. I always had to have something on my person to prevent that hangry. I would eat, and then within a couple of hours, I’d be hungry again.

[00:03:16] Emily Field: Looking back, I wouldn’t say I was eating poorly, but I definitely didn’t have any real structure to my meals. My protein intake was low, my meals weren’t very balanced, and I was constantly riding this blood sugar roller coaster. I also had a lot of digestive issues, bloating, stomach noises, discomfort, and there didn’t seem to be any real clear reason why.

[00:03:36] Emily Field: It wasn’t until I graduated, became a dietician, and started working that I finally had a little bit of space to pause and think more critically about what I was doing and how I was teaching people how to eat. And I realized something very important. The tools we were using, things like the food pyramid or even MyPlate, they weren’t translating well into real life.

[00:03:57] Emily Field: They were far too vague. They didn’t help people actually build meals in a way that felt practical or repeatable. So I started asking a different question What is the simplest, most effective way to teach someone how to eat well? And that’s where I landed on balanced meals, what I now call PFC eating, having proteins, fats, and carbohydrates as a part of every meal.

[00:04:20] Emily Field: And at first, I honestly thought it would be too simple. I thought people might get bored or feel like it wasn’t enough. But what I found was the opposite. There is a lot of depth in something that simple. First, people need to understand which foods actually contain protein, fat, and carbohydrates. That alone is new information for a lot of people.

[00:04:39] Emily Field: Then we start building meals, real meals that are enjoyable, that fit their preferences, that they actually want to eat, while including a balance of all three of those macronutrients. And that process takes time. It’s a skill. But here’s what starts to happen when people get that piece right. Their energy improves.

[00:04:57] Emily Field: They feel more full and satisfied. They stop needing constant snacks. Their digestion improves, and very often they start to see changes in their body, especially fat loss around the midsection. All of this is tied to more stable, supported blood sugar because what most people are experiencing before this is that blood sugar rollercoaster, spikes and crashes throughout the day that drive hunger, cravings, energy dips, and a lot of frustration.

[00:05:24] Emily Field: Balanced PFC meals are what start to smooth that all out. That’s the foundation, and then naturally, once someone gets comfortable there, their next question becomes, “Okay, but how much protein, how much fat, how much carbs do I actually need?” And that’s where macros come in, not as the starting point, but as the next logical step because at that point, you’re not learning something completely new.

[00:05:50] Emily Field: You’re refining something you already understand. Macros weren’t the starting point. They were the refinement, and this is exactly how I teach inside of Macros Made Easy as well. We don’t jump straight into hitting perfect macro targets right away. In fact, the first part of the course focuses much more on building balanced meals, looking at the protein, fat, and carbohydrate in what you’re already eating, and learning how to improve that balance because this never goes out of style.

[00:06:16] Emily Field: The people who are most successful with the macros approach aren’t the ones who are glued to a tracking app or perfectly weighing every gram of food. They’re the ones who think in terms of PFC first. They can look at a meal and understand how to build it, how to adjust it, and how to support their body, whether they’re tracking or not.

[00:06:34] Emily Field: That foundation is what makes macros actually work in real life. Now, when I say guessing, I wanna be really clear about what I mean because this doesn’t mean you’re eating poorly or that you don’t care about your health. In fact, for most of the women I work with, it’s the opposite. They’re doing a lot of things right.

[00:06:51] Emily Field: They’re choosing foods that they believe are healthy, they’re paying attention to ingredients, they’re trying to make better choices, but underneath all of that, there’s no clear framework guiding how they’re putting those choices together. So instead, what ends up happening is this subtle form of guessing.

[00:07:06] Emily Field: It can look like, “I eat healthy, but nothing is changing. I don’t know if I’m eating too little or too much. I feel tired, but I can’t really explain why. I’m working out consistently, but I’m not seeing the results I expected.” And often, this guessing is layered with a lot of subconscious food rules that people don’t even realize they’re following, things like trying to keep carbs low or avoiding white foods, looking for low sodium or no sugar labels, fasting for certain periods of time without really knowing if it’s helping, gravitating towards foods that feel safe or clean, eating generally healthy options, but without any real structure to meals.

[00:07:45] Emily Field: So from the outside, it looks like you’re doing a lot of things right, but internally, it feels inconsistent, it feels uncertain, and that uncertainty is what keeps people stuck because if you don’t know what’s working or what’s not, you don’t know what to change. And something that doesn’t get talked about enough is how exhausting this actually is.

[00:08:06] Emily Field: When every meal feels like a decision, what should I eat? Is that a good choice? Is this too much? Should I be eating less? That creates real decision fatigue. Over time, it’s not a lack of discipline that causes inconsistency, it’s mental exhaustion from constantly trying to figure it out. And this is especially true for women I work with, midlife women who are active, consistent, and committed, but still feel stuck.

[00:08:31] Emily Field: They’re working out, they’re trying to eat well, they’re putting in the effort, but they don’t have a clear way to evaluate what they’re doing, and that’s why I say this often. Most women I work with don’t have a discipline problem. They have a clarity problem. So once you understand the problem, this constant guessing, this lack of clarity, the next question becomes, what actually solves that?

[00:08:55] Emily Field: And this is where I wanna reposition macros a little bit because most people think macros are just about tracking numbers, and that’s not really what they do. Macros give you a framework. They give you a way to understand, evaluate, and adjust how you eat without relying on rules, trends, or opinions.

[00:09:12] Emily Field: There are four main ways that they do this. First, macros give you awareness, and this is a big one because most people think they already know how they’re eating. But when you actually start paying attention, even loosely, you realize there’s often a gap between what you think you’re eating and what you’re actually eating.

[00:09:30] Emily Field: For example, someone might say, “I eat a lot of protein,” but when we look closer, they’re getting maybe 40 or 50 grams in a day. Or they might feel like they’re barely eating, but when we map out their meals and snacks, they’re actually eating very inconsistently, under-eating earlier in the day and then compensating later.

[00:09:46] Emily Field: Or they think that they’re eating balanced meals, but it turns out most of their meals are heavily carb-based with very little protein or fat to support satiety. Macros bring that into light, not in a judgmental way, but in a clear, objective way. You’re no longer guessing. You can actually see what’s happening.

[00:10:04] Emily Field: Second, macros give you structure without restriction, and this is where they’re very different from diets. Diets tend to tell you what to eat and what to avoid. Macros don’t do that. They just give you parameters. So instead of being told, “Don’t eat carbs,” or, “Only eat these foods,” you’re working within a structure that says, “Here’s about how much protein, fat, and carbs your body needs.”

[00:10:27] Emily Field: Within that, you can build meals that you actually enjoy. You can have flexibility. You can eat at restaurants. You can include foods that you love. It’s not about following a plan, it’s about understanding how to build one. Third, macros give you feedback, and this is where things really start to click because now instead of wondering why you feel the way that you do, you can start connecting the dots.

[00:10:48] Emily Field: You might notice that when your protein is higher and your meals are more balanced, your energy is more stable throughout the day, or that when you under eat carbs, your workouts feel harder and your recovery is slower, or that when your meals are more consistent, your hunger feels more predictable and your cravings decrease.

[00:11:04] Emily Field: You can also see changes in your body composition over time and connect those back to how you’re eating. So instead of everything feeling random, it becomes data. Your body starts giving you feedback, and you actually know how to interpret it. And then fourth, macros give you adjustability. This is what makes them sustainable long-term because once you have awareness, structure, and feedback, you can start making intentional changes.

[00:11:29] Emily Field: If your goal is fat loss, you can adjust your intake slightly and monitor what happens. If your goal is performance, you can increase carbs and see how your training responds. If your energy is low, you can look at your overall intake and make supportive changes. You’re no longer stuck following a static plan that either works or doesn’t work.

[00:11:48] Emily Field: You’re making small, informed adjustments based on real information, and that’s why I often say that macros are not a diet. They’re a feedback system. They give you a way to understand what’s happening in your body and make decisions based on that, not based on fear, trends, or guesswork. And this is the part people don’t expect.

[00:12:08] Emily Field: Macros don’t just change how you eat, they change how you think about food. You’re no longer in a camp. You’re not keto, paleo, low carb, high carb. You just eat. You can look at a meal and understand it. You can build a plate without overthinking it. You can adjust without feeling like you’re starting over, and that is a completely different experience than following rules.

[00:12:30] Emily Field: It also removes a huge amount of mental friction because something that doesn’t get talked about enough is how exhausting it is to constantly make food decisions without a framework. When every meal feels like a question, “What should I eat? Is this good or bad? Is this too much?” That creates decision fatigue, and over time, that’s what leads to inconsistency, not a lack of discipline.

[00:12:53] Emily Field: Macros reduce that friction. They give you a way to make faster, more confident decisions. They take food out of that moral good versus bad category and put it in a more neutral, practical space. And when that happens, eating becomes a lot simpler and a lot more sustainable. At this point, once you understand what macros actually do, it becomes easier to see why this approach has lasted and why it continues to work regardless of what is trending in the nutrition space.

[00:13:23] Emily Field: Because if you zoom out for a moment, the reality is that nutrition trends are constantly changing. There’s always something new being introduced, marketed, or positioned as the next best solution. And I’ve been doing this for a long time, enough to watch those cycles repeat themselves. I’ve seen low-fat phases, low-carb phases, elimination diets, detoxes, point systems, intermittent fasting protocols, and now the rise of GLP-1 medications.

[00:13:48] Emily Field: There is always something new, but underneath all of that, something much more consistent is happening. Your body is tracking macros whether or not you are. It’s not a method. It’s not a trend. It’s physiology. Your body is constantly responding to the protein, fat, and carbohydrates you eat, using them for energy, recovery, hormone production, and tissue repair.

[00:14:11] Emily Field: So the question isn’t whether macros matter. The question is whether you understand how to work with them because when you do, you can use macros to support almost any goal. You can improve blood sugar stability. You can enhance athletic performance. You can lose fat or build muscle. You can better manage chronic conditions.

[00:14:30] Emily Field: You’re not learning a new set of rules to follow. You’re actually removing a lot of the nonsensical rules that you’ve picked up over time, things like cutting out entire food groups, labeling foods as good or bad, or constantly jumping between different approaches depending on what’s trending. Instead, you’re learning to speak the language your body already understands.

[00:14:50] Emily Field: You’re learning how to give it clear, consistent inputs and then observe how it responds. And that’s what makes this so different from everything else If you look at most fad diets, they tend to operate by telling you what to eat and what to avoid. They provide rules, sometimes very rigid ones, and they rarely teach you why those rules exist or how to adapt them to your own body, your preferences, or your lifestyle.

[00:15:15] Emily Field: So when the plan stops working or life changes, you’re left without a clear way to adjust. When it comes to weight loss drugs like GLP-1s, they can be incredibly effective at changing appetite. They reduce hunger, slow digestion, and make it easier for someone to eat less. But they don’t teach you how to build meals, how to balance nutrients, or how to support your body in a way that preserves muscle, maintains energy, or sustains results long term.

[00:15:40] Emily Field: The medication changes how much you eat, but it doesn’t change how you eat. Supplements fall into a similar category. They can support specific outcomes, fill gaps, or enhance performance, but they’re always in addition to the foundation. They don’t replace the need for balanced, intentional eating. Without that foundation, their impact is severely limited.

[00:16:01] Emily Field: And even with more intensive interventions like weight loss surgery, while they alter the body’s capacity to eat and can create significant short-term changes, they still require the development of long-term nutrition and behavior skills. Over time, outcomes are still heavily influenced by how someone is eating and how they’re supporting their body.

[00:16:22] Emily Field: So when you look across all of these approaches, a clear pattern emerges. Every single one of them at some point comes back to the same question: How are you eating? And that’s why this matters, because macros are the skill that governs that. They don’t replace other tools, but they make those tools more effective.

[00:16:42] Emily Field: They give you the ability to understand what you’re doing, to adjust when needed, and to maintain results in a way that doesn’t rely on constantly starting over. And this is where I wanna be really clear about my perspective I’ve been doing this for years, and I’ve watched trends come and go. There is always a new method, a new set of rules, or a new solution being presented, but this is different.

[00:17:04] Emily Field: This is not trendy. This is foundational. It builds on principles that don’t change, even when the landscape around them does, and that’s exactly why it continues to work. One of the biggest misconceptions about macros is that they’re only useful for one specific goal, usually weight loss or fat loss.

[00:17:23] Emily Field: That’s how people find them, but that’s not how this works. Macros aren’t tied to one outcome. They adapt to whatever outcome you’re working towards, and that’s because, again, we’re not dealing with a set of rules. We’re working with how the body actually uses food. So whether your goal is health, body composition, or performance, the framework stays the same.

[00:17:43] Emily Field: The application just shifts slightly. Let’s walk through what this looks like. When it comes to health, one of the most immediate things we see improve is blood sugar regulation. A really common pattern I see is someone who is eating what they would consider healthy, but their meals are very carbohydrate heavy and lack protein and fat, or they’re skipping meals, grazing throughout the day, or relying on quick snacks to get through.

[00:18:06] Emily Field: The result is that constant up and down in energy, feeling fine for a little while, then crashing, reaching for something else, and repeating that cycle all day long. I’ve had clients come in describing exactly that, mid-morning crashes, needing something sweet in the afternoon, feeling like they can’t get through the day without constantly snacking.

[00:18:24] Emily Field: And instead of removing foods or cutting things out, we just shift the structure. We start building balanced meals that include protein, fat, and carbohydrates, and almost immediately, they start to notice a difference. Their energy becomes more stable. They feel more full after meals. They’re not thinking about food every hour.

[00:18:42] Emily Field: And for clients who are dealing with pre-diabetes or blood sugar dysregulation, this same approach often leads to improved labs over time, not because we followed a restrictive plan, but because we supported their physiology more appropriately. Hormonal health is another area where this shows up in a big way.

[00:18:59] Emily Field: I’ve worked with many women who come in with long or unpredictable cycles, increased PMS symptoms, or signs that their body is under a lot of stress. And very often, when we look at their nutrition, they are under-eating, especially carbohydrates. They’re working out consistently, trying to eat clean, maybe even unintentionally keeping carbs low because of the messaging they’ve picked up over the years.

[00:19:22] Emily Field: So their body is essentially under-supported. When we start increasing overall intake and bringing carbohydrates back in, along with balanced meals and more consistent eating patterns, we often see their cycles become more regular, symptoms improve, and their overall sense of wellbeing increase, not because we added something complicated, but because we gave their body what it needed.

[00:19:44] Emily Field: When we shift into body composition goals, the same framework applies, but now we’re being a bit more intentional with amounts. For fat loss, one of the most common client stories is someone who feels like they’ve already tried everything, eating less, working out more, but they’re stuck. And when we look closer, they’re often under-eating during the day, low in protein, and feeling out of control later on.

[00:20:06] Emily Field: Or they’re eating healthy foods, but without enough structure to create c- a consistent deficit. When we introduce macros, we don’t just cut calories further. We often increase protein, improve meal balance, and create a more consistent intake pattern, and that’s when they start to see changes without feeling deprived.

[00:20:26] Emily Field: On the other side, for muscle gain or recomposition, I’ve had many clients who are working out consistently, lifting weights, putting in a lot of effort, but not seeing their body change. And again, the issue isn’t effort, it’s fuel. Once they start eating enough, especially enough protein and carbohydrates to support their training, they begin to see the strength gains, better recovery, and visible changes in muscle tone.

[00:20:51] Emily Field: They’re not working harder, they’re working more effectively because they’re fueling appropriately. And then when we look at performance, this becomes even more obvious. I’ve worked with athletes, runners, CrossFit athletes, women training for events, who come in thinking they need to push harder, train more, or be more disciplined.

[00:21:09] Emily Field: But when we look at their nutrition, they’re often under-fueled. They’re not eating enough carbohydrates to support their training volume, or they’re not eating consistently enough throughout the day. Once we correct that, once we align their intake with their output, the shift can be pretty immediate.

[00:21:25] Emily Field: Their workouts feel better, their recovery improves, their performance increases, and in many cases, they’re surprised by how much better they feel without having to increase their training at all. They didn’t need to do more. They needed to support what they were already doing. So across all of these examples, the common thread is this: We’re not changing the framework, we’re applying it differently.

[00:21:48] Emily Field: Macros aren’t tied to one goal. They adapt to any goal, and that’s what makes them so powerful because once you understand how to use them, you don’t need a new plan every time your goals change. You already have the tool, you just need to learn how to adjust it. Before we move on, I wanna take a moment to address some of the resistance that often comes up around macros, because even when this approach makes sense on paper, there are still very real concerns that can hold people back One of the most common things I hear is that tracking feels obsessive, and this is where I think it’s really important to slow down and make a distinction because tracking itself is just a tool, while obsession is a relationship with food.

[00:22:30] Emily Field: Those two things are not inherently the same, even though they often get grouped together. For many people, especially those who feel like they’re constantly thinking about food, structure can actually reduce that mental noise. Instead of spending your day questioning every decision, wondering what you should eat, whether something is good or bad, or if you’ve eaten too much, you have a framework that allows you to make decisions more efficiently and move on.

[00:22:54] Emily Field: It creates clarity, which often leads to less fixation, not more. At the same time, I wanna also acknowledge that for someone with a history of very rigid dieting or a complicated relationship with food, tracking may not be the right starting point, and that’s okay. This isn’t about forcing a method onto everyone.

[00:23:12] Emily Field: It’s about understanding how the tool works and using it in a way that supports you. When macros are approached as a flexible skill-building process rather than a rigid set of rules, they tend to create more freedom, not less. Another concern that often comes up is the idea of tracking forever. And to be honest, if that’s your fear, I actually think you’re thinking about this in the right way because the goal is not to track forever.

[00:23:38] Emily Field: The goal is to learn. Tracking is simply one of the most efficient ways to build awareness. It helps you understand portions, identify patterns in your eating, and connect how different foods and meal structures make you feel. Like any skill, there is a phase where you’re more intentional and more focused as you learn.

[00:23:57] Emily Field: But over time, that level of effort decreases as the skill becomes more automatic. You begin to recognize what a balanced meal looks like without needing to calculate it. You understand how to adjust your intake based on your goals, your activity, or how your body feels. You’re no longer dependent on an app, you’re informed by it.

[00:24:17] Emily Field: So no, you don’t track forever, but you do learn something that stays with you long after you stop tracking. You don’t track forever, but you do learn forever. The last piece of resistance I hear frequently is that macros seem complicated, and I completely understand where that comes from because at first glance it can feel like a lot.

[00:24:36] Emily Field: You’re thinking about the numbers, you’re trying to understand new concepts, and it’s different from how you’ve approached food in the past. But what’s important to recognize is that macros are only complex at the beginning, before you have context. Once you understand the basics, once you’ve practiced building balanced meals, and once you’ve seen how your body responds, the entire process becomes simpler.

[00:24:58] Emily Field: In fact, for many people, it simplifies their nutrition more than anything they’ve tried before. Instead of juggling a long list of rules about what you can and cannot eat, when you should eat, or how you should structure your day, you’re working within a consistent framework that applies across all situations.

[00:25:15] Emily Field: That consistency is what reduces overwhelm. Over time, you stop overanalyzing your choices, you stop second-guessing yourself, you stop feeling like you need to start over every time something isn’t perfect. It just becomes the way you eat. And that’s really the goal here, not perfection, not rigid adherence, but competence, the ability to understand what you’re doing well enough that you can navigate real life without feeling like everything falls apart when things aren’t ideal.

[00:25:45] Emily Field: If you stay in that place without a clear framework, you don’t just feel a little confused here and there. You stay stuck, and not in an obvious way where nothing is happening, but in a cycle that feels like effort, feels like progress, but ultimately keeps you in the same place. Without a framework, you end up relying on trends to guide your decisions.

[00:26:06] Emily Field: Whatever you hear next becomes the thing you try. You cut carbs for a while, then experiment with fasting, and then try to eat more, but without any real structure behind it. Each shift feels like a step forward, but you’re not actually building anything consistent underneath it. So when it stops working or never quite works in the way you hoped, you don’t have a way to troubleshoot.

[00:26:28] Emily Field: You only have one option, start over, and that becomes the pattern. Restarting on Monday, resetting after the weekend, getting back on track after a busy week. But in reality, you’re repeating the same cycle with a slightly different approach. Over time, that takes a toll because you’re putting in the effort, but you’re not gaining any clarity.

[00:26:48] Emily Field: You’re trying, but you’re not learning. You’re doing more, but you’re not moving forward. And that’s where this second guessing starts to take over. Every decision feels uncertain. You eat something and immediately question if it was the right choice. You look at your day and you wonder if you did enough or maybe too much.

[00:27:07] Emily Field: You see results or lack of results, and you don’t know how to interpret them or what to change. So instead of making small, informed adjustments, you end up making bigger, more reactive changes or abandoning the approach altogether. And the hardest part is this, you never actually learn how your body works.

[00:27:24] Emily Field: You never learn how to speak its language because macros are that language. They are how your body interprets food, how it determines energy, recovery, storage, and regulation. And if you don’t learn that language, you’re left trying to influence your body without really understanding it So ultimately, you stay dependent on external rules, external plans, and external opinions instead of developing internal understanding, and that’s what keeps you stuck.

[00:27:53] Emily Field: Because when you don’t understand what your body needs, you can’t give it clear instructions. You’re always guessing, and when you’re guessing, you’re always at risk of starting over. So if nothing changes, if you continue doing exactly what you’re doing right now, you don’t just stay where you are, you repeat this cycle over and over again.

[00:28:13] Emily Field: And that’s why this line matters so much. Without a framework, every new piece of information feels like a new plan because without an anchor, you don’t have a way to filter what you’re hearing, apply it to your life, or build something that actually lasts. If the last section felt heavy, this is where things can start to open up because when you move out of guessing and into understanding how your body actually works, everything changes.

[00:28:40] Emily Field: With macro mastery, you don’t just have a plan, you have a skill, and that skill shows up in very practical ways. You can walk into almost any situation, whether it’s a normal day at home, a busy work day, a vacation, or a dinner out, and know what to do. You’re no longer relying on perfect conditions. You’re able to look at what’s in front of you and make decisions that align with your goals without overthinking it.

[00:29:05] Emily Field: That shift alone removes a huge amount of mental noise. One of the first things people notice is that they stop overthinking food. They’re no longer questioning every choice or trying to figure out if they’re doing it right. Instead of going back and forth in their head all day, there’s a level of clarity that replaces that uncertainty, and with clarity comes trust.

[00:29:26] Emily Field: You trust your decisions, your ability to adjust, and the process itself, even when things aren’t perfect. That changes your relationship with food in a meaningful way because instead of reacting, starting over, resetting or changing everything, you just simply adjust. If something feels off, you don’t panic.

[00:29:44] Emily Field: You make a small change and keep moving forward. I’ve seen this play out over and over again. I’ve had clients who’ve spent years eating as little as possible, convinced that that was the answer, only to finally eat more, support their body properly, and for the first time actually see results, not because they tried harder, but because they finally understood what their body needed.

[00:30:07] Emily Field: And this doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a progression. Most people start in a place of not knowing, move into curiosity, and often hit a phase where it feels frustrating or inconsistent. But when they stay focused on learning the skill, not just hitting the numbers, they become more consistent, more capable, and more flexible.

[00:30:25] Emily Field: Eventually, they reach a point where they can estimate, adjust, and navigate real life without needing perfect conditions. That’s macro mastery. Not perfection or rigidity, but confidence and flexibility. At that point, you’re not tied to a plan, dependent on an app, or waiting for someone to tell you what to do.

[00:30:43] Emily Field: You just know how to eat, and that’s why this matters so much. You stop second-guessing your food choices for good, not because you’re following rules better than before, but because you’ve learned how to understand your body and respond to it. You’re no longer guessing, you’re making informed decisions, and that is a completely different experience.

[00:31:04] Emily Field: So if you’re listening to this and realizing what you’ve been missing isn’t effort, but clarity, if you feel like you’ve been doing a lot of the right things, but you’ve never had a clear way to understand what’s working, what’s not, or how to adjust, this is exactly the gap that Macros Made Easy is designed to fill.

[00:31:20] Emily Field: Because this isn’t a course where I hand you numbers and send you on your way. In fact, we don’t even start there. We start with the foundation, learning how to build balanced meals, understanding protein, fat, and carbohydrates in real food, and developing the ability to look at what you’re eating and actually make sense of it.

[00:31:38] Emily Field: And then from there, you learn how to set macros in a way that makes sense for your body and your goals, how to build meals that support those targets without overcomplicating your life, and how to adjust over time based on real feedback, not guesswork. And most importantly, you learn how to apply all of this in real life, not just when everything is perfectly planned, but when you’re busy traveling, eating out, managing a full schedule, or just living your life.

[00:32:04] Emily Field: Because the goal here is not perfection, it’s competence. It’s being able to navigate any situation and know what to do. Macros Made Easy is a skill-building course. It’s designed to be repeatable, flexible, and something you can come back to in different seasons of your life, whether your goal is fat loss, performance, maintenance, or just feeling better in your body.

[00:32:26] Emily Field: So you’re not just learning something for now, you’re learning something you can use for life. Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about giving you numbers. It’s about teaching you how to use them. And once you know how to do that, everything else becomes a lot simpler. At the end of the day, this conversation is so much bigger than macros.

[00:32:45] Emily Field: It’s about moving from guessing to knowing. It’s about stepping out of the cycle of trying, restarting, and second-guessing, and into a place where you actually understand how your body works and how to support it Because when you have that clarity, everything changes. You don’t need more rules, you don’t need more plans, and you don’t need to keep chasing the next thing.

[00:33:05] Emily Field: You just need a framework you can trust. And when you have that, you can make decisions with confidence, adjust when needed, and finally feel like what you’re doing is working. That’s what I want for you, and that’s exactly what this approach is designed to give you.

[00:33:20] Emily Field: Thank you so much for listening to the Macros Made Easy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the one you’re listening to right now to share it on your Instagram stories and tag me @emilyfieldrd so that more people can find this podcast and learn how to use a macros approach in a stress-free way.

[00:33:37] Emily Field: If you love the podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and a review. Remember, you can always find more free health and nutrition content on Instagram and on my website at emilyfieldrd.com. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to the Macros Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Emily Field, registered dietician, personal trainer, and someone who spends a lot of time thinking about physiology, behavior, and what actually supports long-term health in real life. Today’s episode is personal. I’m gonna walk you through several things I’ve done during this pregnancy that some people might consider a little non-conventional.

[00:00:23] Emily Field: I monitored my own blood sugars. Instead of doing the standard glucose drink, I hired a doula. I continued lifting and attending CrossFit style classes. I tracked just protein instead of all my macros. I intentionally did not focus on total weight gained. I committed to acupuncture three times per month, and perhaps most importantly, I continued deep body image work.

[00:00:47] Emily Field: Now, before you assume anything, let me say this clearly. This episode is not about rebellion. It’s not about rejecting medicine. It’s not about thinking I know better than my doctor, and it is absolutely not about creating a formula for a perfect pregnancy outcome. It is about intentional decision making in a season that is often filled with rules, fear and shoulds.

[00:01:11] Emily Field: But before I get into specific choices I made, I need to add a little bit of context. ’cause context matters. I am a white, middle class college educated woman in a health profession. This is a planned pregnancy. I have access to excellent medical care. I have an active and supportive partner. I have flexibility in my schedule.

[00:01:30] Emily Field: I have the ability to pay for things like a doula and acupuncture, and I understand research and feel comfortable reading studies and asking questions. That is privilege, and I want to say that out loud. Not everyone has the same access to care. Not everyone has the same flexibility or financial resources.

[00:01:48] Emily Field: Not everyone feels empowered to ask questions or request alternatives. Not everyone enters pregnancy from a place of stability or support. So when I shared the decisions I made, I’m not presenting them as a universal recommendation. I’m sharing what made sense for me within the context of the resources and support that I have.

[00:02:07] Emily Field: And here’s another important layer here as well. I am an older first time mom, which does place me in a higher risk category for certain complications. None of my decisions were casual. None of them were about ignoring medical advice. I would never knowingly do something that increased risk to myself or my baby.

[00:02:26] Emily Field: If my doctor strongly advised against something, I would defer to her clinical judgment. Full stop. Autonomy to me does not mean disregarding expertise. It means asking thoughtful questions within a collaborative relationship. And one more thing. I am recording this episode before I know my birth outcomes.

[00:02:46] Emily Field: I do not know how labor will go. I do not know what postpartum will look like. I don’t not know whether any of these decisions will influence anything in a measurable way. It is entirely possible that none of these choices will change my birth experience at all, and I’m totally okay with that because this episode is not about outcomes.

[00:03:05] Emily Field: It’s about the process. Pregnancy is full of shoulds. You should do this. You shouldn’t do that. This is standard. This is protocol. This is what everyone does. And sometimes those standards are absolutely appropriate, but sometimes it’s also appropriate to pause and ask what makes sense for me? That is the lens I approach this pregnancy through, not rebellion, not fear, not control, but alignment.

[00:03:33] Emily Field: Alignment with physiology, alignment with my nervous system, alignment with the season I’m in. So here is where we’re gonna go today. First, I’m gonna walk you through the specific practices I chose and the research behind why they made sense physiologically. We’ll talk about blood sugar monitoring, resistance training, protein intake, stress physiology, and nervous system regulation.

[00:03:56] Emily Field: Then we’re gonna zoom out because when I look at all these decisions together, I realize something. This was not about being unconventional, it was about autonomy. It was about choosing curiosity over compliance information over fear physiology over dogma. And finally we’re gonna talk about the piece that most people overlook, body image, because pregnancy is the ultimate stress test for identity.

[00:04:21] Emily Field: And the work I did long before this pregnancy is what allowed me to stay steady through it. This episode is about much more than pregnancy. It’s about how you move through seasons of change without tightening control, spiraling into fear, or losing yourself in the process. Okay, let’s start with the first choice I made monitoring my blood sugar instead of drinking the glucose drink and why?

[00:04:44] Emily Field: That decision actually aligns perfectly with what I teach inside my services. One of the different things I chose to do during pregnancy was monitor my blood sugar instead of doing the standard glucose drink screening in a traditional way. And I wanna be really clear upfront, this was not me trying to avoid information.

[00:05:03] Emily Field: It actually. Did the opposite. I wanted information that felt more useful to me, more contextual and more reflective of how I actually eat and live. Gestational diabetes screening exists for a very good reason. Blood sugar dysregulation during pregnancy matters because when it goes undetected or unsupported, it can increase the risk of things like excessive fetal growth, preterm labor, cesarean delivery, and a greater likelihood of maternal insulin resistance later on in life.

[00:05:32] Emily Field: So the goal here is not to dismiss screening. The goal is to take glucose regulation seriously. The traditional screening method is the oral glucose tolerance test where the pregnant woman consumes a large isolated glucose load in a short period of time. Depending on the test. That can be anywhere from 50 to a hundred grams of glucose, often without buffering effects of protein, fat, fiber, or movement.

[00:05:57] Emily Field: It’s designed to stress the system and reveal whether the body is managing glucose appropriately. That test absolutely has clinical utility, but it is also by design, somewhat artificial. It is not how most people eat in real life. On the other hand, structured blood sugar monitoring gives you data from normal meals, normal routines, and normal physiology.

[00:06:20] Emily Field: It lets you see how your body responds to breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, movement, stress, sleep, and meal composition. Instead of measuring your response to an isolated sugar load, it measures your response to real life. And when you zoom out, the research around glucose control supports a lot of the same principles I teach all the time anyway.

[00:06:43] Emily Field: Meals that include protein, fat, and carbohydrate tend to create a steadier blood sugar response than carbs eaten in isolation. Resistance training improves insulin sensitivity. Frequent moderate movement supports glycemic control, stable routines, balanced meals, and muscle mass, all matter. And that is part of why this route made sense to me.

[00:07:07] Emily Field: It gave me more than a yes or no answer. It gave me a. A pattern. So for me, this choice came down to wanting context instead of just a single stress test. I was not interested in passing something and just moving on. I was interested in understanding how my body was responding across days and meals. I wanted to see what happened after breakfast.

[00:07:28] Emily Field: I wanted to know whether a balanced lunch kept things stable. I wanted to observe whether stress, sleep, or activity shifted my numbers. That kind of information feels much more actionable to me than one big glucose hit in isolation. And again, this was not about fear of carbs and it was not about trying to outsmart the medical system.

[00:07:49] Emily Field: I did not avoid carbohydrates during pregnancy, and I did not avoid testing. I simply chose a form of testing that felt much more aligned with how I think about physiology. Because if I’m going to gather data, I want that data to come from conditions that resemble my actual life. That is very similar to how I think about nutrition in general.

[00:08:10] Emily Field: I do not care whether someone can white knuckle their way through one perfect day of eating. I care about what their body is telling us across the week. I care about patterns. I care about repeatability. I care about whether the data we collect actually helps us make. Better decisions, that mindset absolutely carried into pregnancy.

[00:08:31] Emily Field: And this choice felt incredibly aligned with how I teach nutrition because at its core, macros made easy is about learning how your body responds in real life. It’s not about blindly following rules, it’s not about chasing perfect compliance. It’s not about doing things because they’re standard if they’re not actually giving you the most meaningful information.

[00:08:51] Emily Field: Macro’s made easy. Teaches that data is helpful when it creates clarity, not when it creates fear. Macro tracking, when done well is not obsessive because of the numbers. It is informative because it helps you observe patterns in your real routine. You start to see what happens when protein is too low, when meals are carb heavy without balance.

[00:09:11] Emily Field: When you undereat all day and feel out of control at night or when you’re feeling well and your energy recovery and hunger cues improve. That is exactly how I viewed blood sugar monitoring in pregnancy. I was not looking for a gold star. I was not looking to do pregnancy perfectly. I was looking for feedback, and that feedback came from real meals with mixed macronutrients.

[00:09:33] Emily Field: It came from how my body handled carbohydrates in the presence of protein and fat. It came from observing how movement supported blood sugar. I came from seeing physiology play out in context instead of in a vacuum. To me, that is such a strong reflection of the larger message I try to teach women. Your body is not random and it is not broken.

[00:09:54] Emily Field: It responds to inputs. If you gather the right information, you can make better decisions with a lot less fear. So this choice really represented three things I value deeply in my work. Curiosity over compliance information over fear and physiology over dogma. That is the same lens I bring to macro tracking.

[00:10:15] Emily Field: That is the same lens I bring to midlife nutrition, and that is the same lens I brought into pregnancy. The bigger point here is not that everyone should do what I did. The bigger point is that I approach pregnancy the same way I approach nutrition coaching. I want to understand what is happening in my body in a way that reflected real life.

[00:10:35] Emily Field: I wanted useful data, not just standard data. I wanted insight I could actually apply. I think that is an important distinction. Because there is a big difference between rejecting care and personalizing care. There is a big difference between avoidance and thoughtful decision making, and there’s a big difference between following a norm because it’s common and choosing an approach because it gives you the kind of information that helps you take better care of yourself.

[00:11:04] Emily Field: And that’s why this felt like such a meaningful choice for me during pregnancy. Another different decision I made during pregnancy was hiring a doula, and this one honestly feels less controversial to me and more like a no-brainer. Once I understood the full picture. There’s actually very strong research behind continuous labor support.

[00:11:26] Emily Field: Large systematic reviews, including data from the Cochrane Collaboration, consistently show that having continuous support during labor, like from a doula, is associated with lower rates of cesarean delivery, reduced need for pain medication, shorter labor duration, higher birth satisfaction, and lower risk for postpartum depression.

[00:11:47] Emily Field: Those are meaningful outcomes, and when you understand the physiology, it makes a lot of sense why this happens. Labor is not just mechanical, it’s hormonal. Oxytocin is the primary hormone driving labor progression, but oxytocin is very sensitive to environment, stress, and perceived safety. When stress levels rise, catecholamines like adrenaline increase, and those stress hormones can actually inhibit oxytocin.

[00:12:14] Emily Field: So when you think about it like this, when the body feels unsafe, it slows labor. When the body feels supported and safe, it allows labor to progress. Continuous support helps regulate that environment. It lowers perceived stress, supports emotional safety, and allows the hormonal cascade of labor to function more effectively.

[00:12:37] Emily Field: So while it might look like an extra nice, it is actually deeply tied to physiology. For me, this decision was both physiological and personal. From a physiological standpoint, it made complete sense. If environment and stress influence labor, then investing in support is not optional. It is strategic. But on a personal level, this decision was really about knowing myself and knowing my dynamic with my partner.

[00:13:03] Emily Field: I trust my partner deeply. He has been through birth before, which is valuable, but that experience was over 20 years ago, and this is not something we actively live in or practice. We are a great team, but we are not experts in labor. And I think there’s a tendency to assume that love and support are enough and they matter a lot, but they are not the same as expertise.

[00:13:26] Emily Field: I also know something about myself. I thrive when I can trust the people around me. I am very good at making decisions, but I’m also very comfortable passing decision making to someone I trust when they’re more experienced in a specific area. That’s actually a strength for me and labor felt like one of those situations where I do not know who I am going to be.

[00:13:48] Emily Field: I do not know how I will respond physically or emotionally. I do not know what I will need in the moment. And I also do not know how my partner will respond if I am not at my best, because the truth is when one person is dysregulated, it can impact the other. So bringing in a doula felt like adding a steady, experienced presence into a situation that is inherently unpredictable.

[00:14:12] Emily Field: Someone who is not emotionally entangled in the moment. Someone who can guide ground and support both of us. Someone who has seen this many times before and knows how to navigate it, and that felt incredibly valuable. This decision is very aligned with how I approach everything in my work. I do not believe in winging it and hoping for the best.

[00:14:32] Emily Field: I believe in building systems that support better outcomes In macros made easy. We don’t rely on motivation alone. We build structure in E two lean. We do not expect you to figure everything out by yourself. We coach you through it with a custom macro calculation. We do not guess. We use data and experience to guide decisions.

[00:14:52] Emily Field: This is the same concept just applied to a different phase of life. I did not want to rely solely on willpower, emotion, or instinct in a high stakes, high stress environment. I wanted support. I wanted guidance. I wanted someone in the room whose role was to help regulate the environment because environment matters.

[00:15:11] Emily Field: We talk about that all the time with your nutrition. Your environment influences your behavior, your environment influences your decisions, your environment influences your outcomes. And labor is no different. Hiring a doula was me intentionally shaping my environment to support the physiological and emotional outcome that I wanted.

[00:15:31] Emily Field: So again, this is not about saying everyone needs a doula. The takeaway is that support changes outcomes, and not just emotional outcomes, but physiological ones too. We often think of strength as doing things all on our own, but in reality, one of the most effective things you can do is build the right support system around you.

[00:15:51] Emily Field: That is true in nutrition. That’s true in fitness, and it’s absolutely true in pregnancy and birth. For me, hiring a doula was not an extra, it was an investment in environment regulation and support, and that is something I will almost always prioritize. Another thing I chose to continue during my pregnancy was strength training and specifically going to CrossFit style classes at my gym.

[00:16:16] Emily Field: Now, this is one of those areas where people think it’s controversial, but when you actually look at the research, it’s really not, it’s. Guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are very clear. Resistance training is not only safe during uncomplicated pregnancy. It’s recommended the benefits are significant, reduced risk for gestational diabetes, less back pain, improved mood and mental health, lower likelihood of excessive gestational weight gain, better postpartum recovery, preservation of lean muscle mass.

[00:16:47] Emily Field: And when you zoom in on what strength training is doing physiologically. It becomes even more compelling. It helps maintain insulin sensitivity, which is a huge factor during pregnancy. It preserves neuromuscular coordination and strength, which matters as your body is literally changing week to week. It supports pelvic stability and joint integrity, and it helps maintain metabolic rate through the preservation of muscle mass.

[00:17:13] Emily Field: What the research does not say is that you need to stop exercising. It says that you need to modify appropriately as pregnancy progresses, adjusting the intensity movement and expectations to match as your body can safely tolerate. So again, the theme here is not restriction, it’s adaptation. For me, continuing to lift was both a physical and a psychological decision.

[00:17:38] Emily Field: Physically, it made complete sense. Muscle is protective, strength is protective, metabolic health is protective, and all of those things matter, not just during pregnancy, but in recovery afterward. But the part that felt just as important, if not more important, was the mental and emotional side. Movement is a huge part of my mental health.

[00:17:59] Emily Field: It is part of my routine. It is part of how I regulate stress. It is part of how I feel like myself, and I knew that even if things had to change, removing that entirely would definitely not serve me. That said, I had to modify much earlier than I expected. I dealt with carpal tunnel and swelling in my wrist pretty early on, which meant that certain movements just weren’t available to me the way that they used to be.

[00:18:24] Emily Field: That was an adjustment because even as someone who teaches flexibility and adaptation, it is still an identity shift when your body doesn’t respond the way it used to. But I kept coming back to this idea. Just because it looks different doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Some days that meant lifting lighter.

[00:18:43] Emily Field: Some days that meant changing movements entirely. Some days that meant slowing things down or scaling back more than I ever would have chosen before. But I kept going because going to the gym, seeing my friends, and moving my body, even in a modified way, was still a net positive. It might not have looked like my old training.

[00:19:02] Emily Field: It might not have felt as strong or fast, but it still mattered. This decision is very aligned with how I coach women through transitional seasons and macros made easy and eat to lean. We do not abandon habits just because life changes. We adjust them, we scale them. We redefine what success looks like in that season because consistency is not about doing things perfectly.

[00:19:26] Emily Field: It’s about maintaining continuity, even when the version of that behavior changes and strength training is a perfect example of this. I did not continue training because I was chasing performance or trying to prove something. I continued because it supports my physiology and protects my identity, and that identity piece matters more than people realize.

[00:19:46] Emily Field: When you completely disconnect from habits that make you feel like yourself, whether that is training, eating well, or having some structure in your day, you create a bigger gap to bridge later. But when you maintain even a modified version of those habits, you stay connected, and that makes it so much easier to transition into the next phase, whether that’s postpartum fat loss or rebuilding strength.

[00:20:11] Emily Field: The takeaway here is not that you need to do CrossFit style workouts during pregnancy. The takeaway is that you do not have to abandon strength just because you’re in a new season. You can modify, you can adjust, you can scale, and in many ways, that is a more advanced skill. Because it requires you to let go of what things used to look like while still showing up in a way that serves you.

[00:20:33] Emily Field: Now, for me, continuing to lift even in a very different form was one of the most grounding and supportive choices I made. It supported my metabolism, it supported my mental health, and it helped me stay connected to myself during a time when a lot was changing, and that is something I would prioritize again and again.

[00:20:55] Emily Field: Another different thing I did to support my pregnancy was tracking just protein instead of all of my macros. It’s probably one of the most on-brand decisions I made if you followed my work for any amount of time. You know that I talk a lot about flexibility, about skill building, about using data in a way that actually supports your life, not overwhelms it.

[00:21:16] Emily Field: And during pregnancy, tracking just protein on most days was what felt realistic, supportive, and sustainable. Because the truth is my appetite has been all over the place. Some days I wake up with very specific cravings that feel non-negotiable. Other days, I’m eating more out of structure, like I know I should get something in.

[00:21:36] Emily Field: And then there are days where I feel like I could eat everything in sight. That variability is normal during pregnancy, but it also means that trying to perfectly track calories, carbs, and fats every single day just didn’t match the reality of what I had. The bandwidth for protein, though, that felt like an anchor.

[00:21:55] Emily Field: When you look at the research, protein becomes even more important during pregnancy, especially as you move into the second and third trimesters. Protein requirements increase to support fetal tissue development, placental growth, and the expansion of maternal blood volume. It also plays a critical role in preserving maternal lean mass, which is something I care deeply about, not just for pregnancy itself, but for postpartum recovery and long-term metabolic health.

[00:22:22] Emily Field: Now if you look at standard recommendations, research often cite intake around 1.1 to 1.3 grams per kilogram of body weight in later pregnancy. But it’s important to understand that this is likely a baseline, not an optimal target. Okay, dietician, Lily Nichols, who in my opinion, really owns the pregnancy nutrition space, has been very clear that those recommendations are probably the bare minimum needed to prevent deficiency, not necessarily to optimize outcomes, and I agree with that.

[00:22:54] Emily Field: Personally, I’ve been aiming for closer to about one gram per pound of body weight. So for me, pre-pregnancy weight that’s around 1 40, 1 50 grams or more per day. Not because I’m trying to be rigid, but because I understand how supportive that level of intake can be. Beyond the structural demands of pregnancy, protein plays several functional roles that really matter in this season.

[00:23:18] Emily Field: It supports satiety, which is incredibly helpful when appetite is unpredictable. It helps stabilize blood sugar, especially when meals include carbohydrates, which to be clear, I was absolutely and am absolutely still eating. It supports tissue repair and recovery as your body is constantly adapting. It also helps buffer some of the glucose variability that can come from more carbohydrate driven meals, which I crave.

[00:23:44] Emily Field: And that ties back to overall metabolic health during pregnancy. So when you zoom out, protein is not just important. It’s one of the most protective and stabilizing nutrients you can focus on. And that’s exactly why when I simplified my tracking, this is where I anchored. For me, this decision came down to capacity and priorities.

[00:24:06] Emily Field: I did not want to disengage from nutrition altogether, but I also didn’t want to create unnecessary stress by trying to track everything perfectly in a season where my body and my appetite were not predictable. Tracking just protein gave me a middle ground. It allowed me to stay connected to my intake without feeling rigid.

[00:24:26] Emily Field: It gave me a clear, actionable target on days where I felt structured and enough flexibility on days when I didn’t. There were plenty of meals where I was driven by cravings and I let that happen. There were days when I was eating more intuitively and days when I leaned more on structure, but across all of that, protein became a consistent through line.

[00:24:48] Emily Field: It was one of the things I could return to regardless of how the day was going, and that felt supportive, not restrictive. This approach is actually a direct reflection of how I teach Macro tracking inside of macros made easy. We often talk about using protein and calories as anchors, especially for women who are overwhelmed or in a busy or transitional season, because while full macro tracking can be incredibly useful, it’s not always necessary or appropriate for every phase of life.

[00:25:18] Emily Field: This is what I mean when I say macros are a tool, not a rule. The goal is not perfect. Compliance. The goal is to use the tool in a way that supports your physiology and your life. From a behavior standpoint, simplification increases adherence. When something is easier to execute, you’re more likely to actually do it consistently.

[00:25:38] Emily Field: And from a metabolic standpoint, prioritizing protein helps protect lean mass, supports recovery and contributes to overall metabolic health. So in a lot of ways this wasn’t a step back from macro tracking. It was just an evolution of it. I moved from control to collaboration, and that’s a more advanced skill.

[00:25:57] Emily Field: The takeaway here is not that you should only ever track protein, the takeaways that you can adjust your level of precision based on your season of life without losing effectiveness, there is a big difference between doing nothing and doing the most important thing consistently. For me, that meant anchoring to protein, allowing everything else to have more flexibility, and what that created was a sense of steadiness.

[00:26:23] Emily Field: Even when my appetite changed, even when my days looked different, even when I didn’t have the bandwidth for full tracking, I still had something I could come back to. And I think that’s an important message, especially for women in midlife pregnancy, postpartum, or any season where life feels less predictable.

[00:26:40] Emily Field: You do not need to do everything perfectly to support your body. Sometimes doing one thing really well and doing it consistently is more than enough. That’s not a step down. That’s actually mastery. One of the more different things I’ve done during pregnancy is I haven’t really tracked my weight in the way most people expect, and that probably sounds surprising coming from someone who teaches data tracking and awareness for a living.

[00:27:08] Emily Field: But this is where nuance matters. Gestational weight gain guidelines do exist, and they’re meant to give a general framework for what is expected across pregnancy. But even within those guidelines, there are a few important realities. Weight gain during pregnancy is not linear. Fluid retention can vary dramatically.

[00:27:28] Emily Field: Blood volume increases significantly, and when you factor in a baby placenta, an amniotic fluid, that alone accounts for several pounds. So what the scale reflects is not just body fat or even tissue gain, it’s a mix of multiple physiological changes happening at once. Research also shows that being overly focused on weight during pregnancy can increase stress and reduce body satisfaction without necessarily improving any outcomes.

[00:27:55] Emily Field: And maybe most importantly, the scale cannot tell you what is changing. It cannot distinguish between lean, mass fat, mass fluid retention, or the very normal increases in blood volume and pregnancy related tissues. So while weight can be one data point, it is a very incomplete one. I took a much more zoomed out approach at my appointments.

[00:28:18] Emily Field: I usually ask my doctor how much I’ve gained since the last visit, and that’s it. I am much more curious about the rate and pace of change over time than I am about a single number. I actually don’t know my exact current weight right now. I’ll probably get a final number at delivery, or maybe I won’t, and honestly, I’m okay with that.

[00:28:39] Emily Field: After I deliver, I will wanna know, because at that point I’ll be making decisions about fueling, especially if I’m breastfeeding and I want my intake to match my needs. But during pregnancy, I’ve been really comfortable letting that be a little bit of a black box, and here’s where things get interesting.

[00:28:56] Emily Field: I’m recording this at 33 weeks pregnant, and between about 20 weeks and now I haven’t gained much weight at all between my 24, 28 and 32 week appointments. I’ve gained about one pound total, and that could sound alarming if you’re looking at it in isolation, but no one is concerned because my total weight gain is appropriate.

[00:29:18] Emily Field: My baby looks good, I’m measuring on track. Everything is progressing exactly as it should. Which tells you something really important, the timing and distribution of weight gain can vary a lot. For me, it seems like I gained most of my weight in the first and second trimesters, and that’s where I’ve really started to question how much stock we put into those standard charts.

[00:29:40] Emily Field: Because even though there are guidelines for how much weight should increase across trimesters. My experience both as a coach and now personally, is that there is a lot you simply cannot control. You cannot fully control how much weight you gain. You cannot control exactly when it shows up. You cannot control the pace in a perfectly linear way, but what you can do is look at the bigger picture.

[00:30:04] Emily Field: Are things trending in a reasonable direction overall? Is your doctor comfortable with what’s happening? Is the baby developing well, that matters much more than trying to micromanage a number that is influenced by so many variables. This approach is actually very consistent with how I coach fat loss in macros made easy and eat to lean.

[00:30:24] Emily Field: We talk all the time about trends over daily data patterns, over single data points, behaviors over obsession with outcomes, and pregnancy felt like a place where that philosophy mattered even more. Because if I were to zoom in on every pound, every fluctuation, every expectation of what should be happening week to week, I would create unnecessary stress about something that is largely outta my control.

[00:30:51] Emily Field: Instead, I focused on what I can control. Am I eating enough? Am I getting protein? Am I moving my body? Am I sleeping and managing stress as best I can? Those are controllable behaviors. And just like in fat loss, when the behaviors are in place, the outcomes tend to take care of themselves. Not perfectly, not always predictably, but appropriately.

[00:31:16] Emily Field: The takeaway here is not that weight doesn’t matter at all, it’s that how you relate to the data matters. You can either zoom in and try to control every fluctuation, or you can zoom out and look at trends in context. For me, choosing not to fixate on total weight gain reduced unnecessary stress, helped me stay focused on behaviors and allowed me to trust the process a little bit more.

[00:31:38] Emily Field: And honestly, that’s the same skill I try to teach women in every phase of life because whether it’s fat loss, maintenance, or pregnancy, your body is not a machine that responds in a perfectly linear, predictable way, but it does respond to consistent inputs over time. And when you learn to trust that you don’t need to micromanage every number to know you’re on the right track.

[00:32:02] Emily Field: Okay, so this is probably the most different thing I’ve done during pregnancy and also maybe the most on brand in a very unexpected way. I’ve been going to acupuncture about three times per month, and I need to set the scene because this is not just like a sterile clinical experience. My acupuncturist is probably the most Eastern medicine person I have ever hired in my life.

[00:32:24] Emily Field: She’s probably a witch, and I’m fairly certain she has lived several lives before this one. And I say that with full trust and zero hesitation. She told me I was pregnant before I knew I was. She thinks she knows the sex of the baby and we haven’t confirmed it. At one appointment she suggested that we use gold needles because they ward off bad karma and help make the baby healthy, and I was immediately like, great, let’s do it, no questions asked.

[00:32:50] Emily Field: She has also placed needles for swelling. That didn’t seem to do much at first. But I still didn’t question it. At this point, I’ve fully settled into the dynamic of she does what she does and I receive it. And honestly, sometimes I’m just going there to take a nap because I didn’t sleep well the night before.

[00:33:08] Emily Field: But underneath all of that, there is actually a very intentional reason I chose to incorporate this into my pregnancy. When you look at the research, the evidence on acupuncture during pregnancy varies depending on what outcome you’re looking at, but there are some consistent themes. Studies suggests that it may help reduce nausea, improve pelvic pain, support better sleep, and lower perceived stress and anxiety.

[00:33:33] Emily Field: There’s also some evidence that acupuncture can influence the autonomic nervous system, which is where it gets especially interesting to me. If acupuncture helps shift the body even slightly toward parasympathetic dominance, more of that rest and digest. State, it can support lower cortisol levels, and cortisol touches a lot of systems that matter during pregnancy, including blood sugar regulation, sleep appetite, and inflammation.

[00:33:59] Emily Field: So even if the effects are modest or variable, there is a very real physiological pathway where this kind of practice could be supportive. That said, my decision to do acupuncture wasn’t rooted in chasing a specific outcome. It was rooted in creating space. Early in pregnancy, I made a pretty conscious decision that I wanted this to be a lower stress experience, and one thing I know about myself is that I don’t naturally create true downtime.

[00:34:29] Emily Field: I’m very good at being productive. I’m very good at staying busy. I’m not always great at being still. Acupuncture gave me a reason, an appointment on my calendar to stop, to lay down, to disconnect, to not be on my phone, not to be working, not be thinking about what’s next. Over time, it became less about needles and more about what that space allowed.

[00:34:54] Emily Field: Because when I’m there, it’s one of the only times when I’m completely quiet. It feels meditative in a way that I don’t often access In my normal routine and during pregnancy, that has felt really meaningful. It has felt like a way to connect with my body and with my baby in a very calm, grounded way. I don’t think I would’ve created that space on my own without this structure, and that alone has made it worth it.

[00:35:17] Emily Field: It. And when I zoom out, this actually aligns really closely with how I think about health and how I coach in macros made easy. And in my coaching, we don’t just talk about food and workouts, we talk about stress recovery and the nervous system. We talk about how you can be doing all the right things on paper, but if your body is constantly in a heightened stress state, it can work against you.

[00:35:40] Emily Field: Your body needs signals of safety in order to function well. And for me, acupuncture became one of those signals. Not because it’s magic and not because it replaces the fundamentals, but because it created an opportunity for my nervous system to downshift. And that’s something a lot of women are missing.

[00:35:58] Emily Field: We are constantly in go mode, constantly stimulated, constantly managing something. So intentionally building in something that forces you to slow down and be still. That’s actually very on brand for how I approach health. The takeaway here is not that everyone needs acupuncture. It’s that nervous system supports matter, and sometimes that doesn’t come from doing more.

[00:36:20] Emily Field: It comes from creating space to do less. For me, acupuncture became a scheduled pause. A way to regulate, a way to connect, and yes, sometimes just a really good nap. And whether or not every single needle placement did exactly what it was supposed to do. The overall effect of slowing down, being still and supporting my nervous system felt like a really smart investment because just like with nutrition and training, your body responds to the environment you create, and this is one way I chose to create a calmer one.

[00:36:54] Emily Field: The last different thing I did during this pregnancy, and honestly, maybe the most important was continue my body image work. This is something I don’t talk about as much. Inside of macros made easy because macros made easy is more focused on physiology, nutrition, literacy, and skill building, but inside of Elene body image is.

[00:37:14] Emily Field: Foundational. We have an entire module dedicated to it because the way you think about your body influences everything else, and pregnancy is in many ways the ultimate stress test for body image. Your body changes without your consent, without your control, without your permission. Your stomach grows, your clothes fit differently.

[00:37:33] Emily Field: Your workouts change. Your appetite changes. There is no opting out. And I can say this very honestly, if I had not done years of body image work before this pregnancy, this season could have completely destabilized me, but instead of spiraling, I feel steady, not perfect, steady. And that difference matters more than people realize.

[00:37:55] Emily Field: Okay. One of the core concepts we teach inside of Elene is the body image spectrum, and pregnancy has given me a very real, very personal opportunity to live inside of that work. On one end of the spectrum, you have body negativity, those sharp, critical thoughts. I hate this, or I can’t believe this is how I look.

[00:38:16] Emily Field: On the other end, you have complete body confidence. And in between there is a range of very normal, very human states, discomfort, neutrality, and appreciation. Pregnancy has not magically placed me at the far right end of that spectrum. I don’t wake up every day feeling completely confident and glowing and in love with my body.

[00:38:38] Emily Field: There are still moments where I catch myself thinking, wow, this feels unfamiliar, or This is not what I’m used to. But what has changed, what I’m honestly really proud of is my ability to locate myself on that spectrum and respond intentionally. Instead of getting pulled backward into a spiral, I can recognize, okay, I’m in a place of discomfort today, and then gently move myself forward one notch.

[00:39:04] Emily Field: Because sometimes that means getting to neutrality. Sometimes it means finding appreciation, and occasionally it does land in confidence, but that’s not necessarily the goal. The goal is stability. And I think that’s why this has felt like such a full circle moment for me because in a season that should be testing my body image, I’ve had multiple moments of thinking, damn, you’ve really done the work.

[00:39:28] Emily Field: Especially when I compare that to what so many women reflect back on. Pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, postpartum with so much shame, hating how they’ve looked, wanting to hide, feeling disconnected from themselves, feeling this urgency to get back to something. And I can genuinely say that I do not feel that way.

[00:39:47] Emily Field: I feel present, I feel aware, and honestly, I feel in awe. A big part of that stability comes from very practical tools. One of the most important being thought stopping this is the ability to catch an unhelpful thought in real time and interrupt it before it builds momentum. Because the thought itself isn’t the issue.

[00:40:07] Emily Field: We all have thoughts. The issue is when we let those thoughts stack and solidify into something we believe. So if I notice myself thinking, I cannot believe my body looks like this, there’s a pause. And in that pause I ask myself something that has become almost automatic. Would I say this to my five-year-old self?

[00:40:27] Emily Field: Would I say this to my daughter? And the answer is always no. That question doesn’t force me into fake positivity or make me pretend I feel amazing. It simply redirects me towards kindness. It softens the edge of the thought before it has a chance to become something heavier. I still have thoughts. I just don’t let them define the narrative.

[00:40:48] Emily Field: From there. The next layer is mindful reframing, which pregnancy has given me daily opportunities to practice. This is where we take a thought that may be technically true, but framed in a way that creates distress and we shift it into something that reflects both reality and respect. So instead of, I used to be able to complete this entire workout, the reframe becomes, my body is in a different season and it is still strong.

[00:41:14] Emily Field: Instead of my stomach looks so different, the reframe becomes my body is performing a function that requires change. And I’ll be honest, there are moments where I step back and think, this is actually unbelievable. My body knows exactly what to do. I am essentially 3D printing a baby, and I didn’t have to consciously direct any of it.

[00:41:35] Emily Field: My job is not to control the process. My job is to provide a healthy, supportive environment and let my body do its thing, let my body do what it already knows how to do. That reframe doesn’t erase discomfort, but it puts it into perspective. It replaces criticism with a sense of respect and oftentimes even awe.

[00:41:57] Emily Field: Another anchor for me has been focusing on what I can control, especially in a season where so much is. Inherently uncontrollable. I cannot control how quickly my body grows. I cannot control fluid retention, fat distribution, or the hormonal shifts that come with pregnancy. There is a lot that is simply not up for negotiation, but I can control how I show up.

[00:42:18] Emily Field: Within that, I can continue to lift in a way that is safe and appropriate. I can prioritize protein and adequate nutrition. I can manage stress. As best I can, I can speak to myself with respect and I can be intentional about what I expose myself to. That shift from trying to control outcomes to focusing on behaviors is something I teach in fat loss all the time, and pregnancy has only reinforced how important that skill really is.

[00:42:48] Emily Field: We talk a lot in Eat to Lean about auditing your inputs. And this is even more important during pregnancy because body image is not created in a vacuum. It is influenced by what you see, what you hear, what you’re surrounded by on a daily basis. So I became much more protective of that. I limited exposure to diet culture messaging.

[00:43:08] Emily Field: I avoided bounce back narratives. I distanced myself from content that framed pregnancy bodies as something to fix or minimize, and instead, I leaned into messaging around strength, functionality, neutrality, and real life experiences. This wasn’t accidental. That was a conscious adjustment to support how I wanted to feel in my body during this time.

[00:43:31] Emily Field: And I wanna be really clear about something. This does not mean I feel amazing in my body every single day. There are still moments of discomfort. There are still moments where I miss certain lifts or certain versions of my body. There are still days where things feel unfamiliar or a lot off, but those moments don’t derail me.

[00:43:51] Emily Field: I don’t interpret them as truth, and I don’t assign meaning to them beyond what they are. They are just thoughts they pass and I stay steady. And I think that’s the difference between doing body image work and not doing it. It’s not about eliminating negative thoughts, it’s about changing your relationship with them.

[00:44:10] Emily Field: If there’s one thing pregnancy has made very clear to me, it’s this, it didn’t force me to love my body. It revealed whether I had built the skill of supporting my body, and that is a very different thing. Because I know deeply that I will never be the same woman I was before I got pregnant, and I don’t wanna be, why would I wanna go back?

[00:44:32] Emily Field: Growing a baby and becoming a mom is a superpower. It’s an evolution. And just like in midlife, just like in every decade, we are given an opportunity to build forward, not shrink backward. I also know that this work will continue to serve me postpartum. Whatever changes come stretch marks, shifts in fat distribution, diastasis, pelvic floor challenges, I feel confident in my ability to ride those waves in stride.

[00:45:01] Emily Field: I don’t have to love my body every second to be proud of it, and ultimately, this is what I want for my clients. Whether they’re navigating fat loss, midlife changes, pregnancy or postpartum, I want them to have this steadiness. This ability to stay present, this ability to support themselves through change instead of resisting it or trying to undo it.

[00:45:24] Emily Field: Because that’s what body image work really gives you. Not perfection, not constant confidence, but the ability to stay grounded in your body even as it changes. And that is one of the most powerful skills that you can build. As I’ve been moving through this pregnancy, one thing has become very clear to me.

[00:45:42] Emily Field: This is not just about pregnancy, it’s about what happens when your body changes in ways you didn’t plan for, didn’t consent to, and cannot control. Pregnancy is simply one version of that experience. Perimenopause is another. Menopause is another. Aging injury, stress, grief. These are all seasons of change that ask something similar of us.

[00:46:05] Emily Field: Your body will change. That is not optional. The real question is not whether your body changes. The real question is whether your identity can withstand that change. If your sense of worth is tied to staying small, staying lean, or staying capable in the exact same way forever, then every transition will feel like a loss.

[00:46:26] Emily Field: Every shift will feel like something is being taken from you. But if your worth is tied to how you care for your body, how you speak to yourself, how you honor your values, how you consistently show up for your habits, then change becomes something you can move through without losing yourself. Pregnancy has been a live rehearsal for that lesson.

[00:46:47] Emily Field: There are days when I feel strong and capable. There are days when I feel uncomfortable. There are days when I feel neutral. What has shifted is not the absence of those feelings, but my response to them. Instead of asking, how do I get back to the old version of me, I ask, how do I support the version of me that exists right now?

[00:47:07] Emily Field: That question changes everything. Because midlife women are asking the same thing whether they realize it or not. Their hormones shift, their body composition shifts, their energy shifts, their sleep shifts. And the instinct, especially in a culture steeped in diet messaging, is often to tighten control.

[00:47:28] Emily Field: More restriction, more cardio, more punishment, more criticism. But what if the stronger move is not tightening control? What if the stronger move is building the skill of staying steady, steady in habits, steady in protein intake, steady in lifting, steady in self-talk, steady in values. That is what body image work truly gives you.

[00:47:51] Emily Field: It does not guarantee constant confidence. It does not eliminate hard days. What it builds is resilience, though. And resilience is what allows you to move through change without unraveling. I cannot control every outcome in this pregnancy. I do not know what my birth story will be. I do not know what postpartum will look like.

[00:48:10] Emily Field: I do not know how quickly my body will change again. But I do know that I have the tools to stay steady and whatever comes next. And for me, that is enough. When I step back and I look at all these decisions together, monitoring my own blood sugar, hiring a doula, continuing to lift, simplifying my nutrition, not fixating on weight gain, doing acupuncture, I can see something very clearly.

[00:48:35] Emily Field: This was never about being unconventional. It wasn’t about trying to be different. It wasn’t about rejecting the system. It wasn’t about thinking I knew better than anyone else. It was about being intentional. Every decision I made came back to the same set of questions. What information is actually useful to me?

[00:48:53] Emily Field: What supports my physiology? What lowers stress instead of increasing it? What helps me stay steady and consistent in a season that is inherently unpredictable? And that’s a very different approach than just following rules because they’re standard or rejecting them just to be different because autonomy is not recklessness.

[00:49:12] Emily Field: Autonomy is informed decision making within a supportive, collaborative environment. I didn’t ignore guidance. I engaged with it. I asked better questions. I filtered through my understanding of physiology, behavior, and my own capacity, and then I chose what aligned. Pregnancy just made this lesson louder, but this isn’t really about pregnancy.

[00:49:34] Emily Field: This is about what happens when your body changes in ways you didn’t plan for, didn’t choose and can’t control. And that is not unique to pregnancy. It happens in midlife. It happens in perimenopause and menopause. It happens with injury, stress, aging, and life transitions. Your body will change. The question is not whether it changes.

[00:49:54] Emily Field: The question is whether you tighten control in response or whether you learn to stay steady inside that change. Because the instinct for a lot of women, especially women who have been in diet culture, is to grip tighter, more restriction, more rules, more pressure, more criticism. But what if the stronger move is not tightening control?

[00:50:17] Emily Field: What if the stronger move is building the ability to stay grounded, grounded in your habits, grounded in your values, grounded in how you speak to yourself, grounded in how you care for your body. That’s what actually holds up across seasons. I don’t know what my birth experience will be. I don’t know what postpartum will look like.

[00:50:37] Emily Field: I don’t know how my body will change next, but I do know this. I trust myself to move through it, not because I can control every outcome, but because I’ve built this skill of responding to change without unraveling. I’ve learned how to zoom out instead of spiraling, how to adjust instead of abandon, how to support instead of criticize, and that feels like the real win.

[00:51:00] Emily Field: If there’s one thing I want you to take from this episode, it’s this. You don’t need to approach every season of change by tightening control. You can approach it with intention. You can ask better questions. You can prioritize what actually matters. You can choose what supports you, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, and you can stay connected to yourself even as your body changes, because the goal is not to stay the same.

[00:51:25] Emily Field: The goal is to move forward without losing yourself in the process. As always, thank you so much for being here and spending this time with me. I do not take your attention lightly, and I hope something in this episode gave you a new way to think about your body, your choices, and the season you’re in.

[00:51:41] Emily Field: I’ll see you in the next episode.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to the Macros Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Emily Field, registered dietician and certified personal trainer, and I’m here to help you learn how to eat in a way that actually supports your body, your training, and your life without falling back into rigid dieting or second guessing every decision you make around food.

[00:00:18] Emily Field: If you feel like your metabolism is broken, I want you to hear this right at the beginning. It’s not. Because what I see over and over again, especially in women in their forties and fifties, is not a lack of effort and not a lack of discipline. You are working out often, consistently, and with intention.

[00:00:35] Emily Field: You’re paying attention to what you eat, trying to make healthy choices, trying to do the right things you care about, your health, your body composition, your performance, and how you feel day to day. And yet, despite all of that effort. Progress can feel slow stalled or just confusing. Your energy might not match your output.

[00:00:54] Emily Field: Your body might not reflect the work you’re putting in, and you might find yourself wondering if something deeper is wrong, but the issue isn’t that your metabolism has stopped working or somehow failed you, it’s that your body has been adapting very intelligently. I might add two years of under support, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna unpack in today’s episode.

[00:01:16] Emily Field: We’re gonna walk through what people really mean when they say their metabolism is broken, and I’m gonna show you why that language, while understandable isn’t actually accurate or helpful, we’ll dig into what’s truly happening underneath the surface. How your metabolism is responding to your food intake, your training, your stress, your sleep, and your stage of life, and why those responses can start to feel like resistance instead of support.

[00:01:41] Emily Field: And most importantly, we’re gonna talk about what to do differently so that instead of fighting your body, you can start working with it. Throughout this episode, I’ll also be pulling in real client examples from women who are likely going to sound a lot like you. These are not beginners. These are women who are active, consistent, and invested in their health.

[00:02:01] Emily Field: Women who lift weights, who run, who track, who plan, who genuinely try, and still they found themselves in a frustrating space of thinking, I should be farther along than this, or something isn’t adding up. And if you’ve ever had this thought, I want you to know that you are not alone in it and you are not the exception.

[00:02:22] Emily Field: The goal of this conversation is not to give you more rules or more pressure to do things perfectly. It’s to give you a different lens, one that helps you understand why your body is responding the way that it is, and how to shift from trying to control your metabolism to actually supporting it. So if you’ve been feeling stuck or like your body isn’t responding the way that it used to, this episode is gonna help you make sense of that and more importantly, help you see a way forward.

[00:02:48] Emily Field: Okay. When someone tells me they feel like their metabolism is broken, what they’re usually describing isn’t a lab value or a diagnosis. It’s a lived experience. It sounds like nothing works anymore, or I feel like I gain weight so easily now, or my hormones have completely ruined everything. Sometimes it’s more subtle, like noticing that weight is showing up on their frame in a new or unfamiliar way, or that the strategies that used to feel reliable suddenly don’t seem to produce the same results, and often all of that gets bundled into one conclusion.

[00:03:22] Emily Field: This must just be what happens with aging. But what’s important to understand is that these thoughts are not coming from a lack of effort or awareness. The women saying these things are not starting from zero. They’re typically in their forties or fifties. They’ve been active for years, sometimes decades, and they understand nutrition at a baseline level, and they’re putting in consistent work.

[00:03:43] Emily Field: They’re lifting, running, going to classes, tracking their food, trying to be intentional. In many cases, they’re more disciplined than they’ve ever been. Which is exactly why it feels so confusing when their body doesn’t respond the way that they expect it to. This is where I wanna offer a reframe that might feel small, but is actually incredibly powerful.

[00:04:03] Emily Field: Your metabolism is not defective, it is adaptive. What you’re experiencing is not your body breaking down or working against you, but rather your body responding to the inputs it’s been given over time. It’s adjusting to your intake, your output, your stress, your sleep, your hormonal environment, all of it.

[00:04:23] Emily Field: And when those inputs are even slightly misaligned with what your body needs in this season of life, the output can start to feel frustrating, unpredictable, or even discouraging. So instead of asking what’s wrong with my metabolism, a more useful question becomes, what has my metabolism been adapting to?

[00:04:42] Emily Field: Because when you start to look at it through that lens, things begin to make a lot more sense, and more importantly, they become a lot more changeable. To make this more tangible, I want you to picture a woman I work with all the time. Not one specific person, but a combination of many women who come to me for support.

[00:04:58] Emily Field: Her, she’s somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, and movement has been a consistent part of her identity for most of her life. Maybe she was an athlete when she was younger, or maybe she found fitness later on, but either way, she’s not new to this. She strength trained several days a week. She layers in cardio, maybe running classes or some form of conditioning, and she genuinely enjoys being active.

[00:05:20] Emily Field: Her schedule is full, but she still prioritizes her workouts because they help her feel like herself. When it comes to nutrition, she’s not winging it. She eats relatively clean. She pays attention to protein. She might even track her food, or at least to keep a mental tally of what she’s eating. She tries to be consistent during the week, makes thoughtful choices where she can, and is very aware of how her habits impact her body from the outside.

[00:05:46] Emily Field: And even on paper, it looks like she’s doing everything right and yet something still feels off. Her energy isn’t as steady as it used to be. She might feel great during a workout, but then crash later in the day or hit a wall in the afternoon that she can’t quite explain. Her sleep is lighter, more fragmented, or just less restorative even when she’s doing the things that she’s supposed to be doing.

[00:06:10] Emily Field: She’s noticing changes in her body composition, maybe a little bit more softness in areas that used to feel lean or a lack of definition despite consistent training, and it doesn’t seem to match the level of effort she’s putting in. There’s this quiet, persistent thought in the background. I should be farther along than this, or why isn’t this working like it used to.

[00:06:32] Emily Field: And this is the part that matters most because it’s very easy for her to internalize that as a personal failure, to assume she needs to tighten things up, to be more disciplined, eat less, or do more. But that’s not what’s actually happening here. She’s not failing. Her system is adapting. Her body is responding to the total picture of her life right now.

[00:06:54] Emily Field: The volume of training, the amount of fuel she’s taking in, the stress that she’s carrying, the change is happening hormonally, and it’s making adjustments based on those inputs. The problem isn’t that her body isn’t working, it’s that the support she’s giving it no longer matches what it needs in this phase of life.

[00:07:14] Emily Field: Now that you have a clear picture in your mind, we can zoom out and start to understand what’s actually happening underneath it all because this is where the real reframe begins. Your metabolism is not a fixed number. It’s not something that you were handed at birth and slowly declines and eventually betrays you.

[00:07:31] Emily Field: It is a responsive system constantly adjusting based on the inputs it’s receiving from your food, your training, your lifestyle, your stress, your sleep, and yes, your hormones. It’s always paying attention, always adapting, and always trying to keep you alive and functioning as efficiently as possible. And when I look at women like the ones I described earlier, I don’t see broken metabolisms.

[00:07:56] Emily Field: I see highly responsive systems doing exactly what they were designed to do. Take someone like Lauren, for example, she’s in her mid forties, extremely active lifting several days a week, layering in runs, classes, and extra movement wherever she can. On paper, her nutrition looks dialed in. She’s consistent.

[00:08:16] Emily Field: She tracks, she hits her targets, but when you zoom out, her intake is relatively low for the amount of output she’s producing. At the same time, her sleep has become more disruptive, likely tied to perimenopause, and she’s noticing that despite all of her effort, she doesn’t feel like a well-oiled machine.

[00:08:34] Emily Field: In her case, her metabolism isn’t slowing down randomly. It’s adapting to high demand with limited recovery and fuel. And then you have someone like Megan, who’s also incredibly consistent and has seen progress from tracking macros and strength training, but recently started to notice a shift. Her hunger has increased, her energy has dropped, her sleep feels off, and she’s even noticed things like feeling unusually cold or experiencing brain fog.

[00:09:00] Emily Field: Interestingly, when she increased her carbon intake, her performance improved almost immediately. She felt stronger and more energized in her workouts. That’s not a broken metabolism. Is a body clearly communicating that it needs more support than it’s currently getting. And then there’s Danielle in her early fifties who has been active for decades in navigating both menopause and a recent increase in life stress from a new job.

[00:09:25] Emily Field: During that transition, her appetite dropped. She unintentionally started eating less, and her weight changed as a result. Now that things are stabilizing, her appetite is coming back, but with it comes fear. Fear of regaining weight, fear of losing control, fear that her body is unpredictable. Again, this isn’t dysfunction, it’s adaptation.

[00:09:45] Emily Field: Her metabolism responded to a period of stress and under feeling, and now it’s continuing to respond as her environment shifts. When you look at these women side by side, their situations are different, but the underlying mechanism is the same. Their metabolism is taking in information, how much they’re eating, how much they’re moving, how well they’re recovering, and what kind of stress they’re under, and adjusting accordingly.

[00:10:10] Emily Field: So when things feel slower, harder, or less predictable, it’s not because your metabolism is broken, it’s because it’s doing its job. And what often feels like a slowdown is actually your body becoming more efficient under pressure. Learning how to do more with less conserve energy and prioritize survival over performance or aesthetics that might not be the outcome you want, but is a very logical response so that the conditions it’s been given.

[00:10:38] Emily Field: When you zoom out and look at the full picture, the common thread across these women is not dysfunction. It’s under support, and that under support tends to show up in four key ways that often overlap and reinforce each other. The first is chronic undereating, and this is one that can be a little deceptive because it doesn’t always feel like restriction.

[00:10:59] Emily Field: In fact, many of these women would describe themselves as consistent, structured, and even satisfied with what they’re eating. They’re hitting their macros, they’re following a plan. They’re not walking around feeling ravenous, but when you compare their intake to their output and their physiological needs, there is a gap.

[00:11:15] Emily Field: Someone like Lauren, who’s training most days of the week in layering strength with cardio is eating in a range that might technically produce weight loss, but doesn’t actually support performance recovery or muscle development like she wants. Megan, on the other hand, was hitting her numbers, but still experiencing rising hunger, fatigue and cravings.

[00:11:34] Emily Field: Classic signs that those numbers were no longer appropriate for her needs, and Danielle unintentionally dipped into undereating during a stressful period. Not because she was trying to restrict, but because her appetite was suppressed. All three scenarios look different on the surface, but they point to the same truth.

[00:11:51] Emily Field: You can be incredibly consistent and still be under fueling your body. The second piece is high output paired with low recovery. This is especially common in women who genuinely love exercise and rely on it for both physical and mental wellbeing. Workouts become a constant lifting sessions, runs, classes, steps, extra movement layered in throughout the day, and none of that is inherently a problem.

[00:12:17] Emily Field: The issue arises when the level of output is not matched with adequate recovery, which includes not just rest days, but also sleep quality, nutrition, and overall nervous system support. Lauren’s schedule is a perfect example of this. She’s strength training, doing cardio, adding daily movement stacked across most days of the week.

[00:12:37] Emily Field: On paper, it looks. Disciplined and impressive, but without enough fuel and recovery, that level of output becomes another form of stress on the body that the body has to manage rather than a signal that it can fully adapt to. That leads me directly into the third driver, which is a mismatch between muscle building signal and the fuel required to support it.

[00:12:58] Emily Field: Many women at this stage of life are doing exactly what they’ve been told is important, their strength training, lifting heavier, focusing on building or maintaining muscle. But muscle is a metabolically expensive tissue. It requires energy, protein, and adequate recovery to build and maintain when the training stimulus is there, but the fuel is not.

[00:13:18] Emily Field: The body has to make a decision and it will always prioritize survival over adaptation. So instead of building muscle and improving body composition, you end up feeling stuck. Stronger in some ways perhaps, but not seeing the visual or metabolic changes you expect. This is exactly what Megan experienced when her performance improved almost immediately with increased carbohydrate intake.

[00:13:41] Emily Field: Her body wasn’t resistant. It was undersupported. And then the fourth piece, which I would argue is often the most underestimated is lifestyle load, particularly stress and sleep. Midlife is not just a physiological transition, it’s often a life stage filled with competing demands, careers, caregiving, relationships, and a general increase in mental load.

[00:14:03] Emily Field: On top of that, perimenopause and menopause can introduce changes in sleeve quality that are outside of your direct control. Lauren is dealing with disrupted sleep, tied to hormonal changes. Megan is experiencing brain fog, fatigue and inconsistent energy. Danielle went through a period of heightened job stress that directly impacted her appetite and eating patterns.

[00:14:23] Emily Field: These are not small variables. They are powerful inputs that influence how your metabolism functions day to day. When you put all of this together, the picture becomes clearer. Midlife doesn’t break your metabolism. It raises the cost of doing too much with too little. And if your current approach was built on the idea that eating less and doing more is always the answer, this is often the phase of life where that strategy starts to backfire.

[00:14:50] Emily Field: Not because your body is failing you, but because it’s asking for a different level of support than it did before. At this point, it’s helpful to bring this out of theory and into something you can actually recognize in your own life, because under support is not always obvious. It doesn’t always look like extreme dieting or obvious restriction.

[00:15:09] Emily Field: In fact, in many cases it looks like someone who’s doing a lot of things right, but just not quite aligned with what their body needs. Sometimes it looks like skipping or delaying meals, not out of intention to restrict, but because the day gets busy, work runs long, or you simply don’t feel that hungry in the morning.

[00:15:26] Emily Field: You might push your first meal later and later and then just try to catch up as the day goes on, all while maintaining the belief that you’re eating enough overall. Other times it shows up as hitting your macros or calorie targets consistently, but those targets themselves are too low for your current level of activity, stress, and physiological demand.

[00:15:45] Emily Field: So you feel accomplished and structured, but your body is quietly operating in a deficit. It can’t fully thrive in. It can also look like inconsistency across the week. Maybe your weekdays are very dialed in, planned meals, structured eating high awareness, but weekends are a bit more relaxed, untracked, or socially driven.

[00:16:05] Emily Field: That swing between high control and low structure can create mixed signals for your body where it can never quite settle into a rhythm of consistent fueling and recovery. Layer on top of that, a high level of output, frequent workouts, lots of steps, very little true downtime, and you start to see how the gap between what your body is doing and what it’s receiving begins to widen.

[00:16:30] Emily Field: One of the most misunderstood signs of under support is. Appetite suppression. Many women will say, I’m not even that hungry, so I must be eating enough. When in reality, a chronically under fueled body can down regulate hunger cues as a protective mechanism, it can feel like control, like things are finally quiet around food.

[00:16:49] Emily Field: When in reality it’s your body conserving energy and dampening signals that used to be louder. And eventually those signals do come back, but often in ways that feel harder to manage cravings, increase, particularly for quick sources of energy, like carbohydrates or highly palatable foods, energy becomes more inconsistent with noticeable dips in the afternoon or after workouts.

[00:17:11] Emily Field: Sleep can become lighter or more fragmented, and things like brain fog, irritability, or feeling unusually cold start to creep in, these are not random symptoms. They are feedback. And this is the line I really want you to sit with. Under support doesn’t always feel like hunger. Sometimes it feels like control until it doesn’t, because for a while it can feel like everything is working.

[00:17:37] Emily Field: You’re sticking to your plan, you’re managing your intake, you’re maintaining structure. But underneath that, your body is adapting, compensating, and eventually asking for more support. Whether that shows up as physical symptoms, changes in performance, or shifts in your relationship with food. This is where we need to make a very clear shift, not just in strategy, but in philosophy because most of the women I work with are not lacking effort.

[00:18:04] Emily Field: They’re not lacking discipline. If anything, they’ve been operating from a place of control for a very long time, and that control mindset sounds like this. Eat less, do more, tighten things up. Be more precise, be more disciplined. If something isn’t working, the instinct is to double down, cut calories a little further, add another workout, clean things up even more, eliminate the extras.

[00:18:28] Emily Field: It’s a very logical approach, especially when it’s worked in the past, but in midlife and especially in the context of everything we just talked about, that approach often starts to create more problems than it solves because control assumes that your body needs to be managed overridden or pushed harder.

[00:18:46] Emily Field: Support looks like eating enough not just to get by, but to actually sustain your energy, your training, and your recovery. It looks like prioritizing protein and balanced meals, so your body has the building blocks it needs. It looks like strength training in a way that sends a clear signal to maintain and build muscle, while also giving that muscle the fuel required to grow.

[00:19:08] Emily Field: And it also looks like taking recovery seriously, sleep, stress management, and space between efforts, because those are not optional extras. They are part of the process, and perhaps most importantly, support is consistent. Not perfect, not rigid, but steady. It removes the extremes of being on during the week and off on the weekend, or swinging between undereating and overcorrecting.

[00:19:33] Emily Field: It creates an environment where your body knows what to expect, which is exactly what allows it to start responding differently. This is the shift I want you to take away from this episode. Not more rules, not more restriction, not more pressure, but a different lens, because the goal is not to control your metabolism into changing.

[00:19:52] Emily Field: The goal is to support it so it can. So if the problem is under support, the natural next question becomes, what does it actually look like to support your metabolism in a way that creates change? I think about this in four core pillars, and what’s important here is not just what to do, but why it matters physiologically, how to respond if this is a gap for you and where you might start, if you know this is an area that needs attention.

[00:20:19] Emily Field: The first pillar is eating enough, and for many women, this is the hardest shift to make because it goes against years of conditioning. From a physiological standpoint, your body requires a certain level of energy availability to support basic function, training, adaptation, hormone production, and recovery.

[00:20:36] Emily Field: When intake is consistently low relative to output, the body adapts by conserving energy, reducing non-essential output, increasing fatigue, disrupting hunger signals, and making it harder to build or maintain muscle. This is exactly what we saw with someone like Megan, who was hitting her numbers, but still experiencing rising hunger, fatigue and inconsistent energy.

[00:20:58] Emily Field: When she increased her carbohydrate intake, her performance improved almost immediately. That’s a direct signal that her body needed more fuel than it was getting. The tricky part is that hunger is not always a reliable cue here. If you’re not very hungry, that doesn’t automatically mean that you’re eating enough.

[00:21:16] Emily Field: Some of the signs that this pillar might need attention include feeling run down despite being consistent, noticing dips in performance, increased cravings later in the day, disrupted sleep, or that sense of I’m doing everything right, but something is off. In terms of where to start, this is we’re having individualized target and a clear structure can be incredibly helpful, whether that’s through something like a custom macro calculation, learning how to set appropriate ranges instead of macros made easy, or even just beginning to track intake more intentionally to gather data.

[00:21:49] Emily Field: The goal is to move from guessing to understanding what enough actually looks like for you. The second pillar is prioritizing protein and building balanced meals Physiologically. Protein provides the amino acids necessary for muscle repair and growth while combining protein with carbohydrates and fats helps stabilize blood sugar, which in turn supports more consistent energy, better mood, and reduced cravings.

[00:22:14] Emily Field: When meals are imbalanced, especially when they’re low in protein or heavily skewed towards one macro, you’re more likely to see energy crashes, increased hunger, and a stronger pull toward highly palatable foods. Later on in the day, you might recognize a gap here if you feel like you’re constantly thinking about your next meal, experiencing afternoon energy dips, or craving carbs and sugar at night despite feeling like you ate enough during the day.

[00:22:39] Emily Field: Even in someone like Danielle who was prioritizing protein like in a general sense, there was still opportunities to create more balanced structured meals across the day. Rather than relying on repetition or loosely built dinners, a simple place to start is ensuring that each meal contains a meaningful source of protein alongside carbohydrates and fats, rather than letting one macro dominate.

[00:23:02] Emily Field: This is something I teach in depth inside of macros made easy, where the focus is not just on hitting numbers, but on building meals that actually work for your physiology and your lifestyle. The third pillar is progressive strength training paired with the fuel to support it. Strength training is one of the most powerful tools we have for supporting metabolism and midlife because it helps build and preserve muscle mass, which directly influences how your body uses and stores energy.

[00:23:28] Emily Field: But the key here is that the stimulus and the support have to match. You can’t expect your body to build muscle from training if it doesn’t have the energy and the nutrients required to do so. Many of the women I work with are already doing this part. Well, they’re lifting, they’re showing up, but they’re not seeing the full return on investment because the fuel side isn’t aligned.

[00:23:48] Emily Field: This can show up as plateaued strength, limited visible changes in body composition, or feeling like workouts are harder than they should be for your level of fitness. So the adjustment here isn’t often to do more, but rather support what you’re already doing. That might mean ensuring your intake matches your training days.

[00:24:07] Emily Field: Paying attention to pre and post-workout nutrition or adjusting macros to better align with your output. This is something we refine inside of coaching where we can look at your training and your nutrition together instead of an isolation. And then the fourth pillar, which is often the most underestimated stress and sleep support.

[00:24:27] Emily Field: From a physiological standpoint, both chronic stress and poor sleep impact everything from hunger hormones to recovery capacity to how your body partitions nutrients. When sleep is disrupted or stress is high, the body becomes less efficient at recovery and more sensitive to additional stressors, which includes both training and dietary restriction.

[00:24:48] Emily Field: You might recognize this as needing attention if you feel wired but tired. Struggle to stay asleep. Notice increased irritability or brain fog, or feel like your body is just not bouncing back the way that it used to. This was evident across all of the examples we talked about. Whether it was perimenopausal sleep disruption, increased life stress, or a general sense of fatigue that didn’t match the effort being put in.

[00:25:13] Emily Field: This doesn’t mean that you need to overhaul your entire life, but it does mean acknowledging that recovery is not optional. Small shifts like improving your evening routine, being more intentional with meal timing, supporting blood sugar stability at night, or even adjusting training volume during high stress periods can make a meaningful difference.

[00:25:32] Emily Field: This is something I also cover in my content and inside my programs because it’s a piece that is often overlooked but incredibly impactful. And this is the line I want you to remember. As you think about all four of these pillars, you cannot out-train poor recovery in midlife. All of these pieces, fuel structure, training and recovery work together, and when they are aligned, your metabolism doesn’t need to be forced into change.

[00:25:57] Emily Field: It responds. One of the more important pieces of this conversation, and honestly one of the most grounding for my clients is understanding what a realistic timeline actually looks like when you start supporting your metabolism Well, because if you’ve been in a cycle of dieting, pushing and expecting quick changes, it can feel really uncomfortable to shift your focus away from immediate fat loss and toward these foundational behaviors.

[00:26:21] Emily Field: But when you look at what’s happening physiologically, the timeline makes a lot more sense. In the first one to three weeks of deliberately supporting all four of these pillars, eating enough, balancing your meals, fueling your training, and improving recovery. The earliest changes are almost never visual.

[00:26:38] Emily Field: What you tend to notice first is internal energy starts to feel more stable throughout the day. Instead of spiking and crashing workouts may feel more supported, or at the very least, less draining. Sleep can begin to stabilize, even if it’s subtle at first, you might fall asleep more easily, wake up fewer times, or just feel slightly more rested in the morning.

[00:26:59] Emily Field: This is your body essentially saying, okay, I’m getting what I need a little bit more consistently. Now, hormonal signals related to hunger, energy, regulation and stress begin to normalize, and your nervous system starts to shift out of that constant, do more with less mode. Then somewhere in that four to eight week range, we often start to see changes in performance and strength.

[00:27:21] Emily Field: This is where clients like Megan really begin to notice a difference. Weights feel lighter, endurance improves, and there’s this sense that their body is actually responding to training instead of just surviving it. You may feel more capable in your workouts, more motivated to show up and less depleted afterwards.

[00:27:38] Emily Field: This is a strong sign that your body is no longer just conserving energy. It’s starting to invest it. And then typically in that two to four month window, you start to see more noticeable changes in your body. Composition clothes may fit differently, muscle definition becomes more apparent, and there’s a shift in how your body looks and feels, even if the scale is slower to move than you expected.

[00:28:01] Emily Field: This is where someone like Lauren who initially felt like she wasn’t a well-oiled machine, begins to feel more aligned where the effort she’s putting in starts to match the outcome she’s seeing. But here’s the key point I want you to really understand. Fat loss is often the last thing to show up, not the first.

[00:28:20] Emily Field: And that’s not a flaw in the process. It’s a reflection of your body, reprioritizing what matters most. Restoring energy, balance, supporting recovery, and creating an environment where sustainable change is actually possible. So how do you know if this is working? Especially in those early stages when you don’t have visual proof yet you’re gonna look at your biofeedback.

[00:28:41] Emily Field: Are you feeling more energized throughout the day? Are your workouts improving or at least feeling more supported? Are your cravings less intense or more predictable? Is your sleep becoming slightly more consistent? Do you feel less like you’re fighting your body and more like you’re working with it?

[00:28:58] Emily Field: Those are the signals that matter first because when those pieces fall into place, the physical changes have something to build on, and without them, you’re often just cycling through short-term progress, followed by frustration. This is why the timeline matters so much. It helps you stay in the process long enough to actually see the return on doing things differently.

[00:29:19] Emily Field: Not perfectly, but consistently, and with the right level of support. I wanna walk through some of the most common mistakes I see women make in this phase, because these are often the exact things that keep the cycle going, even when you’re working hard and trying to do everything right. The first is staying in a deficit for too long.

[00:29:38] Emily Field: This one is incredibly common, especially in women who are very disciplined and capable of sticking to a plan. They’ll find something that works. Maybe they’ll start losing weight. Maybe they feel a sense of control, and instead of phasing out of that deficit, they just stay there. Weeks turn into months and months, sometimes turn into years of hovering just below where the body actually needs to be.

[00:30:00] Emily Field: Someone like Lauren might start at 1400 calories, see progress, feel validated, and then just stay there even as their training volume stays high, and recovery demands increase. Over time, the body adapts, energy drops, progress slows, and instead of recognizing that it’s time to come up, the instinct is to go lower.

[00:30:20] Emily Field: That’s where things really start to stall. The second mistake is adding more cardio instead of adding more fuel. This tends to happen when progress slows or stops, and it feels like the one lever left to pull is to do more. Instead of increasing intake to better support training and recovery, another run gets added.

[00:30:38] Emily Field: Another class gets layered in, or step goals get pushed higher and higher. I’ve seen women who are already lifting four days a week and walking 10,000 steps decide they need to add a hit session on top of all of that. Because the scale hasn’t moved in two weeks. In the short term, that might create a little more output, but without matching fuel, it just deepens the gap we’ve been talking about.

[00:30:59] Emily Field: The body doesn’t suddenly become more responsive. It becomes more efficient and more conservative. The third is ignoring biofeedback. And this is a big one because it requires a shift away from relying solely on numbers. Biofeedback is everything your body is telling you, your energy, your sleep, your hunger, your mood, your performance, and when those signals start to change, they’re not random.

[00:31:22] Emily Field: Someone like Megan, for example, noticed increased hunger, fatigue, feeling cold, disrupted sleep, and stronger cravings, all while technically hitting her macros. Those are not signs to double down on the plan. They are signs that the plan needs to be adjusted, but when you’re used to trusting the numbers over your body, it’s very easy to dismiss those signals as noise instead of information.

[00:31:45] Emily Field: The fourth mistake is letting stress dictate intake, which can go in both directions. For someone like Danielle, stress suppressed her appetite leading to unintentional undereating and weight loss during a period of high demand for someone else. Stress might increase intake leading to more grazing, more snacking, or using food as a way to cope or decompress.

[00:32:07] Emily Field: Neither of these is a character flaw. They’re physiological responses. The problem is when intake becomes reactive to stress instead of structured in a way that supports you through it, without some level of consistency, your body is constantly trying to adjust to an unpredictable environment, and finally chasing the scale as the primary or only metric of success.

[00:32:30] Emily Field: This is one of the biggest traps because the scale is only measuring total body weight, not what the weight is made up of. I’ve had clients who are getting stronger, sleeping better, feeling more energized, and noticing changes in how their clothes fit. But the scale hasn’t moved, or it’s even gone up slightly and suddenly everything feels like it’s not working.

[00:32:50] Emily Field: That’s when the temptation to cut calories again, or increase output kicks in. But if the goal is to build muscle, improve body composition and support long-term health, the scale cannot be the only piece of data that you’re looking at. All of these mistakes have one thing in common. They are attempts to regain control when something feels uncertain.

[00:33:12] Emily Field: But what we’ve been building throughout this episode is a different approach. One that doesn’t rely on pushing harder or tightening further, but instead asks a better question, what does my body need right now to actually respond? Because when you start answering that question honestly and adjusting accordingly, you move out of the cycle of doing more and getting less and into a place where your effort actually starts to pay off.

[00:33:39] Emily Field: Now I wanna zoom out for a moment because not everyone listening is gonna see themselves in the exact picture of being highly active, under fueled and overextended. There are a few other very common scenarios I see. And if we don’t talk about them, it’s easy to assume this conversation doesn’t apply to you.

[00:33:55] Emily Field: But what’s important to understand is that while these situations may look different on the surface, they are often driven by the same underlying issue. The first is the woman who is under muscled. Not because she isn’t trying, but because she hasn’t been given or hasn’t prioritized the right stimulus.

[00:34:13] Emily Field: She might be walking regularly, taking fitness classes, doing yoga, or even some light strength work, but there’s no real progressive overload. There’s no clear signal to the body to build or maintain muscle. She might say, I feel like my metabolism is slow, or I just can’t get leaner. But the missing piece isn’t necessarily food.

[00:34:33] Emily Field: It’s more muscle. Without that stimulus, the body doesn’t have a reason to hold onto or build metabolically active tissue, which makes everything feel harder. In this case, the shift isn’t to eat less. It’s to introduce more intentional string training and pair it with enough nutrition to support that adaptation.

[00:34:53] Emily Field: The second scenario is someone whose intake is inconsistent, even if it feels pretty good overall. This often looks like being very structured during the week, meals planned, portions controlled, maybe even tracked, and then a much looser, more reactive approach on the weekends. Or it can show up with a single day eating very lightly in the morning and afternoon and feeling hungrier at night and eating more in a less structured way.

[00:35:17] Emily Field: Over time, this creates a pattern where the body doesn’t quite know what to expect. Energy intake fluctuates. Hunger cues become less predictable, and it can feel like you’re either on or off instead of steady. The solution here isn’t perfection, it’s consistency. Giving your body a more predictable rhythm of fueling so it can actually respond instead of constantly adjusting.

[00:35:41] Emily Field: The third scenario is a woman who’s eating enough on paper, training a reasonable amount, but is operating under a high level of stress with very little true recovery. This might be the woman balancing a high demanding job, family responsibilities, a full schedule who’s checking all the boxes, getting her workouts in, eating balanced meals, but still feels exhausted, wired, or mentally drained.

[00:36:04] Emily Field: Sleep might be inconsistent. Her mind might race at night, and even though she’s doing everything right, her body isn’t responding the way she expects. In this case, the metabolism isn’t under fueled, it’s undercovered. The nervous system is carrying a high load, and that impacts everything from energy levels to how the body utilizes nutrients here.

[00:36:24] Emily Field: The work isn’t to push harder, it’s to create more white space for recovery, even in small realistic ways. And then there’s the fourth scenario, which is less often talked about, but just as important to acknowledge true surplus or low awareness of intake. This is the woman who feels like she’s eating pretty healthy, but doesn’t have a clear sense of how much she’s actually consuming.

[00:36:47] Emily Field: Portions may have gradually increased. Calorie dense foods may be showing up more frequently, and there may be a lot of untracked, extras, bites, tastes, snacks, drinks that add up over time. There’s often very little structure, and without that structure, it’s hard to create alignment between intake and goals.

[00:37:06] Emily Field: This doesn’t require restriction or punishment. It requires awareness, understanding what’s actually coming in, so you can make informed adjustments rather than guessing or assuming. And this is where all the scenarios start to come together. Different situations, same root issue, misalignment between what your body needs and what it’s receiving, whether that’s not enough muscle stimulus, inconsistent fueling, inadequate recovery, or simply a lack of clarity around intake.

[00:37:34] Emily Field: The outcomes feel similar. Progress is slower than expected. Energy may be off, and it’s hard to know what to change, but once you identify which bucket or combination of buckets you fall into, the path forward becomes much clearer. Not easier necessarily, but clearer and clarity is what allows you to move forward with intention instead of just trying harder.

[00:37:57] Emily Field: When you take a step back and look at everything we’ve talked about in this episode, not just the individual stories, but the patterns underneath them, it becomes much easier to make sense of what’s actually going on. Because when I look at midlife metabolism struggles, I don’t see randomness. I don’t see bodies that have suddenly stopped working.

[00:38:14] Emily Field: I see patterns, and more importantly, I see patterns that are both understandable and changeable. Over and over again. These situations tend to fall into four main categories. The first is under fueled and overtrained, the woman who’s doing a lot, often very consistently, but not giving her body enough energy or recovery to support that output.

[00:38:35] Emily Field: This is the woman who feels like she’s working the hardest and getting the least return where effort and outcome feel completely mismatched. The second is under muscled and understimulated, where there simply isn’t a strong enough signal for the body to build or maintain muscle. Without that stimulus, metabolism can feel slow, not because it’s broken, but because it hasn’t been given a reason to adapt in a way that you want it to.

[00:39:00] Emily Field: The third is inconsistent and reactive eating where intake fluctuates more than you realize. This might look like being very structured at certain times and much looser at others or cycling between undereating and overcorrecting. The body ends up operating in an unpredictable environment, which makes it harder to settle into a steady rhythm of progress.

[00:39:21] Emily Field: And the fourth is high stress with low recovery, where demands of life combined with disrupted sleep or a constantly activated nervous system, create a situation where the body is simply not in a position to respond optimally, even if nutrition and training are relatively solid. And what’s important to understand is that most women don’t fit neatly into just one of these categories.

[00:39:42] Emily Field: More often than not, it’s a combination. Maybe you’re training hard and under fueling while also dealing with poor sleep. Maybe you’re eating enough overall, but your intake is inconsistent and your stress is high. These patterns layer on top of each other, and that’s where things start to feel especially confusing.

[00:40:00] Emily Field: But once you can see these patterns, clearly everything starts to shift because instead of asking, why isn’t my body working, you can start asking, which of these patterns am I operating in and what would it look like to better support my body here? And that question is what moves you out of frustration and into clarity because it gives you something specific, actionable, and grounded to work with.

[00:40:22] Emily Field: Instead of leaving you feeling like you need to overhaul everything or try harder across the board. As we bring this all together, I wanna come back to you because if you’ve been listening to this and recognize pieces in yourself and these examples and these patterns and these frustrations, I want you to hear this clearly.

[00:40:39] Emily Field: You are not the one person this isn’t going to work for. You are not the exception to the rule, and most importantly, your metabolism is not broken. What you are experiencing is your body doing exactly what it was designed to do, responding, adapting, and adjusting to the inputs that has been given over time.

[00:40:59] Emily Field: The challenge is not that your body isn’t working, it’s that somewhere along the way the support it needs and the inputs it’s receiving have become misaligned. And the really encouraging part of that is when you change the support, your body responds, not instantly, not perfectly, but reliably. When you start eating in a way that actually matches your needs, when your training is supported, instead of just layered on when your recovery is taken seriously, instead of treated like an afterthought.

[00:41:27] Emily Field: Things begin to shift. Energy stabilizes, strength improves. Your body starts to feel more predictable again. And over time, those internal changes create the external results that you’ve been working toward. So instead of asking yourself, how can I be more disciplined, I want you to start asking a different question, where am I misaligned?

[00:41:47] Emily Field: And what would it look like to better support my body here? Because you probably don’t need more discipline. You need better alignment. And depending on where you are right now, that next step might look a little different For some of you, continuing to listen to this podcast and diving into specific episodes that speak to your current challenges is a great place to start.

[00:42:07] Emily Field: This is where you build awareness, start connecting the dots, and shift your perspective without adding pressure. For others, you might be ready for a bit more structure. Something like the free DIY macros guide, that helps you establish appropriate targets for maintenance so you can begin aligning your intake with your actual needs instead of guessing.

[00:42:26] Emily Field: If you’re someone who feels like, I’ve tried to figure this out on my own, but I want an expert to look at my specific situation, my training, my lifestyle, and help me dial this in. That’s exactly where something like the custom macro calculation comes in. This is where we can take all of the nuance we’ve talked about today and apply it directly to you.

[00:42:44] Emily Field: And if you’re in a place where you don’t just want numbers, you want support, accountability, and help bringing all of these pieces together in a way that actually fits your life, that’s where E to lean comes in. And that’s where we move from understanding to implementation with guidance along the way.

[00:42:59] Emily Field: But no matter which path you take, the foundation is the same. You are not trying to fight your metabolism into changing. You are learning how to support it so it can, and that’s the shift that changes everything. The goal is not to fight your metabolism, it’s to finally give it what it’s been asking for.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to Macros Made Easy. I’m Emily Field registered dietician, and today we’re talking about something I know so many of you are feeling right now. You want to eat well, you wanna hit your macros and you wanna feel strong, lean, and in control of your nutrition, but your life is full. And somewhere along the way macros start to feel like just one more thing sitting on your already very long to-do list.

[00:00:23] Emily Field: So let me paint a picture that might feel familiar. It’s Monday and you’re feeling motivated. You went to the grocery store, you have a plan, and maybe you’ve even took the time to pre track your meals. Tuesday goes pretty well, and you’re feeling like, okay, this is doable. But by Wednesday, things start to get a little hectic, and then by Thursday, work is blowing up, your schedule is off.

[00:00:45] Emily Field: Maybe you missed a workout, you’re grabbing food on the go, and you’re finding yourself saying, I’ll just do my best today. And then it’s 8:00 PM and you open your tracking app, take a look at your numbers, and realize you still need 70 grams of protein. So now you’re standing in the kitchen trying to piece something together.

[00:01:02] Emily Field: Maybe you’re eating Greek yogurt straight outta the container. Maybe you’re making a random protein shake, or maybe you’re just staring at your app thinking There is no way I’m hitting this today, and you decide to start over tomorrow, and then tomorrow turns into Monday. Again. Here’s the part I really want you to hear.

[00:01:19] Emily Field: Most people don’t feel at macros because they don’t understand them. They feel because they’re trying to do macros like it’s their full-time job. They think this requires more time, more planning, more perfection, and more discipline, when in reality, busy people don’t need more discipline, they need fewer decisions, and that’s what today’s episode is about.

[00:01:42] Emily Field: Today I am gonna show you how to make macros work in a busy, full, real life. We’re gonna walk through the biggest problems that are actually getting your way because it’s probably not what you think. And then I’m gonna give you a simple, practical system that helps you hit your macros without overthinking every meal or spending hours in the kitchen.

[00:02:01] Emily Field: So if you’ve ever felt like you can only do this when life is calm or like you’re constantly starting over every Monday, or like hitting your numbers just takes too much time and energy, this episode is gonna give you a completely different way to approach it because the goal isn’t to do macros perfectly.

[00:02:18] Emily Field: The goal is to make them work on your busiest days. When people start trying to figure out macros, especially when life already feels busy, they usually turn to Google for answers. And what they find makes total sense on the surface. They’re searching for things like easy macro meals, macro friendly grocery lists, and how to hit their protein goal without overthinking it.

[00:02:41] Emily Field: And to be clear, none of those are bad things to look for. Those are all very reasonable questions and they can be helpful to a point, but they’re also incomplete. Because what ends up happening is you collect more recipes, more meal ideas, and more tips, but you still don’t feel any more consistent. You might feel temporarily inspired, but when your schedule fills up or your routine gets disrupted, you’re right back in that same place of wondering what to eat and how to make it all work.

[00:03:11] Emily Field: So instead of solving the problem, it just adds more noise. This is the reframe I want you to start thinking about as we go through the episode. You don’t need more recipes. You need a system that works on your busiest days because the goal isn’t to eat perfectly when life is calm. The goal is to have something you can rely on when life is full, unpredictable, and a little bit messy.

[00:03:36] Emily Field: I am going to give you the practical solutions, but first I wanna slow down and name the real problems that are usually happening underneath the surface because most people think that the issue is that they need more discipline, a better meal plan, or more motivation, but that is usually not the real problem.

[00:03:53] Emily Field: What is actually getting in the way tends to be much more specific and much more fixable. So in this next section, I wanna walk you through the five biggest problems I see when busy people try to make macros work in real life. And my hope is that when you hear these, you’ll start to recognize yourself a little bit more clearly, not so that you can judge yourself, but so that you can finally understand where things are breaking down and what actually needs to change.

[00:04:19] Emily Field: All right, so the first real problem, and probably the one I hear the most is this feeling of I just don’t have time to do this. Right? And when someone says that, what they usually mean is that they believe doing macros correctly requires a very specific kind of lifestyle. They picture meal prep Sundays where everything is cooked and portioned ahead of time, constant time in the kitchen throughout the week, and tracking every single detail perfectly in order to see results, so when their actual life doesn’t match that picture.

[00:04:50] Emily Field: When work is busy and schedules are unpredictable, or energy is low, it immediately feels like they’re already doing it wrong before they even really get started. That’s what makes this a real problem. It’s not just about time. It’s about the belief that if you can’t do it all the way, then it’s not worth doing it all.

[00:05:10] Emily Field: But macros when they are done well should actually reduce the amount of thinking you have to do around food. They should not increase your effort or require more time than you realistically have. In fact, the more dialed in your approach becomes the less mental energy it should take to feed yourself well.

[00:05:29] Emily Field: And that’s where we start to shift away from this idea of doing more and move towards doing things more efficiently. Because instead of trying to plan and prepare something new every single day, we can start to build in repeatability. And this is where repeatable meals comes in. The next real problem is this feeling of, I just don’t know what to eat.

[00:05:51] Emily Field: And for a lot of people, this is not because they don’t have enough ideas. If anything, it’s the opposite. They have far too many ideas, too many options, and no clear way to put those options together in a way that actually works for their macros. Most people have not figured out how to hit their macros even once in a way that feels repeatable and realistic.

[00:06:11] Emily Field: So every day ends up feeling like a brand new puzzle to solve. You wake up and think, okay, what should I have for breakfast? And then a few hours later, it’s what do I do for lunch? And by dinner, you’re trying to piece things together based on what you’ve already eaten, what’s available, and how much energy you have left.

[00:06:28] Emily Field: It becomes a constant series of decisions. And that’s where decision fatigue really starts to build. Not because you don’t care or you’re not trying, but because every single meal requires you to stop, think, calculate, and adjust. And I think this is where a lot of people get tripped up with macros in the beginning.

[00:06:46] Emily Field: They go from eating very randomly to tracking macros and assume their brain is just gonna adjust to this new framework overnight. But macros don’t automatically change your behavior. Tracking does not instantly make you better at meal planning. It doesn’t automatically teach you to eat at regular times.

[00:07:03] Emily Field: It does not create rhythm where there was none before. It simply gives you a structure to work within. So if you were skipping meals, grazing all day, waiting too long to eat, or making food decisions completely on the fly before macros, there’s a good chance that you’ll still be doing that. Once you start tracking, the only difference is now you’re seeing the numbers attached to that pattern.

[00:07:27] Emily Field: That’s why for some people, the best first step is to actually back up before worrying about hitting exact macros. It may be more helpful to establish some kind of rhythm with meals, and that could look like eating three meals a day more consistently, or building meals that contain protein, fat, and carbohydrate.

[00:07:47] Emily Field: So that they’re more balanced and satisfying or simply deciding ahead of time what breakfast and lunch are gonna be on most days of the week. Because if there is no structure to how your meals are built or how your day flows, it’s gonna feel inconsistent no matter how motivated you are. And when your meals are random, your results are gonna feel random too.

[00:08:07] Emily Field: That is the line I want you to remember here. Random meals create random results. So the solution isn’t to go find more recipes or scroll for more meal ideas. You don’t need more ideas. You need fewer, better defaults. You need meals that you can come back to again and again, meals that you already know, work for your body, your schedule, and eventually your macros so that you’re not starting from scratch every single day.

[00:08:31] Emily Field: Okay. The third real problem is feeling that hitting your protein goal is just impossible. And I see this one all the time. Someone sets a protein target, sometimes it’s a number they got from a calculator. Sometimes it’s something they saw online, and right away it feels overwhelming. It might even be set higher than what they’re realistically ready for, especially if they’ve been undereating protein for a long time.

[00:08:55] Emily Field: So what happens is they go into the day with good intentions, but without a clear plan. Breakfast is low in protein or maybe skipped altogether. Lunch is fine, but not enough to really move the needle, and then by the time dinner rolls around, or worse, later in the evening, they’re opening up their app and realizing that they’re still 40, 60, sometimes 70 grams short, and now they’re in catchup mode.

[00:09:17] Emily Field: They’re trying to piece together protein wherever they can. It’s a shake. It’s egg whites, yogurt, random snacks, anything to close the gap, and it feels forced and uncomfortable and honestly really frustrating. So they’re walking away thinking, I just can’t do this. Hitting protein is too hard in my experience.

[00:09:36] Emily Field: If protein feels hard to hit, it’s usually a timing problem, not a food problem. It’s not that there aren’t enough protein options, it’s that protein hasn’t been prioritized early enough in the day to make the rest of the day feel manageable. And this is where we also need to zoom out for a second. For many people, even consistently getting to something like 80 to a hundred grams of protein per day would be a massive improvement from where they’re starting.

[00:10:03] Emily Field: That can be a really appropriate and realistic first goal before working up to a more individualized macro target. Because the goal here again, is not perfection, it’s progress and consistency. Getting better at the skill. So instead of trying to make up protein, at the end of the day, we shift the entire approach.

[00:10:22] Emily Field: We build the day around protein from the start, and that’s what I like to call a protein first strategy. The fourth real problem is this belief that I can only do this when life is calm. And I wanna be really clear, this is a very common belief, but it’s not a helpful one because what it sounds like in real life is I’ll get back on track next week, or things are just too busy right now.

[00:10:47] Emily Field: Or once this trip is over, I’ll reset. And before you know it, you’re constantly waiting for the perfect window. When life feels predictable, your schedule is clear and you have time and energy to do everything right, but that window rarely ever shows up. Life doesn’t really work like that. There are always gonna be busy weeks, stressful seasons, travel, social events, and unexpected changes.

[00:11:12] Emily Field: That’s not the exception, that’s the baseline. So if your approach to macros only works when everything is calm and controlled, then of course it’s gonna feel like you’re always falling off track. That’s what makes this such a real problem. It creates this cycle where you’re either on when life is easy or you’re completely off when life gets full.

[00:11:33] Emily Field: And over time, that starts to feel really frustrating because it has nothing to do with your effort or your motivation. It has everything to do with the fact that the system you’re trying to follow doesn’t match your real life. So if your system only works, when life is easy, it’s not a system. A real system is something that you can flex.

[00:11:53] Emily Field: It flexes with you. It gives you structure without requiring perfection. It allows you to stay consistent even when things aren’t ideal, and that’s where we start to shift away from trying to execute a perfect plan and instead build something that is adaptable. Because what you actually need is a flexible structure, not a perfect plan.

[00:12:15] Emily Field: The fifth real problem is this pattern of, I start strong, but I just can’t sustain it. And if this feels familiar, you’re not alone. This is the person who gets really motivated at the beginning. They download the app, set their macros, maybe even plan out their meals, and for a few days everything feels dialed in.

[00:12:34] Emily Field: They’re hitting their numbers, they’re feeling focused, and it seems like. Okay, this might actually work, but then life gets busy. Something unexpected comes up, the schedule shifts, energy is lower, and suddenly the plan that they were following doesn’t feel doable anymore. And instead of adjusting, it turns into, well, I’m off track now, and the whole thing unravels.

[00:12:56] Emily Field: And this is where it’s important to understand what’s happening underneath the surface. Trying to be perfect is an all or nothing strategy in the brain. You’re either doing it exactly right or you’re not doing it at all. There is no in between, but there is another layer here that I see all the time.

[00:13:13] Emily Field: This pattern is often leftover from a dieting mindset. When you’ve spent years following diets, you’ve been conditioned to believe that success comes from doing something perfectly. You will follow the plan, you will stay on, and if you do it right, you win. And if you don’t, you feel like you failed. So when you approach macros the same way, it becomes something you’re trying to execute perfectly instead of something you’re learning.

[00:13:39] Emily Field: You’re not asking, what can I learn from today? You’re asking, did I do this right or wrong? You’re not treating this like a skill you’re building over time. You’re treating it like a test, you either pass or fail, and that mindset will always burn out because macros are not something that you win. They’re something that you practice.

[00:13:58] Emily Field: They’re a skill, and like any skill, there’s gonna be trial and error. There are going to be days when things don’t go as planned, and that doesn’t mean that you’re off track. It just means that you’re in the process of learning how this works in your real life. When your approach is built around perfection, it will always fall apart.

[00:14:15] Emily Field: The moment life stops cooperating. That’s what makes this such a real problem. It’s not a lack of discipline, it’s the strategy itself that’s set up in a way that can’t hold up over time. So here’s the shift I want you to make. You don’t need a better start. You need a better middle. You don’t need more motivation at the beginning of the week.

[00:14:35] Emily Field: You need something that works on a random Wednesday, a busy Thursday, or a weekend where nothing goes according to plan. And you need to start seeing those imperfect days as part of the process, not proof that it’s not working, because that’s where sustainability actually comes from. Not from doing everything perfectly, but from having something you can repeat, adjust, and learn from, even when life is full, because sustainability comes from repeatability.

[00:15:04] Emily Field: Okay. Now that we’ve walked through the five real problems, you might be realizing that this isn’t about needing more discipline or trying harder. It’s about needing a different approach entirely, because once you can clearly see where things are breaking down, the next step is not to overhaul everything.

[00:15:20] Emily Field: It’s to put a simple system in place that actually works with your life. And this is where we’re gonna solve those Google problems the right way. Not by giving you more recipes, more rules, or more things to manage, but by simplifying this into a structure that reduces decisions, supports consistency, and helps you hit your macros without overthinking every meal.

[00:15:41] Emily Field: So in this next section, I’m gonna walk you through the system that makes all of this work. Now let’s start solving this in a way that actually works in real life. When people search for easy macro meals, what they usually expect is a list of new recipes. But what actually works, especially when you’re busy, is not more variety, it’s more structure.

[00:16:02] Emily Field: And underneath that structure is a skill that you’re building over time, which is understanding how to put together meals that contain protein, fat, and carbohydrates. But I want to be really clear here. If you’re newer to macro tracking, you might not even automatically know which foods are primarily proteins, fats, or carbs, and that’s okay.

[00:16:21] Emily Field: That’s part of the learning process. So instead of jumping straight into trying to perfectly balance macros, I like to simplify this even further. Start by thinking in three simple categories. A protein, heavy food, a starch or carbohydrate source, and something that adds flavor, which is often your fat.

[00:16:42] Emily Field: This is a much more intuitive way to build meals. Before you fully understand the breakdown of macros in different foods over time, you’ll start to recognize, okay, this is a good protein source. This is mostly carbs, and this adds fat. But you don’t need to have that mastered on day one. So instead of trying to come up with something new every single day, we’re gonna simplify this down to a repeatable framework using the just those three components that looks like having two to three breakfast options, two to three lunch options, and then leaving dinner flexible based on your schedule, your family, or whatever you have going on that night.

[00:17:20] Emily Field: This is one of the simplest ways to reduce decision fatigue while still moving toward your macro targets. And I want to give you some examples here that feel like real food, things that you could actually see yourself eating consistently. So for breakfast, this might look like eggs as your protein toast, or potatoes as your carbs, and something like butter or avocado for fat.

[00:17:42] Emily Field: Breakfast tacos with eggs and cheese as your protein in fat, tortilla as your carb, and maybe some avocado or sauce for flavor. Overnight oats with milk and added protein as your base. Oats and fruit. As your carbs and chia seeds are nut butter for fat. A breakfast sandwich with eggs and Turkey, bacon or sausage for protein, an English muffin for carbs and cheese or butter for fat.

[00:18:07] Emily Field: Now for lunch, thinks in terms of repeatable formats. A rice bowl with chicken as your protein, rice as your carbs, vegetables for fiber, and a sauce or oil for fat. A wrap with deli meat for protein, tortilla for carbs, cheese, or mayo for fat, and a side like fruit or chips, a large salad with steak, salmon, or chicken for protein.

[00:18:30] Emily Field: Toppings like nuts or cheese for fat, and something like croutons, quinoa, or fruit for carbs. Maybe it’s leftovers from dinner that already follow this same structure. You’ll notice that these are not complicated. They’re just built around a simple pattern, proteins, carbs, and something that makes the meal satisfying and flavorful, which is usually fat, and then dinner gets to be flexible.

[00:18:54] Emily Field: Maybe that’s a family meal. Maybe it’s takeout. Maybe it’s something quick you throw together. But because your earlier meals followed a simple structure, you now have room to adjust without stress. This is a key idea that works for a lot of people. Boring during the day equals flexible at night. Not boring in a bad way, but predictable, familiar, easy.

[00:19:17] Emily Field: Because when your breakfast and lunch follow a simple structure, you free up so much mental energy. You’re not constantly asking yourself what to eat or trying to piece things together. At the end of the day, this actually saves you time. It reduces decisions, it improves consistency and helps you build the skill of understanding macros without needing to have it all figured out from day one.

[00:19:39] Emily Field: The next thing people search for is a macro friendly grocery list. And again, that’s not wrong, but the way most people approach this is still making things harder than they need to be because they’re shopping for meals. They’re thinking, what recipes am I gonna make this week? And then building a grocery list around those specific meals.

[00:19:59] Emily Field: But when life gets busy, those meals don’t always happen. Plans shift, schedules change, and suddenly you’re left with ingredients that only work for one specific recipe. So instead, I want you to think about building what I call a macro kitchen. You’re not buying meals, you’re buying building blocks. And this is where we shift from meal prep to ingredient prep.

[00:20:20] Emily Field: A lot of people struggle with meal prep because it feels rigid. It assumes that you’re gonna eat the same pre-made meals at specific times throughout the week. And if that doesn’t happen, it can feel like everything is off. Ingredient prep is different. It means that your kitchen is stocked with proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that you can mix and match depending on your day.

[00:20:41] Emily Field: This is what makes macros feel plug and play. You’re not starting from scratch. Every time you eat, you’re pulling from what’s already available. So when you open your fridge, pantry, or freezer, the question becomes, what can I build with what I already have? And you can think about stocking your kitchen in a few simple ways.

[00:21:00] Emily Field: First by macronutrient protein anchors might look like grilled chicken, ground beef eggs, Greek yogurt, deli meat jerky or canned tuna. Carbohydrate bases might look like rice, potato, oats wraps, fruit pasta or beans, fat add-ons could be things like avocado, cheese, nuts, seeds, oils, dressings, or sauces. When you have those three categories covered, meals become very simple to assemble.

[00:21:32] Emily Field: You’re just combining a protein, a carb, and something that adds flavor and satisfaction. But you can also think about this in terms of where your food lives in your freezer. You might have chicken strips, burgers, Turkey burgers, frozen fruit, frozen waffles, things that are easy to pull out when you need ’em in your pantry.

[00:21:51] Emily Field: You have staples like can tuna, beans, pasta, rice, cereals, crackers, tortillas, and popcorn foods that are always available. And in your fridge, you have your fresh options like deli meat, shredded chicken, eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, ground meat, regular cheese, and pre-cut fruits and vegetables. In each location, you have a mix of proteins, fats, and carbs.

[00:22:16] Emily Field: And when your kitchen is set up this way, you’re no longer dependent on having a perfectly executed meal plan. You can walk into your kitchen and quickly build something that works. Maybe it’s a bowl with rice, chicken, and avocado. Maybe it’s a wrap with deli meat, cheese, and a side of fruit. Maybe it’s eggs, toast, and yogurt on the side.

[00:22:34] Emily Field: It does not have to be complicated to be effective. And here’s the part that ties into macros without making it feel overwhelming. First comes the structure first. ’cause having the food available first comes building meals that follow a simple pattern. Then over time, you start to dial in portions. You start to notice, okay, if I add a little bit more protein here, or slightly adjust this portion, I get closer to my targets.

[00:23:01] Emily Field: This is where something like macro checkpoints becomes really helpful. Instead of thinking about your macros as one big number, you have to hit perfectly by the end of the day. You divide that big number across however many meals you like to have in a day. So if you’re eating three to four times per day, that gives you a much smaller, more approachable target.

[00:23:21] Emily Field: You might not know your exact numbers yet, but you can start to think each meal should have a solid protein source, a carbohydrate source in something that adds fat. And as you get more comfortable, you can refine that into more specific targets per meal, but you don’t need to start there because the goal is not perfection.

[00:23:40] Emily Field: It’s building a system that you can actually use. And when your kitchen is set up for plug and play meals and your day has some structure to it, hitting your macros becomes something that happens more naturally instead of something that you have to force at the end of the day. The last piece we need to solve is protein, because for most people, this is the part that feels the hardest, and it’s usually the thing that makes everything else feel like it’s not working.

[00:24:06] Emily Field: What tends to happen is people go into the day without a clear plan for protein, and then they try to hit their number by the end of the day, and that almost always turns into playing catch up. You get to the evening, look at your tracker and realize you’ve still way behind and now you’re trying to force it.

[00:24:22] Emily Field: You’re adding shakes, snacks, random foods, just to close the gap a little closer, and that’s what makes the protein part feel overwhelming. Instead of thinking about protein as something you have to squeeze in, at the end of the day, we’re gonna shift that into a protein first strategy. This means you’re building your day around protein from the start, and you’re distributing it more evenly across your meals.

[00:24:44] Emily Field: Because from a physiology standpoint, this actually matters. Your body can only use so much protein at one time to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. The process of building and maintaining lean muscle research suggests that hitting a threshold of protein per meal rather than back loading it all at night.

[00:25:03] Emily Field: Is more effective for supporting muscle, improving body composition, and even helping with satiety and metabolic rate. So instead of thinking about one big protein target, at the end of the day, we break it up into what I call macro checkpoints. If you’re eating three to four times a day, each meal becomes an opportunity to hit a meaningful amount of protein.

[00:25:24] Emily Field: A simple structure might be like. Breakfast is 25 to 35 grams. Lunch is 30 to 40 grams. Dinner again, 30 to 40 grams. And an optional snack fills in any remaining gaps that can be placed any time of day. So instead of trying to hit 70 grams at night, you’re passing that threshold multiple times throughout the day.

[00:25:44] Emily Field: And this is important. Because every time you hit that protein threshold, you’re giving your body a signal to support muscle maintenance or growth. You’re also improving fullness, stabilizing your energy, and making it much less likely that you’ll feel out of control with food later in the day. So right away, this takes the pressure off.

[00:26:03] Emily Field: You’re no longer chasing your numbers. You’re building toward them throughout the day. Okay. Protein isn’t something that you squeeze in. It’s something that you build around. Now, this doesn’t mean that every meal has to be complicated or perfectly planned. This is where default options become incredibly helpful, especially on those busy days.

[00:26:23] Emily Field: Things like a protein shake when you’re short on time, Greek yogurt or cottage cheese as a quick meal, or add-on deli meat and wraps that you can throw together in minutes leftovers from dinner that already have a solid protein base. These are not backup options. They’re part of the system. The goal isn’t to make protein perfect, it’s to make it predictable.

[00:26:44] Emily Field: And when you combine that predictability with macro checkpoints spreading protein across your day, you’re no longer relying on willpower at night to fix the day you’ve already done the work. And when protein becomes predictable in that way, everything else about your macros gets a lot easier to manage.

[00:27:02] Emily Field: Okay, so by this point we’ve built the foundation. We’ve talked about how to simplify your meals using a protein, carb and fat structure. We’ve talked about creating repeatable meals instead of chasing variety. We’ve talked about building a macro kitchen so your meals feel plug and play, and we’ve talked about using protein first and macro checkpoints so you’re not playing catch up at the end of the day.

[00:27:25] Emily Field: That is the system, and if you’ve implemented just that, you would already be in a completely different place than where you started. But here’s the truth. Knowing the system and consistently using the system are two very different things. This is where most people get stuck, not because they don’t understand macros, but because they don’t fully understand how to make that system hold up in real life, in busy weeks, in stressful seasons, in imperfect days where things don’t go according to plan.

[00:27:53] Emily Field: So this next section is about taking everything we just talked about and making it real. This is where we layer in the mindset, the patterns, and the behaviors that actually make this sustainable. Because again, the goal is not to just understand macros, it’s to be consistent with them. One of the biggest mindset shifts I want you to make is letting go of the idea that your food and your workouts need to feel new and novel all the time in order to be effective because they don’t.

[00:28:21] Emily Field: In fact, constantly chasing new and different in your nutrition and exercise is one of the fastest ways to feel inconsistent. Every new meal, every new recipe, every new plan requires more decisions and more decisions creates more friction. When you’re already busy, that friction adds up quickly and makes it much harder to follow through.

[00:28:43] Emily Field: So instead of asking yourself, how can I keep this interesting? I want you to start asking, how can I make this repeatable? Because the truth is, your food does not need to be exciting to be effective. You can absolutely find novelty in other areas of your life. You can explore a new walking route, start a new book, try a new restaurant, go on a new date night, or get into a new show.

[00:29:05] Emily Field: There are so many places where novelty adds value. But your nutrition and your training, those are areas where doing the basics really well over and over again is what actually drives results. And when you approach it that way, your results often come faster, not slower, because you’re removing the variability that keeps you stuck.

[00:29:25] Emily Field: This ties directly into how we define consistency, because I think this is another piece where people get tripped up. A lot of people think that consistency means hitting their macros perfectly every single day forever, but that’s not realistic and it’s not necessary to see progress. A much more useful and realistic definition of consistency is hitting your protein and calorie targets about 80% of the time.

[00:29:49] Emily Field: So if you zoom out and look at a full month, that’s roughly 24 out of 30 days. In a typical week, that might be like hitting your targets five or more days. And what this does is it builds room for real life. It allows for days where you’re not tracking perfectly, where you’re traveling, where you have social events, where work is busy or where you just don’t have the energy to do everything exactly the way you had planned.

[00:30:12] Emily Field: Those are your off days and they are expected, but because your default is built on simple, repeatable habits, those off days don’t undo your progress. They’re just part of the process. This is why consistency beats novelty. Consistency does not mean restriction. It does not mean that you have to eat the exact same thing every day, or that you can never have flexibility.

[00:30:36] Emily Field: It simply means that you’re not relying on constant change to stay engaged. You’re relying on patterns that are simple enough to repeat even when life is full. When your meals are predictable, you make fewer decisions, and when you make fewer decisions, your adherence improves, and when your adherence improves, your results become much more predictable.

[00:30:56] Emily Field: Not because you did everything perfectly, but because you did enough of the right things, often enough for your body to actually respond. Because at the end of the day, your results are not built on your most exciting days. They’re built on your most consistent ones. Most people build their macro approach around their best days.

[00:31:16] Emily Field: The days when they have time to cook, time to track, time, to be thoughtful about their meals, and everything feels a little bit more in control. But those aren’t the days that define your results. Your results are built on your busiest, most chaotic, lowest energy days. So instead of asking, what’s the ideal way to do this, I want you to start asking, what does this look like on my hardest day?

[00:31:39] Emily Field: And that might be a protein shake and a banana for breakfast, a deli wrap, and chips for lunch, something simple or takeout for dinner. This is still a system. And having a floor, a version of your day that still works, even when things aren’t ideal, is what keeps you consistent over time. But I want to take this one step further because I think this is where a lot of people miss the mark.

[00:32:01] Emily Field: Your default habits matter, even if you’re not tracking. Your default way of eating should still resemble something that is balanced and supportive. Meals that are protein forward, that include carbohydrates and fats, and that are built for mostly whole real foods. Because if your default is skipping meals or not eating for long stretches, grabbing fast food without any structure, snacking on random foods throughout the day, or overeating in response to stress, that’s not a macro problem.

[00:32:31] Emily Field: That’s a meal structure problem, a stress management problem, that’s a priority problem, and it simply means that habits are not there yet. And I say that without judgment, just with clarity, because sometimes macro tracking can help establish that rhythm. It can give you structure and help you build awareness, but sometimes it can’t.

[00:32:51] Emily Field: Sometimes the best move is to actually take a step back and focus on building more consistent eating patterns first. That might be like eating three meals a day, or building meals around protein, or creating more predictability in your routine before worrying about hitting exact numbers. Because macros are a tool, but they work best when they’re layered on top of habits that already exist.

[00:33:13] Emily Field: So when you think about your floor day, it’s not just about having easy options. It’s about asking, if I don’t track perfectly today, do my habits still support me? Because that’s what creates real consistency, not perfection on your best days, but having defaults that still work for you on your hardest ones.

[00:33:33] Emily Field: If you’ve tried tracking before and it didn’t stick, it’s usually not because the whole system didn’t work, it’s because there was one or two specific points in your day where things consistently broke down. For a lot of people, that’s breakfast where it’s skipped or too low in protein. The afternoon where energy dips and you find yourself grazing or reaching for sugar.

[00:33:55] Emily Field: Or evenings where things feel unstructured and you’ve either overeat or struggled to hit your protein. And what often happens is people respond to this by trying to fix everything at once. They think they need a better plan, more discipline, or a full reset, but that’s not actually what’s most effective.

[00:34:12] Emily Field: You can get much better results by identifying just one of those gaps and working on that first, because when one part of your day becomes more stable, the rest of the day gets easier to manage. But here’s the piece I really want to emphasize, because this is where macro tracking becomes much more powerful.

[00:34:30] Emily Field: Your food diary is not just a place to log numbers. It’s a place to learn about your habits. And the people who are most successful at this are not just tracking, they’re reflecting. They’re looking back at their day or looking back at their weeks and asking, where did this go? Well, where did this feel hard?

[00:34:48] Emily Field: What patterns am I noticing? They’re using their data as feedback, not as judgment. Because if you’re treating each day like a completely brand new day and you’re not looking back at what happened, you’re missing one of the biggest benefits of tracking. You’re missing the learning piece. So for example, you might notice every time I skip breakfast, I overeat later in the day or when I don’t have a plan for lunch, I end up grabbing whatever is easiest.

[00:35:15] Emily Field: On days where I hit protein earlier, the rest of the day feels much easier. Those are incredibly valuable insights, and once you see those patterns, you don’t need a full overhaul. You just need one small adjustment. Maybe it’s adding a consistent breakfast. Maybe it’s having a default lunch option ready.

[00:35:33] Emily Field: Maybe it’s front loading protein earlier in the day. And that’s how progress actually happens. Not by trying to perfect, but by noticing what’s happening, learning from it, making small targeted changes over time. The goal of tracking isn’t just to hit your macros, it’s to understand yourself well enough that hitting your macros becomes easier.

[00:35:55] Emily Field: The last advanced layer I wanna talk about is something that I think is massively underestimated, and that is the idea that your environment matters more than your willpower. Because a lot of people approach macros thinking, I just need to be more disciplined. I just need to try harder. But in reality, your environment is doing far more of the work than your motivation ever will.

[00:36:17] Emily Field: What you have available to you? What’s in your fridge, your pantry, your freezer? What’s easy, what’s visible, what’s convenient? That is what you will default to, especially on your busiest or most stressful days. So if your environment is set up in a way that makes hitting your macros harder, you’re gonna feel like you’re constantly relying on willpower.

[00:36:36] Emily Field: And willpower is unreliable. It’s the highest when you’re well rested, when you’re motivated, when life is calm, and it’s lowest when you’re tired, stressed, busy, or overwhelmed, which is exactly when you need your habits to support you the most. So instead of asking yourself, how can I be more disciplined, I want you to start asking, how can I make this easier?

[00:36:57] Emily Field: Because if your kitchen is set up with foods that make hitting your macros easier, you’ll naturally default to those foods. If you always have protein options available, protein becomes easier if you have a few go-to meals that you know already work. You don’t have to rely on willpower to make good choices.

[00:37:14] Emily Field: You’ve already made the decision ahead of time. This is why the macro kitchen matters so much. You’re not just organizing the food, you’re designing an environment that supports your goals automatically. And this doesn’t have to be complicated. Again, it might look like keeping a few reliable protein sources stocked at all times, having easy, ready to assemble meal options available, keeping foods you enjoy and know how to build meals around.

[00:37:40] Emily Field: Reducing the number of decisions you have to make when you’re tired or short on time, because on a busy day, you’re not going to suddenly become a different version of yourself. You’re gonna fall back on what’s easiest, what’s familiar, and what is available. So the more you can make the right choice, the easy choice, the less you have to rely on motivation, and that’s really the goal.

[00:38:02] Emily Field: Not to be more disciplined, but to create an environment where the behaviors you want are the ones that happen most naturally. Because when your environment supports you, consistency becomes a lot easier to maintain. And when consistency becomes easier, your results become a lot more predictable. So if you zoom out, everything we just talked about comes back to a few simple bullet points.

[00:38:25] Emily Field: You’re not trying to be perfect. You’re trying to be consistent. You’re not trying to eat differently every day. You’re building repeatable meals. You’re not relying on willpower. You’re setting up your environment. And you’re not guessing. You’re learning from your patterns and adjusting as you go. You have structure in your meals, food available in your environment, protein distributed across your day, and a realistic definition of consistency that actually fits your life.

[00:38:51] Emily Field: What it comes back to is you don’t rise to your goals, you fall to your systems. If your system requires time that you don’t have decisions you don’t wanna make, or perfection you can’t maintain, it’s gonna fall apart. But if your system is simple, repeatable, and flexible enough to work on your busiest days, that’s when things start to feel easier and a lot more sustainable.

[00:39:16] Emily Field: So if you take anything away from this episode, I want it to be this. You don’t need more time, you don’t need more recipes. You need a system because if macros feel overwhelming or time consuming right now, it’s not because you’re too busy. It’s because no one has shown you how to make this work in your real life.

[00:39:33] Emily Field: And that is exactly why I created macros Made easy. Macros made easy is my step-by-step course that teaches you how to actually apply this in your life, not just understand it in theory, because knowing your numbers is one thing, but knowing how to build meals, grocery shop, structure your day, adjust when life gets busy and stay consistent over time.

[00:39:54] Emily Field: That’s a completely different skillset. Instead of macros made easy, you’ll learn how to build repeatable, macro balanced meals without overthinking how to grocery shop and set up your kitchen. So meals are plug and play. How to distribute your macros across the day so you’re not playing catchup at night.

[00:40:11] Emily Field: How to stay consistent when life is busy, messy, and unpredictable, and how to adjust your approach as your goals, schedule, and needs change. Because the goal is not to rely on a plan forever. The goal is to build a skill set that you can use for the rest of your life. The way the program is structured is simple and intentional.

[00:40:29] Emily Field: The course is designed for you to move through one module per week over the course of six weeks. So you’re not just learning, you’re actually practicing and applying what you’re learning in real time, and you have lifetime access, which means you can revisit the material whenever you need it. Whether that’s during a busy season, a new phase of your goals, or just a reset moment where you want to tighten things back up.

[00:40:51] Emily Field: It. What this really does is it speeds up your learning curve. Instead of spending months or years trying to piece this together on your own, starting over every Monday and second guessing your decisions, you’re following a clear proven framework that helps you build confidence and consistency much faster.

[00:41:09] Emily Field: So if you’ve been listening to this episode and thinking, this is exactly what I need, but I don’t know how to put it all together, macro’s made easy is your next step. If you wanna stop starting over on Monday and actually build something that lasts macros made easy is for you because macros aren’t hard.

[00:41:25] Emily Field: Doing them without a system is though The course is available for purchase at any time, and the link to join is in the show notes. As we wrap up this episode, I wanna bring you back to the big picture. If macros have been feeling hard, overwhelming, or inconsistent in your life, it does not automatically mean that you’re bad at this.

[00:41:44] Emily Field: It does not mean that you’re too busy, and it definitely does not mean that you need more discipline. What it usually means is that you’ve been trying to apply macros without a system. Today we talked about the real reasons. This can feel so hard. We talked about how a lot of people think that they don’t have enough time, when really what they need is less decision making.

[00:42:04] Emily Field: We talked about how random meals create random results and how tracking does not automatically create better habits if there was no structure to begin with. We talked about why protein can feel impossible when it’s back loaded to the end of the day. Why waiting for life to calm down is not a strategy and why starting strong is not the same thing as building something sustainable.

[00:42:26] Emily Field: Then we shifted into what actually helps. We talked about repeatable meals, a macro kitchen ingredient prep instead of rigid meal prep. Protein first, eating macro checkpoints across the day and the importance of defining consistency in a realistic way. We talked about floor days, not just best days. We talked about learning from your food diary instead of judging yourself with it.

[00:42:49] Emily Field: And we talked about how your environment will always shape your behavior more than motivation alone. So if you’re listening to this and feeling overwhelmed by your busy lifestyle, or discouraged that you have not been able to hit your macros consistently, here is where I would encourage you to go next.

[00:43:06] Emily Field: Don’t try to fix everything at once. Start by asking yourself what is the next most helpful step. Maybe that is simply building more rhythm into your day by eating three meals more consistently. Maybe it’s creating two repeatable breakfasts and two repeatable lunches. Maybe it’s focusing on hitting more realistic protein targets and spreading that protein across the day.

[00:43:28] Emily Field: Maybe it’s cleaning up your environment and stocking your kitchen with foods that make it easier. And maybe for some of you, it’s realizing that you do not need more free content, more recipes, or more guessing. You need a step-by-step framework that shows you how to make this work in your actual life.

[00:43:43] Emily Field: And that is exactly what macro’s made easy is for. If this episode felt like it was speaking directly to you and your tired of starting over every Monday, macro’s made easy is the best next step. It’s where I teach you how to build the structure, the habits, and the skillset that make macro tracking simpler, more realistic, and much more sustainable.

[00:44:02] Emily Field: Because at the end of the day, macro tracking is not hard, but doing them without a system is, and that is what I want for you, not perfection, not a flawless week, not a food diary. That looks pretty every single day. I want you to build an approach that works on your busiest days, supports your goals, and helps you feel more confident around food over time.

[00:44:22] Emily Field: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Macros Made Easy, and I will talk to you again soon.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to Macros Made Easy. I’m your host, Emily Field, registered dietician and strength coach, and today we’re diving into a topic that is becoming impossible to ignore in the health and weight loss conversation. GLP one, medications are rapidly changing the weight loss landscape For many people, these medications can reduce appetite, quiet food, noise, and make it easier to eat less.

[00:00:24] Emily Field: As a result, people are often seeing noticeable weight loss most times faster than they ever thought before. And because of that, these medications are getting a lot of attention right now. But there’s a conversation happening quietly inside the research world that almost no one is talking about in the mainstream discussion, and that’s the conversation about muscle.

[00:00:44] Emily Field: When people lose weight, whether it’s through dieting, medication, or even surgery, they don’t just lose fat. They lose a mixture of fat and lean tissue, which includes muscle mass. And the ratio of fat to muscle lost matters a lot. Two people can lose the exact same amount of weight on the scale, but have very different outcomes depending on how much muscle they preserved along the way.

[00:01:09] Emily Field: Now, before we go any further, I wanna say something to those of you listening who are not on a GLP one medication and may never plan to be. You might be wondering why this conversation matters to you. And the truth is, the concepts we’re talking about today apply to any kind of weight loss, whether that’s weight loss that happens through dieting, lifestyle change, medication, or surgery.

[00:01:30] Emily Field: The body follows many of the same physiological rules. Understanding those rules can actually be incredibly reassuring, especially if you’ve ever felt like your progress is slower than someone else’s. Because in many cases, slower progress is not a disadvantage. It may actually be protecting something incredibly important, your muscle mass and your metabolism.

[00:01:52] Emily Field: So today we’re gonna unpack this conversation in a very practical way. We’ll talk through why muscle loss matters during weight loss. What research shows about GLP one medications and body composition. Why the rate of weight loss plays a major role in how much muscle is lost versus fat, and why strength training becomes even more important during periods of weight loss and what to focus on if your goal is to lose fat while protecting your metabolism, strength, and long-term health.

[00:02:20] Emily Field: Because ultimately, the goal isn’t just to become smaller, the goal is to become leaner, stronger, and healthier for the long term. Before we get too far into the GLP one conversation, we need to talk about an important concept that applies to any kind of weight loss, and that’s the difference between scale, weight, and body composition.

[00:02:39] Emily Field: The scale only tells you how much mass your body is carrying, how much gravity is on your body at that one point in time that you measure. It doesn’t tell you what that mass is made of When people lose weight. They don’t just lose fat. Weight loss almost always includes a mixture of fat and lean tissue, which includes muscle and the ratio of fat to muscle loss matters a lot.

[00:03:03] Emily Field: So lemme give you an example. Imagine two people each lose 30 pounds. Person A loses 20 pounds of fat and 10 pounds of muscle. Person B loses 27 pounds of fat and three pounds of muscle. On the scale, those two outcomes look identical. Both people lost 30 pounds, but metabolically they are very different outcomes.

[00:03:26] Emily Field: Person B preserved much more muscle, which means that they’re more likely to maintain their strength, maintain their metabolic rate. That’s like how many calories they burn all the time, how many calories they burn at rest and maintain their results long term. And that’s really what this conversation is about.

[00:03:43] Emily Field: Losing mostly fat is objectively better than losing mostly muscle. Muscle tissue plays an important role in metabolism, blood sugar, regulation, strength, and overall physical function. Preserving that muscle while losing fat creates a much more favorable outcome. This matters, especially when we think about long-term results.

[00:04:05] Emily Field: No one starts a GLP one medication, excited to be on it for the rest of their life. And similarly, no one begins a fat loss journey hoping they’ll need to repeat the process again in a few years. And most people wanna lose weight once and then maintain those results. So if long-term maintenance is the goal, then the quality of the weight loss matters just as much as the quantity.

[00:04:28] Emily Field: This is where body composition becomes the more meaningful lens. Most listeners of this podcast aren’t just chasing a smaller number on the scale. They care about things like being strong in the gym and having consistent energy supporting their metabolism and aging well over time. And when those are the goals, the focus shifts.

[00:04:49] Emily Field: The goal is not simply smaller. The goal is becoming leaner, stronger, and metabolically healthier. Okay. To understand why muscle loss is part of this conversation, it helps to understand what GLP one medications actually do in the body. GLP one stands for glucagon-like Peptide one, which is a hormone your body naturally produces in response to food.

[00:05:11] Emily Field: It plays a role in regulating your appetite, digestion, and your blood sugar. The medications that are getting so much attention right now, like Glide or tirzepatide, are GLP one receptor agonists, meaning they mimic or amplify the actions of this hormone. These medications are working through several mechanism.

[00:05:31] Emily Field: They slow gastric emptying, which means that food leaves the stomach more slowly. They increase feelings of satiety, helping people feel full sooner. They suppress appetite, making it easier to eat less without feeling deprived, and they improve blood sugar regulation, which is one reason they were originally developed for diabetes treatment.

[00:05:51] Emily Field: And one of the things many people describe subjectively is that they reduce food noise, that constant mental chatter about food cravings and eating. Because of these combined effects, these medications are very effective for weight loss. Simply put, when appetite decreases in satiety increases, most people naturally consume fewer calories and weight loss follows.

[00:06:14] Emily Field: In the major clinical trials for Glide and Tirzepatide participants experienced average weight losses in the range of 15 to 22% of body weight, which is quite significant compared to traditional lifestyle interventions alone. But there’s an important nuance that often gets missed. GLP one. Medications change how much people eat.

[00:06:34] Emily Field: They do not automatically improve what people eat. In most of the large clinical trials, participants were allowed to eat ad lido, meaning they could eat freely according to their appetite. The studies were designed to measure weight loss, not to prescribe a specific nutrition strategy. So while appetite is lower, the medication itself doesn’t teach someone how to structure their meals, prioritize protein or fuel their training, and that’s where some of the more interesting patterns start to show up.

[00:07:03] Emily Field: Clinically and anecdotally, many people report experiences like skipping meals because they simply aren’t hungry. Grazing on small snack foods instead of eating full meals, relying heavily on convenience foods or protein bars, unintentionally consuming very little protein, eating very small portions throughout the day, or noticing that workouts suddenly feel harder because overall energy intake has dropped.

[00:07:28] Emily Field: None of these patterns mean someone is doing it wrong. They are simply a very normal consequence of appetite suppression, but this is also the point where muscle loss risk can begin to increase because when calorie intake drops significantly, especially if protein intake and resistance training are not intentionally maintained, the body may begin pulling from both fat stores and lean tissue during weight loss.

[00:07:54] Emily Field: And we’ve actually seen signals of this in the research in body composition analysis from GLP one trials using DEXA scans. Researchers have observed that roughly 25 to 40% of total weight loss can come from lean mass, depending on the study and the measurement method. Now it’s important to be precise here.

[00:08:14] Emily Field: This does not mean that the medication is directly causing muscle loss. Any significant weight loss, whether that happens through dieting medication, or bariatric surgery, typically includes some lean mass reduction. So for example, in bariatric surgery research, rapid weight loss after procedure like gastric bypass, has also been associated with substantial lean muscle mass losses, particularly when protein intake and resistance training are not prioritized.

[00:08:44] Emily Field: That’s why post-surgery nutrition guidelines strongly emphasize high protein intake and strength training as part of the recovery and long-term weight maintenance. The underlying physiology is very similar here. Whenever weight loss is rapid and calorie intake drops significantly, the body requires signals to determine which tissue to keep and which tissue to lose.

[00:09:08] Emily Field: And without those signals, primarily adequate protein and resistance training, the body may shed more muscle than we’d ideally like. This doesn’t mean that GLP one medications are a bad tool, but it does mean that nutrition strategy and training habits become especially important if the goal is to lose mostly fat while preserving muscle.

[00:09:29] Emily Field: Another important factor in this conversation is how quickly weight loss occurs. When researchers study weight loss across many different approaches like traditional dieting, lifestyle interventions, medical assisted weight loss, or even bariatric surgery, one pattern shows up consistently. The faster the weight is lost, the greater the proportion of lean mass that tends to be lost along with it.

[00:09:53] Emily Field: In other words, when weight loss happens very rapidly, the body is more likely to break down both fat and muscle for energy. When weight loss happens more gradually, the body tends to preserve more lean tissue and pull a larger percentage of that weight loss from fat stores instead. This is why many evidence-based guidelines for fat loss recommend a pace that is relatively moderate rather than aggressive.

[00:10:18] Emily Field: A very commonly suggested rate is about 0.5 to 1% of body weight lost per week. So to put that into perspective, someone who weighs 180 pounds might aim to lose roughly one to 1.8 pounds per week on average. That rate of progress tends to support a better balance between fat loss and muscle preservation, especially when combined with adequate protein intake and strength training.

[00:10:42] Emily Field: Now here’s where the GLP one medications add an interesting wrinkle to this conversation. Because these medications suppress appetite so effectively, some people unintentionally create a very large calorie deficit. They may simply not feel hungry enough to eat much at all. And when that happens, weight loss can accelerate beyond the typical recommended pace.

[00:11:03] Emily Field: And at first, that can feel incredibly exciting. Seeing the scale move down quickly can feel validating, especially for someone who has struggled with weight for a very long time. But when weight loss happens very rapidly, the importance of muscle preservation becomes even greater. This is because the body is operating in a much larger energy deficit, and without enough protein intake or resistance training, it becomes easier for the body to break down lean tissue along with fat tissue, and this leads to an important reframe.

[00:11:34] Emily Field: Sometimes slowing the rate of weight loss slightly can actually improve the quality of the results. A more moderate pace of fat loss can help preserve muscle mass support better training performance, maintain metabolic health, and ultimately make long-term weight maintenance a lot easier. Because again, the goal is not simply to lose weight as quickly as possible.

[00:11:58] Emily Field: The goal is to lose primarily fat while preserving the muscle that supports your strength, metabolism, and long-term health. Before we move on, I want to take a moment to directly speak to those of you listening who are not using a GLP one medication and may never plan to, because I know this current landscape can feel a little confusing and if I’m being honest, sometimes a little discouraging.

[00:12:20] Emily Field: You might be watching people around you lose weight super quickly. Maybe it’s a friend, a family member, or someone at your gym. Maybe you’re hearing things like, I’ve already lost 20 pounds, or the weight is just falling off. And if you’ve been working on your nutrition, showing up to your workouts, prioritizing protein, trying to be consistent, it can start to feel like you’re doing all of the right things, but moving much more slowly and it can feel like you’re behind.

[00:12:45] Emily Field: But that’s what I want you to really understand here. Slow weight loss is not a disadvantage, and in many cases it’s actually more favorable for body composition in long-term maintenance. When weight loss happens gradually, especially when it’s paired with strength training and adequate protein intake, the body is more likely to lose a greater proportion of fat while preserving more muscle, and that matters.

[00:13:09] Emily Field: Yeah, because muscle is what supports your metabolism, your strength, your energy, and your ability to maintain your results long term. Gradual weight loss also tends to come with higher energy levels, which means you can continue to train effectively, recover well, and stay consistent with your workouts.

[00:13:27] Emily Field: It often leads to better progress in the gym, whether that’s getting stronger, improving your technique, or simply feeling more capable in your body, and maybe most importantly, it’s. Slower weight loss allows you to build skills and habits along the way. You’re learning how to structure balanced meals, prioritize protein, navigate hunger and fullness.

[00:13:48] Emily Field: Stay consistent with training, manage your schedule, stress and recovery. Those are things that actually make results stick, because the truth is the hardest part of weight loss is not the losing of the weight. The hardest part is maintaining it later. And when weight loss happens slowly through lifestyle changes, you’re building the infrastructure that makes maintenance possible.

[00:14:10] Emily Field: So if your progress feels slower than the people around you, that doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. In many cases, it means that you’re doing something very right. You’re building a foundation that supports not just short-term results, but long-term strength, health, and sustainability.

[00:14:26] Emily Field: There’s another dynamic that I’m starting to see a little bit more often as GLP one medications become more common and it has less to do with physiology and more to do with human behavior. For many people, the primary reason they ever started to go to the gym in the first place was weight loss. The gym becomes a tool for burning calories, a place to sweat.

[00:14:47] Emily Field: A place to earn food, a place to try to make the scale move. And when weight loss finally starts happening through another mechanism like appetite suppression from a medication, something interesting can happen. The motivation to go to the gym can start to fade because if the scale is already moving, people start to wonder, do I really need to work out as much?

[00:15:09] Emily Field: Is the gym still necessary? The medication is working, so why push it? And that’s where a trap can form. Because physiologically speaking, weight loss happening without resistance training significantly increases the risk of muscle loss. Strength training sends a very important signal to the body during periods of weight loss.

[00:15:29] Emily Field: It tells the body this tissue is still needed. Muscle is metabolically expensive for the body to maintain. It requires energy and resources so when calorie intake drops significantly as it does during weight loss. The body is constantly making decisions about which tissue to keep and which tissue it can afford to lose.

[00:15:50] Emily Field: Strength training helps tip that decision. When you’re consistently challenging your muscles, the body receives a clear message that those muscles are still required for daily function and performance. And without that signal, especially when calories are low, the body becomes much more willing to break down muscle tissue along with fat tissue.

[00:16:10] Emily Field: But there’s another layer to this conversation that I think is equally important. If the only reason someone ever went to the gym was to lose weight, that relationship with exercise can become pretty fragile because the moment weight loss happens through another pathway, the motivation disappears. And in my opinion, that’s actually a really good opportunity to rethink what the gym means.

[00:16:32] Emily Field: The gym can be so many things beyond a calorie burning tool. For many people, it becomes a place to connect with friends, a social environment and community. A third space outside of work and home, an adult playground where you get to move your body and challenge yourself. A place where you can prove yourself wrong in a very positive way.

[00:16:53] Emily Field: A place where you build strength, confidence, and resilience. It can become a place where you discover what your body is capable of, not just what it weighs. And interestingly, this becomes very clear for some people. Once weight loss is no longer the primary driver. If someone starts a GLP one medication and finds themselves drifting away from the gym, it can be a powerful signal that their relationship with exercise was tied almost entirely to weight loss.

[00:17:20] Emily Field: And this is the moment where it’s worth building a new motivation. Not I need to burn calories, but I wanna get stronger. I want to feel capable. I wanna move well as I age. I want a place where I can challenge myself and feel proud of what my body can do. Because the gym when used well becomes less about chasing a smaller body and more about building a stronger one.

[00:17:43] Emily Field: And when weight loss is happening, whether through lifestyle changes or medication, that strength training becomes one of the most powerful tools we have to protect the muscle that supports our metabolism, movement, and long-term health. Another reason this conversation matters so much, especially for the audience of this podcast, is that muscle naturally changes as we age.

[00:18:05] Emily Field: There’s a process called sarcopenia, which refers to the gradual loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs over time. This process doesn’t suddenly appear later in life. It actually begins earlier than most people realize. Starting around age 30 to 40 adults begin to lose muscle mass slowly if they’re not actively doing something to maintain it.

[00:18:26] Emily Field: Research suggests that without intervention, adults roughly lose about three to 8% of their muscle mass per decade, and that rate of weight loss tends to accelerate after age 60, especially if someone is sedentary or not engaging in resistance training. Now muscle loss is often talked about in aesthetic terms.

[00:18:45] Emily Field: People might notice changes in muscle tone or definition or strength, but the consequences extend far beyond appearance. Muscle tissue plays a critical role in many aspects of long-term health. Muscle supports your metabolism because it is metabolically active tissue and contributes to overall energy expenditure.

[00:19:04] Emily Field: It plays a key role in blood sugar regulation, helping the body absorb and utilize glucose more effectively and supports insulin sensitivity. Muscle also supports bone density because resistance training stimulates the bones and helps maintain skeletal strength as we age. It contributes to mobility and fall prevention, allowing people to move confidently, react quickly, and maintain balance.

[00:19:27] Emily Field: And perhaps most importantly, it supports independence later in life. The ability to get up from the floor, climb stairs, carry groceries, and continue participating in everyday activities. There’s also a growing body of research showing that muscle strength is associated with longevity. In fact, studies have consistently found that people with higher levels of strength tend to have lower risk of mortality and better long-term health outcomes, even when other health factors are taken into account.

[00:19:55] Emily Field: All of this makes muscle preservation incredibly important as we move through midlife. For many midlife women this. Stage of life already includes hormonal shifts, changes to metabolism, and increased concern about bone density and long-term health. That means that the muscles someone has in their forties and fifties becomes a very important foundation for the decades that follow, which is why when weight loss centers the picture, whether through lifestyle changes or medications like GLP ones, protecting muscle becomes even more important.

[00:20:26] Emily Field: Again, the goal isn’t simply to become. Smaller. The goal is to maintain the strength, function and resilience that allows you to age well and stay capable for the long run. If the goal is not just weight loss, but high quality weight loss, meaning more fat loss and less muscle loss, then we have to approach it intentionally.

[00:20:47] Emily Field: The research points to three major strategies, fuel the body with enough protein, challenge the body with strength training, and make sure the pace of weight loss is something your body can actually support, because together those are the signals that tell your body to keep the muscle. So let’s get into those three strategies and adequate protein intake is the first one.

[00:21:09] Emily Field: During weight loss, protein needs actually increase, not decrease. This is because protein helps preserve lean muscle tissue when the body is operating in a calorie deficit. Most research on fat loss and muscle preservation suggests a target somewhere around 1.6 to 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

[00:21:28] Emily Field: And for the, those of us who work in pounds, that’s about 0.7 0.8 to 1.1 grams per pound of body weight. And typically this works out to be about 25 to 30% of your total calories per day coming from protein. Just as important as total daily intake is how protein is distributed across the day. Rather than eating most of your protein in one meal, spreading it out tends to support muscle protein synthesis a lot more effectively.

[00:21:58] Emily Field: So a good rule of thumb is aiming for about 25 to 40 grams of protein per meal. Now for someone using a GLP one medication, this becomes especially important because appetite may be lower and meals may be smaller, and in most of those cases, focusing on low volume, high protein foods can make it easier to reach those targets without feeling overly full.

[00:22:20] Emily Field: Here are some examples of what 25 to 40 grams of protein might look like in some real meals. One scoop of whey protein isolate in a shake. One scoop of whey protein isolate, and one cup of milk, one cup of Greek yogurt, 2% or non-fat. That’s gonna provide 20 grams of protein, maybe Greek yogurt, and a scoop of collagen or protein powder mixed in.

[00:22:42] Emily Field: That’s gonna boost up to 35 grams of protein, one cup of cottage cheese, five ounces of chicken breasts, five ounces of salmon, four to five ounces of lean ground beef. One can of tuna, three eggs, plus three fourths of a cup of egg whites. For someone with lower appetite, meals might look like Greek yogurt plus protein powder, whey protein shake with a small piece of fruit, cottage cheese and smoked salmon, a small chicken breast with roasted vegetables, eggs, and egg whites with avocado.

[00:23:14] Emily Field: The goal is not necessarily large meals here, but efficient protein intake. And when appetite is suppressed, protein often becomes the first nutrient people unintentionally undereat, which is exactly the opposite of what helps protect muscle during weight loss. Now the second major piece of preserving muscle mass is strength training.

[00:23:34] Emily Field: Specifically strength training that incorporates progressive overload. Progressive overload simply means gradually increasing the demands placed on the muscles over time, and this can happen in several ways. This can happen through increasing the weight that you lift. Performing more reps, adding more sets, improving range of motion, improving control, tempo or technique.

[00:23:56] Emily Field: And these small increases tell the body that the muscle is still needed and without that signal, especially when calories are lower, the body becomes much more willing to break down muscle tissue. When people think about exercise for weight loss, they often default to cardio. And cardio can absolutely be beneficial for cardiovascular health, but when the goal is building or preserving muscle resistance training is far more effective.

[00:24:22] Emily Field: Some of the most effective strength training exercises for building and maintaining muscle are compound movements that work multiple muscle groups at once. So here are some examples. Lower body compound movements or compound lifts might include squats like back squat, front squat, goblet squat, dead lifts, either conventional Romanian or trap bar lunges, or split squats, hip thrust, or glute bridges.

[00:24:49] Emily Field: Some of our upper body compound lifts include bench press or dumbbell brunch press. Overhead press pull-ups or lap pull downs, rows either with barbell, dumbbell, or cables. These exercises recruit large muscle groups and provide the kind of stimulus that encourages muscle preservation and growth. For many people.

[00:25:10] Emily Field: Two to four strength training sessions per week built around these movements can make a meaningful difference. And here’s an important point. During weight loss, even maintaining your strength levels can be a positive sign that you’re preserving muscle. So again, the combination of adequate protein intake and progressive strength training gives the body two powerful signals, fuel the muscle and keep the muscle.

[00:25:36] Emily Field: Now one question people often have when they start prioritizing strength training is, how do I know if I’m actually making progress? And this is where it helps to expand what we mean by progress, because it doesn’t always look dramatic In social media, fitness, culture, progress is often portrayed as huge jumps in weight lifted or dramatic physical transformations.

[00:25:59] Emily Field: But in reality, strength, progress, especially during a period of fat loss, often shows up in small. Steady improvements over time. One clear sign of progress is lifting heavier weights than you were previously able to handle. If the dumbbells that once felt challenging, now feel manageable. Or if you’re gradually adding five or 10 pounds to a lift over time, that’s a meaningful indicator that your muscles are adapting.

[00:26:24] Emily Field: Another sign of progress is completing more repetitions with the same amount of weight. Maybe you started out doing six reps of a particular exercise and now you can comfortably complete eight or 10. That’s still progressive overload, even if the weight itself hasn’t changed. Progress can also show up in improved movement quality.

[00:26:42] Emily Field: So early on, an exercise might feel awkward or unstable, and over time your form becomes smoother, more controlled and more confident. Better control and better range of motion are real improvements that indicate your body is getting stronger and more coordinated. You might also notice faster recovery between workouts.

[00:27:00] Emily Field: Movements that once left you extremely sore, may now feel easier to bounce back from. Your muscles adapt. Your nervous system becomes more efficient, and you’re able to train more consistently. And sometimes the most meaningful signs of progress show up outside of the gym. You might find that everyday tasks feel easier, like carrying groceries, lifting something overhead, climbing stairs, getting up from the floor, or simply feeling more capable in your body.

[00:27:26] Emily Field: And that sense of physical competence is a powerful indicator that strength is improving. It’s also important to understand that if you are in a calorie deficit, your expectations around progress should shift slightly. When the body has less energy available, it can be harder to dramatically increase strength.

[00:27:44] Emily Field: So during periods of fat loss, one very positive outcome is simply maintaining your strength levels. If you’re losing weight but still lifting similar weights in the gym, that’s often a strong signal that you are preserving muscle, and that’s exactly what we want. Because the goal during fat loss isn’t just to see the scale move.

[00:28:02] Emily Field: The goal is to maintain the strength and muscle that support your metabolism, your performance, and your long-term health. And that brings me to one more piece of this conversation I think is really important and honestly not talked about enough. If someone is using a GLP one medication, the goal is not to just make appetite disappear as much as possible.

[00:28:22] Emily Field: The goal is not to eat the absolute bare minimum. The goal is not to race to the lowest number on the scale in the shortest amount of time. The goal is to create a rate of weight loss that is effective, but still supportive of muscle retention, adequate nutrition training performance, and day-to-day function.

[00:28:40] Emily Field: Because if we just want this whole episode talking about why muscle matters, why training matters, and why preserving strength matters, then we also have to acknowledge this. If the medication is working in a way that makes it extremely difficult to eat, recover, or function well, that deserves attention.

[00:28:59] Emily Field: I had say the third strategy that we need to talk about today is the appropriate dose, progression, and open communication with your prescriber. These medications are designed to be increased gradually over time, in part to improve tolerance and reduce side effects. But just because a higher dosage exists does not automatically mean it’s the best fit for every person at every stage of this process.

[00:29:22] Emily Field: And I think this is where people sometimes get tripped up. There can be this assumption that if an appetite is lower, that it must be better. If weight loss is faster, that it must be better. If food sounds completely unappealing, that must mean the medication is really working. But from a nutrition and body composition perspective, that is not always a win.

[00:29:42] Emily Field: If someone notices that their appetite is drastically reduced, weight is dropping very quickly. They’re struggling to eat enough protein, feeling weak in the gym, skipping meals unintentionally noticing more fatigue than expected, or seeing things like excessive hair shedding. Those can all be signs that the current plan deserves a conversation with their doctor.

[00:30:04] Emily Field: Because what you’re looking for is not just evidence that the drug is having an effect. You’re looking for a version of that effect that is still compatible with nourishing your body. Well, you should still be able to eat enough protein to support muscle. You should still be able to participate in strength training in a meaningful way.

[00:30:22] Emily Field: You should still feel like you can function in your daily life without feeling completely drained, depleted, or disconnected from your body. And if those things are no longer true, that doesn’t necessarily mean the medication is bad, and it definitely doesn’t mean that someone has failed. It simply means that more is not always better.

[00:30:41] Emily Field: In some cases, slowing the pace of dosage escalation or having a conversation about whether the current dose is appropriate, may better support the bigger goal, and the bigger goal, again, is not just rapid weight loss. It’s losing mostly fat, preserving muscle, maintaining training, and setting yourself up for results that are easier to keep long term because no one starts this process hoping to lose weight in a way that leaves them feeling weaker, under fueled, and harder pressed to maintain the results later.

[00:31:12] Emily Field: The longer term goal is a body that is leaner, stronger, more functional, and easier to maintain. So I think one helpful way to think about this is if the drug is working so aggressively that you can’t nourish yourself, can’t train well, and don’t feel like yourself, that’s not automatically a win. That’s a conversation to be had, and I really want listeners to hear that clearly.

[00:31:36] Emily Field: You do not have to interpret every sign of stronger appetite suppression as a positive. You are allowed to care not just about whether the scale is moving, but about how well your body is functioning while it moves, because the best outcome is not just weight loss. The best outcome is weight loss. That still allows you to feel strong, fueled, capable, and well enough to maintain what you’ve built.

[00:32:01] Emily Field: As we zoom out and look at this whole conversation, I think there’s an important reframe that’s worth making. GLP one medications can absolutely be useful tools for many people, they reduce food noise, improve blood sugar regulation, make it easier to maintain a calorie deficit that previously felt very difficult.

[00:32:20] Emily Field: For someone who has struggled with appetite regulation for years, that shift can feel incredibly freeing. But it’s important to remember that the real goal of this process is not simply appetite suppression. The goal isn’t just to eat less. The real goal is a much bigger set of outcomes. We’re aiming for fat loss, not just weight loss.

[00:32:39] Emily Field: We’re aiming for muscle retention because muscle supports strength, metabolism, and long-term function. We’re aiming for metabolic health, including stable blood sugar, and a resilient metabolism. And we’re aiming for sustainable habits that allow someone to maintain their results over time. Medication can absolutely change appetite, but the quality of the weight loss, how much fat is lost versus how much muscle is preserved, is still largely determined by lifestyle factors.

[00:33:08] Emily Field: Things like adequate protein intake, resistance trading with progressive overload, structured balanced meals, and a pace of weight loss that allows the body to maintain lean tissue. Those are the variables that shape the outcome. A medication can make it easier to eat less, but it doesn’t replace the physiological signals that come from fueling your body well and challenging your muscles consistently.

[00:33:32] Emily Field: And when those pieces are in place, the result isn’t just a smaller body. The result is a body that is stronger, more metabolically resilient and better prepared for long-term health. And this is exactly why I’m hosting a free training in April on this topic, because this conversation is much bigger than what we can cover in a single podcast episode.

[00:33:53] Emily Field: Right now, most conversations about GLP one medications are happening inside medical offices. They focus on dosing prescriptions and the medical management of the drug itself. But almost no one is talking about the day-to-day realities of living well while using these medications, things like how do you structure meals when your appetite is low, how do you make sure you’re getting enough protein?

[00:34:15] Emily Field: When food volume drops, how do you keep your workouts productive when energy intake changes? And how do you build habits that will support you long-term, especially if the medication changes or eventually stops. Those are the conversations we’re gonna be diving into in this training, and the reason I’m excited about this is because I designed this training for three specific groups of people that I see in my work all the time.

[00:34:39] Emily Field: The first group is people who are considering a GLP one medication. You may be trying to decide whether this is the right next step for you. You wanna make an informed decision and understand how these medications actually work, not just medically, but practically. What does life look like on them and what should you be thinking about before you start?

[00:34:59] Emily Field: The second group is people who are already on GLP one medication. Maybe anywhere between a few weeks to a few months in appetite is lower. The scale might be moving, but you’re starting to notice some questions pop up. Things like low energy, difficulty finishing meals, or wondering if your workouts feel different.

[00:35:19] Emily Field: And the third group is people who are thinking ahead and saying, I don’t wanna rely on this forever. You wanna make sure that the weight you lose is something you can maintain, and you wanna build the habits that will support your metabolism and your body long after the medication changes. In the training, we’re gonna walk through a framework for approaching weight loss in a way that protects your muscle, supports your metabolism, and sets you up for long-term success.

[00:35:42] Emily Field: We’ll talk about how to structure meals when appetite is low, how to prioritize protein without feeling overly full. How to protect muscle during weight loss, how to support training performance while in a deficit, and how to build habits that make your results sustainable over time. Because ultimately, the goal isn’t just to lose weight.

[00:36:03] Emily Field: The goal is to build a body that is leaner, stronger, and more resilient for the long term. So if you’re considering a GLP one already using one, or simply trying to understand how these medications fit into long-term metabolic health, this training will give you a much clearer framework for how to navigate that decision and how to support your body along the way.

[00:36:24] Emily Field: I’ll include the link to register in the show notes so you can grab a spot and continue this conversation with me over there. So to bring this all together, GLP one Medications are changing the weight loss conversation in a really powerful way. But no matter how weight loss happens, the same principles still apply.

[00:36:41] Emily Field: The goal isn’t just to lose weight. The goal is to lose mostly fat, preserve your muscle, and build a body that is strong, functional, and sustainable long term. Because at the end of the day, it’s not just about how quickly the weight comes off, it’s about what you’re left with when it does. So whether you’re using a GLP one medication, considering one, or choosing a different path entirely, the focus stays the same.

[00:37:05] Emily Field: Fuel your body, train your body and support your body in a way that helps you keep the results that you worked so hard for. And that’s the version of progress that actually lasts.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to the Macros Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Emily Field, registered dietician, certified personal trainer, and someone who spent years helping women navigate food, fitness, and behavior change in a way that actually works in real life. Today we’re diving into a topic that I know is sitting quietly in the back of a lot of people’s minds.

[00:00:19] Emily Field: Does macro tracking cause disordered eating is tracking macros, just diet culture in disguise. Does tracking automatically make you obsessed? If you’ve ever had one of those thoughts or if someone has said it to you, this episode is for you. And my short answer is no. But the longer answer, it depends on how you use it, why you’re using it, and who is guiding you.

[00:00:45] Emily Field: And that’s exactly what we’re gonna unpack today because this is a valid concern. I don’t wanna brush it off. The internet loves extremes. Macros are either the holy grail or they’re toxic. There’s very little middle ground in the online conversations, and yes, some people absolutely misuse macro tracking.

[00:01:04] Emily Field: Some people turn it into another rigid, restrictive diet, but that doesn’t mean that the tool itself is inherently harmful. So in this episode, we’re gonna have a very nuanced conversation, not defensive, not dismissive, no gaslighting, just honest. We’re gonna talk about what disordered eating actually means and how it’s different from structured eating.

[00:01:26] Emily Field: When macro tracking may not be appropriate, why so many midlife women are hesitant to try macros after years of dieting? How macro tracking when done correctly can actually reduce food obsession and increase flexibility. And the red flags that tell you when structure is turning into rigidity. So if you’re macro curious but cautious or if you’ve tracked before and felt yourself getting too attached to the numbers.

[00:01:53] Emily Field: Or if you’re just trying to figure out how to support your body without sliding back into old patterns, this conversation is for you. So let’s get into it. Before we go any further into the conversation, I wanna slow down and define a few terms. A lot of the noise online about macro tracking comes from people arguing about different things without realizing it.

[00:02:14] Emily Field: So before we decide whether macros are helpful or harmful, we need to make sure we’re actually talking about the same definitions. Okay. At its core macro tracking simply means tracking your intake of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, so that your intake aligns with a specific goal. That goal might be changing body composition, improving athletic performance, supporting recovery, maintaining your weight, or stabilizing your energy and appetite.

[00:02:42] Emily Field: Macro tracking is not inherently a weight loss tool, and it’s not a detox, a cleanse, elimination plan, or moral code. It is a method of aligning intake with physiology. It gives you information about how much fuel your body is receiving and whether that fuels supports the outcome that you’re working. If you’re brand new to macros and listening to this and thinking, okay, but I still don’t understand what macros are, please know that you’re not behind.

[00:03:10] Emily Field: This is episode 69 of the podcast and some of the earlier episodes in the Macros Made Easy Feed are true beginner friendly introductions. In those episodes, I break down what proteins, fats, and carbs actually do in the body, how to think about setting targets, how to build balanced meals, and how to start tracking without feeling overwhelmed.

[00:03:30] Emily Field: Today’s conversation is less about the mechanics and more about the mindset and nuance. So if you need the fundamentals, scroll back and give those earlier episodes of, listen after this one. Now let’s define what people usually mean when they say food obsession. When someone says tracking made them obsessive, they’re typically describing constant mental chatter about food.

[00:03:53] Emily Field: They’re describing rigid thinking, where foods are labeled good or bad. Anxiety, when plans change, panic when exact nutrition information isn’t available, and a sense that food choices carry moral weight. In that state, eating a certain way feels virtuous and deviating feels like failure. Food starts occupying far more mental space than it deserves.

[00:04:17] Emily Field: That’s not simply awareness or structure. That’s a relationship dynamic. When we talk about disordered eating, again without diagnosing anyone, we’re generally referring to patterns like chronic restriction, compensatory behaviors like exercising to make up for eating extreme, all or nothing cycles, fear-based food avoidance, and a loss of flexibility around meals and social situations.

[00:04:43] Emily Field: Disordered eating is not defined by whether someone tracks their food. It’s defined by rigidity, fear and loss of internal regulation. And this is where an important distinction matters. Tracking is a behavior. Obsession is a relationship. Tracking is something that you do. Obsession describes how you think and feel.

[00:05:05] Emily Field: A food scale does not create obsession. A tracking app does not create obsession. What creates obsession is often a rigid mindset that has been shaped by years, sometimes decades of dieting, shame, and moralizing food. It. That distinction is critical because if someone already has a fear-based or perfectionistic relationship with food, they can turn almost any framework into another rule system.

[00:05:32] Emily Field: But that doesn’t mean structure itself is harmful. In fact, for many people, structure reduces chaos. It reduces anxiety. It quiets the mental noise. The key question isn’t, are you tracking? The key question is how are you relating to the process? So as we move through the rest of the episode, I want you to keep that distinction in mind.

[00:05:52] Emily Field: Macro tracking is a tool, obsession is a pattern, and those two are not automatically the same thing. I’m gonna introduce another important layer of nuance here. I have never claimed that macro tracking is appropriate for everyone. Do I believe the physiology behind it works? Yes. Macronutrients are how the body processes fuel.

[00:06:14] Emily Field: That is not an opinion, that’s biology. Aligning protein, fat, and carbohydrates with your needs will influence body composition, performance and recovery. That part is science, but just because something works physiologically does not mean it’s appropriate for every person at every time. And this is where maturity and coaching matters.

[00:06:37] Emily Field: Macro tracking may not be appropriate if someone is actively in eating disorder treatment. It may not be appropriate if someone is in early recovery from anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. It may not be appropriate if someone cannot approach structure without spiraling into control behaviors or if they’re using numbers as a way to restrict below healthy levels.

[00:06:58] Emily Field: If the numbers become a vehicle for shrinking, punishing, or overriding internal cues, that’s not the time to introduce more structure. This isn’t gatekeeping. It’s not me saying you are not disciplined enough. It’s responsible coaching. Macro tracking is a tool, but tools require emotional readiness. You wouldn’t hand someone heavy barbell programming on day one if they were rehabbing an injury.

[00:07:25] Emily Field: Not because lifting is bad, but because timing matters. The same is true here. If someone is still rebuilding trust with their body, rebuilding hunger cues, or healing from years of restriction, adding detailed tracking may not be the first right step. And I screen for this in coaching. I do not push macros on everyone who walks through the door.

[00:07:48] Emily Field: If someone’s history or current behaviors or emotional relationship with food suggests that tracking would do more harm than good, we pivot. And there are a lot of other ways that we can build stability. There are other ways to build strength. There are other ways to restore metabolism and confidence because the goal is not to get someone to track their macros.

[00:08:08] Emily Field: The goal is to help them build a healthy, sustainable relationship with food in their body. Sometimes macros are the right vehicle for that. Sometimes they’re not. And knowing the difference is part of having an ethical practice. So if you’re listening to this and thinking, I’m not sure I’m ready for that, that doesn’t mean you’re failing.

[00:08:28] Emily Field: It just means that your next step looks different, and that’s okay. Structure can be powerful, but only when it’s applied at the right time for the right reasons, and with the right support. When someone says, isn’t macro tracking, just diet culture in disguise. What they’re really asking is whether this is just another version of restriction dressed up in new language, and I understand why this question comes up, especially for midlife women who have decades of dieting experience behind them.

[00:08:58] Emily Field: The first major difference is that macro tracking is not elimination based. Most past plans you’ve tried likely removed entire food groups. Maybe it was carbs, maybe it was sugar, maybe it was dairy or gluten. Maybe it was eating before a certain time of day. Many traditional diet approaches create off limit foods and rely heavily on willpower.

[00:09:20] Emily Field: They operate from the assumption that the problem is lack of discipline, and the solution is just tighter control. Macros are fundamentally different. They include everything. There are no mandatory eliminations. There are no inherently bad foods. Instead of asking, what do I have to cut out, the question becomes, how do I build meals that meet my body’s needs?

[00:09:42] Emily Field: Okay. That shift is important, macro tracking, prioritizes adequacy, especially adequate protein and overall balance in your meals. It is about fueling for your physiology, not shrinking yourself at all costs. When done properly, it focuses on giving your body enough rather than taking more away. The second key difference is that macro tracking can be maintenance first.

[00:10:07] Emily Field: This is especially important for midlife women. Not every starting point needs to be, let’s drop 20 pounds. In fact, for many women in perimenopause and menopause, aggressive dieting truly backfires. Sometimes the first goal is stabilizing your energy. Sometimes it’s protecting muscle mass. Sometimes it’s improving recovery from workouts, supporting sleep, or normalizing appetite after years of undereating.

[00:10:32] Emily Field: Those are legitimate, powerful goals. And that is very different from the classic eat less, move, more messaging. Maintenance first is about creating stability before chasing change. It acknowledges that a well fueled, well-regulated body responds better than a chronically stressed one, and that mindset alone separates macro tracking when used appropriately from traditional diet culture.

[00:10:58] Emily Field: The third difference is that macro tracking is skill-based, not compliance based. Most diets reward compliance. You follow the rules, you stay inside the lines. You execute the meal plan perfectly. Success is measured by how closely you adhered. Macros, when taught correctly, rewards competence. You’re not memorizing a rule book.

[00:11:21] Emily Field: You are learning a skill. You are learning how protein, fats and carbohydrates interact in your meals. You’re learning portion awareness. You’re learning how to adjust based on feedback from your body and your goals. It’s less like following instructions and more like learning a language. At first, you translate slowly, you look things up, you make mistakes, but over time you become fluent and fluency requires practice, not perfection.

[00:11:48] Emily Field: That distinction matters because compliance keeps you dependent on the program. Competence makes you independent when macro tracking is framed as a skill to build rather than a rule system to obey the entire experience changes. I wanna pause here and speak directly to my midlife women because I know this is where a lot of hesitation lives.

[00:12:11] Emily Field: For many of you, it’s not that you’re afraid. Macro tracking will make you obsessive. It’s that you’re afraid of trying something else and feeling like you failed again. You’ve done programs before, maybe several, maybe dozens. You’ve had seasons of being on plan. You’ve had seasons of white knuckling, elimination diets.

[00:12:29] Emily Field: You’ve had seasons of cutting carbs, cutting calories, cutting joy, and every time something stopped working or you couldn’t sustain it, it just felt personal. So when you hear about macros, even if it sounds reasonable, there’s this quiet voice that says, what if? This is just another thing I won’t stick to, and I wanna reframe that.

[00:12:49] Emily Field: If you’ve tried other programs before, that’s not failure, that’s data. You learn something every single time. Maybe you learn that you don’t do well with elimination. Maybe you learn that when you restrict, you eventually binge. Maybe you notice that when stress goes up, you undereat, and then crash Later.

[00:13:10] Emily Field: Maybe you learn that you actually prefer some structure, but you hate rigid meal plans. Maybe you realize you need flexibility built in, or it’s not sustainable. That’s not wasted effort, that’s insight, and you can bring that forward. Macros are not a reset button where you pretend that the last 20 years didn’t happen.

[00:13:29] Emily Field: They’re an upgrade in understanding. They allow you to take everything yet you’ve learned about yourself and apply it to a system that prioritizes adequacy, balance, and physiology instead of punishment. Now, I’m gonna say something that I need you to repeat over and over again. There is something humbling about being a beginner.

[00:13:49] Emily Field: Again, midlife women are often leaders. You run households, you manage careers, you coordinate schedules, you take care of other people. You are so used to being competent. Starting something new with food can feel vulnerable because food has history, it has emotion, it has identity wrapped up in it, and admitting I don’t actually know how to fuel my body for this phase of life can feel really uncomfortable.

[00:14:15] Emily Field: But you don’t have to be perfect at tracking. You just have to be curious. Tracking macros well is learned. It’s not innate and it’s not personality based. It’s not reserved for disciplined people. It’s a skill that improves with practice. The women who succeed with it are not special. They are simply willing to learn and adjust.

[00:14:36] Emily Field: They are willing to be beginners, and this matters more in midlife than it did in your twenties because physiology changes declining. Estrogen means muscle protection becomes more and important, not less. Undereating backfires more dramatically. Recovery takes longer. Stress tolerance shifts. Aggressive dieting that might have worked at 27 often leads to worse outcomes at 47.

[00:15:02] Emily Field: So instead of asking, can I diet harder, the better question becomes, can I fuel smarter? That’s a completely different energy. Fueling smarter is about preserving muscle, stabilizing blood sugar, supporting hormones, and creating consistency, not chasing the fastest possible drop on the scale. If you’re hesitant because you’ve tried things before, that makes sense.

[00:15:25] Emily Field: Of course you’re cautious. But this doesn’t have to be another cycle of shame. It doesn’t have to be another swing between over control and giving up. It can be the first time you actually understand what your body needs in this season of life, when you approach it from that place, not from desperation, but from curiosity and competence.

[00:15:46] Emily Field: Everything just feels different. Okay. Now let’s talk about how macro tracking, when done correctly, can actually support food freedom rather than take it away. As I think about who’s listening to this episode, I see two very distinct groups of women. The first group is saying, I’ve tracked macros before, and it made me obsessive.

[00:16:08] Emily Field: If that’s you, I want you to lean in, not tune out. In most cases, when someone tells me macro tracking made them obsessive, we start unpacking the details and almost always, the numbers were too aggressive. Calories were set, too low. Protein was pushed so high, that meals became mechanical instead of satisfying.

[00:16:28] Emily Field: There was no education around flexibility. No conversation about ranges instead of exact targets. No discussion about how to pivot when eating out. No plan for transitioning away from tracking. Once stability was built and often no real support, what you were handed was a diet disguised as macros. It was treated like a compliance checklist instead of a skill to build.

[00:16:54] Emily Field: If your calories were too low, of course you were thinking about food constantly. That’s biology. If you were told that you had to hit exact gram numbers with no wiggle room, of course you felt pressure. If there was no framework for how to eat in real life situations, of course it became rigid. Macros didn’t cause the obsession.

[00:17:14] Emily Field: Rigid implementation did though Undereating did perfectionism, did a lack of education, did a lack of support, did. That distinction is important because it changes the story from, I can’t handle structure to the structure wasn’t applied correctly. Right now, the second group listening is saying something different.

[00:17:36] Emily Field: You’re thinking, I’m curious about macros, but I’m afraid it will mess me up. You’ve been burned before. You’ve done whole 30. You’ve done keto, you’ve done intermittent fasting. You’ve labeled foods clean and off limits. You’ve had seasons where you cut out entire food groups and felt virtuous for sticking to it until you couldn’t anymore.

[00:17:56] Emily Field: You don’t wanna go back to obsessing about food. You don’t wanna swing from control to chaos again, and that makes sense, but I want you to consider that if you felt obsessed before, it probably wasn’t because you were tracking macros. It was because you were restricting, eliminating or moralizing food.

[00:18:15] Emily Field: When entire food groups are labeled, bad obsession increases when eating windows are restricted. Fixation increases. When hunger is ignored, mental chatter increases. That’s not a character flaw. That is physiological and psychological responses to restriction. Macro tracking when done properly does not require elimination.

[00:18:40] Emily Field: It does not require moral labeling. It does not require earning food. It is not built on shrinking at all costs. The problem was likely not structure itself, it was the type of structure. So whether you are somebody who tried macros before and felt burned, or someone who’s been hesitant to try because you’re afraid of repeating old patterns, this conversation isn’t about convincing you to jump in blindly.

[00:19:05] Emily Field: It’s about helping you understand the difference between a restrictive framework and an educational one, because those are not the same thing. Now let’s talk about the part that surprises people the most. How macro tracking when done correctly can actually improve food freedom. I know that sounds backwards to some of you.

[00:19:24] Emily Field: You hear tracking and you think restriction. But let’s unpack why the opposite is often true. First, macro tracking removes food rules. Think about most of the plans you’ve tried before. Keto eliminated carbs, whole 30 removed sugar, grains and dairy. Intermittent fasted created eating windows and told you not to eat before a certain time.

[00:19:47] Emily Field: Almost every popular diet is built around elimination. There’s always a don’t. Don’t eat this, don’t eat that. Avoid this, cut that out. Macros are fundamentally different. Macros say, eat whatever you want. Just align it with your needs. There’s no yes or no list. There’s no moral hierarchy. There’s no clean or off plan.

[00:20:09] Emily Field: Instead of asking, is this allowed, you’re asking, how does this fit? I had a client, I’ll call her client A, who spent years fearing bread. Bread was the gateway. Food bread meant that she had lost control. Bread meant that she was off track. Once she learned how to build balanced meals around adequate protein and fat, she realized she could include bread daily without spiraling.

[00:20:34] Emily Field: It wasn’t bread that was the issue. It was the lack of balance around it. Once her intake was normalized, the anxiety dropped. The food lost its power. That’s not restriction. That’s liberation through understanding. The second way macro tracking improves food freedom is that it stops the undereating and overeating cycle.

[00:20:55] Emily Field: And I see this constantly. A woman tells me that she eats clean all week. Salads, protein shakes, very little carbohydrates, low overall calories. Then the weekend hits or a social event, and she feels like she loses control. She assumes she lacks willpower. She assumes she’s addicted to sugar. She assumes something is wrong with her.

[00:21:17] Emily Field: But when we actually look at her intake, the reality is different. Protein is far too low. Calories are too low. Carbohydrates are inconsistent. Her body is under fueled. Of course, cravings are gonna spike. Of course, mental chatter increases. Of course, she thinks about food all the time. She’s biologically primed to when macros are set appropriately and intake becomes consistent, something interesting happens.

[00:21:42] Emily Field: Cravings, stabilize energy levels out. The urge to swing from perfect to off the rails decreases, and with that obsession decreases too. It turns out that what looked like a discipline problem was often a fueling problem. The third way macro tracking improves food freedom is that it teaches customization instead of copy paste dieting.

[00:22:06] Emily Field: And this is where most women have been burned in the past. A lot of macro tracking on the internet isn’t actually macro coaching. It’s people swapping numbers like trading cards. Someone posts, here are my macros, and you think, well, we’re the same height. Maybe that’s what I should do. Or you default to 1200 calories because that’s what you’ve always heard works.

[00:22:25] Emily Field: Or you follow a meal plan that looks healthy, but doesn’t match your appetite, your training, your stress load, or your actual life, and that’s where the obsession often begins when the numbers are completely disconnected from your physiology. Because when targets are wrong, your body reacts. If calories are too low, you’ll think about food constantly.

[00:22:45] Emily Field: You’ll feel preoccupied, distracted, or more reactive around eating. That’s not a lack of discipline. That’s your body doing its job. On the other hand, if the numbers are too high without any structure or strategy, it can feel really chaotic like you’re guessing and hoping it works. This is why a custom macro calculation matters and why I’m so picky about how people start.

[00:23:08] Emily Field: When you get a CMC, you’re not just getting personalization. You’re getting personalization and justification. You’re getting targets that are built around your body, your training, your goal, your history, and your current season of life. And you’re also getting the reasoning behind them. You’re not left thinking, wait, why is my protein this high?

[00:23:28] Emily Field: Or Are you sure this isn’t too much food or. What can I expect for outcomes? Are we on the same page? You actually understand the logic, which means you’re far less likely to second guess over correct or treat the numbers like a rigid test that you’re trying to pass. That justification piece is a big deal because confidence comes from context.

[00:23:50] Emily Field: When you know why your macros are set, where they are, it’s easier to follow them. With a calmer nervous system, it’s easier to stay consistent. It’s easier to trust the process and the mental chatter goes down, not because you’re controlling food harder, but because you’re finally working with numbers that make sense to you.

[00:24:08] Emily Field: Personalization is not about tightening control. It’s about aligning intake with reality and giving you a plan that you can actually trust. And finally, macro tracking builds flexibility. When taught correctly, it teaches you how to estimate instead of panic when you don’t have exact data, it teaches you portion awareness, so you aren’t dependent on a food skill forever.

[00:24:30] Emily Field: It teaches you how to balance meals so you’re not scrambling at 9:00 PM playing macro Tetris. It teaches you how to pivot when eating out instead of opting out entirely. And here’s the part that people miss. You are not meant to track forever. Tracking is phase based, not permanent. Inside of macros made easy.

[00:24:51] Emily Field: I literally teach how to transition toward intuitive eating. I teach when to adjust macros, when to increase calories, when to decrease calories, and when to stop tracking altogether. The goal is not lifelong dependency on an app. The goal is competence and autonomy. You graduate, you build fluency. You move from conscious tracking to confident eating.

[00:25:15] Emily Field: When macro tracking is framed as a forever rule system, it becomes rigid. When it’s framed as a temporary educational tool, it becomes empowering, and that is the difference. Now let’s talk about the other side of the conversation, because if I only talked about the benefits of macro tracking and never addressed, when it starts to slide into obsession, that wouldn’t be honest and it wouldn’t serve you.

[00:25:39] Emily Field: There are times when macro tracking can turn rigid. There are red flags, and naming them actually build safety around the process. So here are some signs that tracking is shifting from structure into obsession. If you panic because you are five grams off from your target. If you treat your macros like a ceiling, like a top floor for intake and feel rewarded when you come in under target, like if feeling 100% feels bad, but coming in lower feels like winning.

[00:26:11] Emily Field: If you intentionally undereat to bank calories or to feel disciplined. If you throw in the towel completely when you don’t hit your macros perfectly, the all or nothing swing from I was on point to. I blew it. So forget it. If you refuse social events because you can’t control the food if you feel morally superior when you hit your numbers and ashamed when you don’t.

[00:26:36] Emily Field: If you compensate with extra cardio because dinner was bigger than planned. Those are all red flags. But here’s the critical distinction. Those are not macro problems. Those are mindset and control problems. Macros didn’t create that pattern, they just revealed it. If someone treats macros like a top floor, like it’s their job to stay under it at all costs.

[00:26:59] Emily Field: That’s dieting energy sneaking back in. The entire point of properly setting macros is to eat up to your needs, not to chronically undershoot them. If you feel proud when you eat less than prescribed, that’s not discipline, that’s restriction, dressed up as achievement. If five grams off sends you into anxiety, that’s perfectionism.

[00:27:19] Emily Field: Talking physiology does not operate on a five gram cliff. Your body does not switch from progress to failure because you hit 148 grams of carbs instead of 150. If missing your target once leads you to abandon the day entirely. That’s an all or nothing pattern that existed way before macros ever entered the picture.

[00:27:41] Emily Field: Those patterns need to be addressed directly. They cannot be hidden behind. Tracking works for everyone because tracking does not override unresolved control issues. It simply gives them structure. That’s why coaching matters. That’s why education matters. That’s why ranges matter instead of rigid numbers.

[00:28:01] Emily Field: That’s why learning how to pivot is part of building the skill. If you notice any of these red flags in yourself, it doesn’t mean that you’re broken. It means something deeper, needs your attention, your relationship with control, your history with restriction, maybe even your definition of success. Macros are a neutral framework.

[00:28:21] Emily Field: They can be used to fuel and stabilize, or they can be used to restrict and control. The difference is not the spreadsheet or the actual numbers. It’s the mindset that you bring to it, and that’s exactly why this conversation has to be nuanced. Now let’s talk about the role of coaching and support, because this is where a lot of people get into trouble.

[00:28:41] Emily Field: Macro tracking by itself is just data entry, and data without interpretation can quickly become anxiety. Tracking can feel obsessive when you don’t understand your energy needs. It can feel rigid when you don’t understand phases. It can feel stressful when you don’t know when to increase calories, when to reverse diet, when to move into maintenance, or when to stop tracking altogether.

[00:29:04] Emily Field: That’s not a macro problem, that’s just an education problem, and that is exactly why I’ve built different levels of support, because not everyone needs the same thing at the most foundational level. A custom macro calculation ensures that your numbers aren’t reckless to begin with. This is for the woman who’s fairly self-sufficient, but wants to make sure she’s not pulling numbers off the internet that are too aggressive or disconnected from her lifestyle.

[00:29:29] Emily Field: Random macro targets are often where obsession starts. If the calories are too low, you’ll think about food constantly. If protein is set unrealistically high for your appetite, meals are gonna become mechanical. Starting with properly calculated targets reduces the likelihood that you’ll feel chronically hungry, mentally preoccupied with food, or stuck in restriction.

[00:29:51] Emily Field: That’s the lowest level of support, correct numbers grounded in physiology. The next level is macros made easy. This is where the skill building happens. It’s not about handing you numbers and sending you on your way. It’s about teaching you how protein, fats, and carbohydrates function in your body. It’s about teaching you how to build balanced meals, how to estimate, where needed, how to adjust over time, and how to transition away from tracking when it’s appropriate.

[00:30:17] Emily Field: This is for the woman who wants competence, not just compliance. She doesn’t just want macros. She wants to understand them. And then there’s ETO Lean, which is the highest level of support. This is where nuance and application deepen. This is where we get to talk about midlife physiology, stress training, recovery, sleep, and how all of that interacts with your intake.

[00:30:40] Emily Field: This is where we zoom out and ask bigger questions like, is this deficit actually appropriate right now? Or are we under fueling and wondering why progress stalled? Or is your stress load making this phase counterproductive? This is individualized, ongoing coaching. It’s not just about hitting numbers, it’s about integrating them into a full, complex life.

[00:31:01] Emily Field: All three levels serve different women at different stages, but here’s a bigger point. Tracking macros without education is like driving. Without knowing traffic laws, you might technically be moving forward, but you’re tense, reactive, and one wrong turn feels catastrophic. When you understand the rules of the road, when you understand phases, energy, balance, recovery, stress, you drive calmly.

[00:31:26] Emily Field: You know when to merge, you know when to slow down and when to reroute. Support isn’t about dependency, it’s about building competence so that the numbers stop feeling threatening and start feeling informative, and that’s what separates obsessive tracking from educated tracking. One is rooted in fear and the other is rooted in understanding.

[00:31:47] Emily Field: Now let’s directly address the question that tends to sit underneath. All of this is macro tracking, just diet culture in disguise. To answer that, honestly, we need to define what diet culture actually is. Diet culture is the belief system that shrinking yourself is always virtuous. It tells you that smaller is better, lighter is better, and less is always more.

[00:32:13] Emily Field: It ties your worth to your weight. It frames food as moral, good or bad. It promotes eliminating entire food groups in the name of control. It glorifies hunger. It normalizes chronic restriction, and it often encourages suffering quietly in pursuit of a number on the scale. Diet culture says discipline equals deprivation.

[00:32:35] Emily Field: It says that if you just had more willpower, you’d finally get there. It encourages you to override hunger cues, ignore fatigue, and accept irritability as part of the process. It often reduces progress to a single metric, and that’s your body weight. Now, let’s contrast that with macro tracking when done properly, macro tracking at its core is about understanding how proteins, fats, and carbohydrates fuel your body.

[00:33:04] Emily Field: It supports muscle, which becomes more important, not less in midlife. It supports metabolism by ensuring you’re not chronically undereating. It supports performance and recovery. It can support fat loss without starvation because it prioritizes adequate protein and balanced intake rather than aggressive restriction when implemented correctly.

[00:33:25] Emily Field: Macro tracking encourages protein, adequacy, balanced meals, stable blood sugar, and sufficient overall intake. It asks, are you eating enough to support your body before it asks, how can we create change? It does not require eliminating entire food groups. It does not inherently moralize food. It does not demand suffering as proof of effort.

[00:33:48] Emily Field: Now, can someone use macro tracking in a way that mimics diet culture? Yes, absolutely. If someone uses macros to aggressively undereat, to chase the smallest possible calorie number to treat their macro targets as ceilings, they must stay under at all costs. Then yes, they’ve turned it into another version of dieting, but that’s not the tool, that’s the intention.

[00:34:09] Emily Field: Macros themselves are neutral. They are numbers that describe fuel. The intention behind them is what determines whether they become empowering or restrictive. If the intention is to punish, shrink, and control, any framework can become diet culture. If the intention is to fuel, stabilize and build competence, the same framework becomes educational.

[00:34:32] Emily Field: So when someone says macros are just diet culture, what I would gently suggest is this. It depends on how they’re being used, because macro tracking is not inherently about shrinking yourself. It can be about building muscle. It can be about eating enough. It can be about stabilizing energy. It can be about repairing years of under fueling.

[00:34:52] Emily Field: The numbers themselves are neutral. The mindset determines everything else. So what’s the real issue here? Because in many of these conversations, tracking becomes the villain. Macros become the scapegoat, but the real issue isn’t tracking. The real issue is chronic undereating. It’s years of extreme restriction, dressed up as healthy eating.

[00:35:15] Emily Field: It’s all or nothing thinking the swing between perfect and off the rails. It’s a lack of education about how much fuel your body actually needs, and sometimes it’s emotional avoidance. Using food control as a way to manage stress or uncertainty or discomfort. Macros didn’t create those patterns, but they do expose them and exposure can feel really uncomfortable.

[00:35:38] Emily Field: If you’ve been undereating for years and you finally see what adequate intake actually looks like, that can feel confronting. If you realize you’ve been treating calories like something to stay under instead of something to fuel up to that can shake your identity a little bit. If you notice how quickly perfectionism creeps in, when you have numbers in front of you, that’s not macros.

[00:35:59] Emily Field: Inventing something new, that’s awareness. Revealing something that was already there, and awareness is not harm. Exposure does not equal damage. Sometimes exposure is the beginning of change, and when someone says, macros made me obsessive, I’m often curious about what was already happening before macros entered the picture.

[00:36:20] Emily Field: Were you already labeling foods as good or bad? Were you already trying to stay under a certain number? Were you already compensating for meals? Were you already stuck in an all or nothing cycle? Macros don’t implant perfectionism into someone’s brain. They don’t manufacture control tendencies. They simply provide structure and structure shines a light on patterns.

[00:36:43] Emily Field: Now that light can be uncomfortable. But discomfort isn’t the same thing as harm. Sometimes it’s clarity. Sometimes it’s the first time you see your habits without the fog of vague rules or elimination diets. And once you see a pattern, clearly you have options. You can address it, you can soften it, you can work through it with support.

[00:37:03] Emily Field: The problem was never the act of tracking. The problem was the relationship with control restriction and worth that existed underneath it. Macros could be considered a mirror. But mirrors don’t create what they reflect. As we close this conversation, I wanna leave you with something steady and clear.

[00:37:24] Emily Field: Macro tracking is not a personality trait. It’s not a moral identity. It’s not a badge of discipline, and it is not a sign of dysfunction. It is not a diet in it of itself. It is a temporary tool though, and like any tool, its impact depends on how and why it’s being used. You can track macros without obsessing.

[00:37:44] Emily Field: You can track macros without eliminating food groups. You can track macros without living inside of MyFitnessPal for the rest of your life. You can track macros without tying your worth to numbers on a screen. You can use structure as a way to build awareness, competence, and stability, not as a way to shrink yourself into submission.

[00:38:03] Emily Field: Okay, when done properly, macro tracking is educational. It teaches you what adequate feeling looks like. It teaches you portion awareness. It gives you balance, and then if you want, you can step away from it. You can move into intuitive eating with a stronger foundation. You can use the skill when needed and set it down when it’s not.

[00:38:23] Emily Field: And here’s something equally important. You can also decide that it’s not right for you right now. Maybe you’re rebuilding trust with your body. Maybe you’re navigating stress that makes structure feel heavy. Maybe your next step is simpler, like focusing on protein at each meal or stabilizing your eating schedule before tracking anything.

[00:38:42] Emily Field: Both things can be true. Macro tracking can be a powerful, neutral tool, and it can also be something you choose not to use in this season. There is maturity in understanding your readiness. There’s strength in choosing intentionally rather than reacting outta fear. The goal was never to turn you into someone who tracks perfectly.

[00:39:01] Emily Field: The goal is to help you understand your body well enough that you feel steady, informed, and empowered in your choices, and that whether you track or not is where the real freedom lives. Okay, so let’s bring this all together. Today we talked about whether macro tracking causes obsession or disordered eating.

[00:39:20] Emily Field: We defined what macro tracking actually is, and we distinguished it from food obsession and disordered patterns. We talked about when tracking may not be appropriate because responsible coaching means acknowledging timing and readiness. We address the hesitation so many midlife women feel after decades of dieting.

[00:39:39] Emily Field: We clarified the difference between elimination based diet culture, and skill-based macro education. We walked through how properly implemented macros can remove food rules, stabilize undereating and overeating cycles, personalize intake, and build long-term flexibility. And we also named the red flags.

[00:39:58] Emily Field: We talked about what it looks like when tracking shifts from structure into rigidity. Treating macros like a ceiling, rewarding yourself for coming in under spiraling when you’re not perfect. Tying identity to numbers, and those aren’t macro problems. They’re mindset patterns that deserve attention and support.

[00:40:17] Emily Field: The real takeaway is this. Macro tracking is not inherently obsessive. It is not inherently diet culture. It is not inherently restrictive. It is a neutral tool, and like any tool, its impact depends on how it’s taught, how it’s implemented, and what intention is behind it. For midlife women especially, this matters because fueling smarter is different than dieting harder.

[00:40:42] Emily Field: Protecting muscle is different from shrinking at all costs. Building competence is different from chasing compliance. You don’t have to fear structure, you don’t have to cling to it either. You get to choose intentionally. If you found this episode helpful, I would love for you to share it with a friend who’s been macro curious, but cautious.

[00:41:03] Emily Field: And if you’re ready to learn how to approach macros without turning into another rigid diet, check out macros Made easy in the show notes. As always, I’m grateful that you’re here. I don’t take your time lightly. Until next time, fuel your body, train with intention, and remember that confidence comes from understanding, not restriction.

[00:41:21] Emily Field: Talk to you soon.

[00:00:00] Emily Field: Welcome back to the Macros Might Easy podcast. I’m your host, Emily Field, registered dietician, personal trainer, and someone who has spent years helping women navigate food, fitness, and behavior change in a way that actually works in real life. Today’s episode is about cortisol, and before you tense up or think, oh great, another hormone I need to fix, I wanna slow this down right away because cortisol is not good or bad.

[00:00:24] Emily Field: It’s not something you need to eliminate, suppress, or even fear. Cortisol just is. It’s a hormone you actually need to survive. It helps you wake up in the morning. It mobilizes energy, it regulates your blood sugar, it supports blood pressure. It helps you respond to stress appropriately. So if you’re alive and functioning, cortisol is doing its job.

[00:00:44] Emily Field: And here’s the part I wanna be very clear about from the start. Despite what you might see on the internet, most people are not high cortisol people. You are not broken. You are not inflamed because your body is rebellious. You are not failing at stress management. What I see over and over again, especially in active driven women, is not a cortisol problem.

[00:01:06] Emily Field: It’s a reliance problem. The body is leaning on cortisol more than it should because fuel and recovery are inconsistent. That’s it. Not because you’re doing something wrong, but because your body is doing something smart in an environment that doesn’t always support it. So this episode is not about lowering cortisol.

[00:01:26] Emily Field: It’s not about calming your nervous system into submission. It’s not about hacks or supplements or extreme lifestyle changes. This episode is about giving your body fewer reasons to rely on cortisol In the first place, we’re gonna talk about what cortisol is actually supposed to do. How stress, including very normal, everyday life stress affects it.

[00:01:46] Emily Field: How food patterns quietly influence cortisol rhythms without people realizing it. Why sleep is often the first place cortisol dysregulation shows up, and how macro balance eating can support better sleep, energy and recovery without turning food into another source of stress. If you’ve ever felt wired but tired, if you’ve struggled with sleep, despite doing everything right.

[00:02:09] Emily Field: If you feel like your body is working against you and you’re actually trying to take really good care of it, then this episode is for you. Welcome to Macros Made Easy, the podcast that takes the confusion out of tracking macros. I’m your host, Emily Field, a registered dietician that specializes in a macros approach.

[00:02:27] Emily Field: In each episode, I help you learn how to eat in a way that supports your health, body composition, and athletic performance goals. We’ll cover the basics of macronutrients, how to track for various goals, the role of macros in your health, and how to make sustainable changes to your habits. I’ve helped hundreds of people experience more food freedom and flexibility while navigating their nutrition.

[00:02:46] Emily Field: So whether you’ve tried macros and it just didn’t stick, or you just heard the word macros yesterday, I can’t wait to help you too. Before we go any further, I wanna be really clear about who this episode is gonna resonate with most because it doesn’t apply equally to everyone. I see a lot of content online that makes it sound like everyone has a cortisol problem, and that’s simply not true.

[00:03:09] Emily Field: Context matters, lifestyle matters, and history matters. This episode is gonna land most strongly if you’re someone who trains regularly or maybe you’ve trained really hard for years, even if that looks a little different. Now, if you have a history of dieting, undereating, or long stretches of eating clean or healthy without really eating enough, if you often feel wired but tired, especially later in the day where your body feels exhausted, but your brain doesn’t wanna shut off.

[00:03:37] Emily Field: If sleep has been a struggle, even though you’re active, you prioritize your health and you feel like you’re doing all the right things, and if you’ve noticed that your stress tolerance, recovery or body composition just doesn’t seem to respond the way that it used to, even though your effort is still there, if you’re nodding along to any of that, this episode is for you.

[00:03:56] Emily Field: Now, it’s also important for me to say this clearly. If you’re sedentary, sleeping great, eating regularly, or not particularly stressed, you may not see yourself in everything we’re gonna talk about today. That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you. It doesn’t mean you’re missing something. It simply means your body isn’t leaning on cortisol in the same way cortisol becomes a bigger player.

[00:04:15] Emily Field: When the demands placed on the body outpace fuel and recovery, and for a lot of driven active women, that gap can creep in quietly over time. So if this episode feels a little personal, that’s not because your body is failing you, it’s because your body has been adapting. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna unpack together.

[00:04:34] Emily Field: But before we move on, I wanna say something that might be a little counterintuitive. Running on cortisol can actually feel really good, especially in the beginning, especially if you’re someone who loves high intensity workouts. Think running, or orange theory or bootcamps, CrossFit, high intensity interval training.

[00:04:52] Emily Field: Anything that gives you that rush. I see this a lot. You wake up a little tired. Maybe you didn’t sleep perfectly. Maybe breakfast was light or rushed, but you go on and do your workout anyway, and during the workout, you feel incredible. You’re focused, strong, powerful, clearheaded. You leave sweaty and proud.

[00:05:10] Emily Field: You feel accomplished like you’ve earned your day. That post-workout high is real. Cortisol and adrenaline wise, blood sugar is mobilized. Endorphins kick in and for a while you feel energized. And this is where it gets tricky because later on in the afternoon, like two, three, sometimes 4:00 PM the crash is gonna come.

[00:05:30] Emily Field: Your energy drops, your cravings spike, your focus disappears. You might feel shaky, irritable, or suddenly starving. And then the evening can go one of two ways. Either you’re exhausted and flattened, or you’re wired again when it’s time for bed. That pattern feel amazing during intensity. Crash later is incredibly common.

[00:05:50] Emily Field: And I wanna be very clear. That doesn’t mean high intensity training is bad. It means intensity without adequate fuel and recovery can create a cycle where cortisol becomes the primary energy system instead of a supportive one. And here’s where that part becomes uncomfortable. When someone starts feeling properly, when they add in more carbs, when they eat before their workouts.

[00:06:14] Emily Field: When they reduce intensity slightly or build in more recovery, it can feel worse before it gets better because you’re no longer getting that sharp spike of stress hormones. Energy may feel flatter at first, workouts may feel harder without the adrenaline surge, you may feel more tired for a short window of time.

[00:06:35] Emily Field: That’s not regression though. That’s recalibration. Your body is shifting from emergency energy to steady energy, from push through to supported output, and for driven women, that shift can feel really unfamiliar and even uncomfortable, but that’s also where resilience is built. So if you’ve ever thought, but I feel great during my workouts, how could stress be a part of the problem?

[00:06:59] Emily Field: That’s exactly why this conversation matters. Another thing I wanna set expectations around before we go any further is timeline, because this is where people get discouraged or assume something isn’t working, when in reality it is. We live in a world where we’re used to quick feedback. You change something and you expect it to feel.

[00:07:18] Emily Field: Immediately better. But when we’re talking about cortisol, sleep and recovery, we’re talking about systems that adapt over time, not overnight. So here’s what we typically see when food patterns start supporting cortisol sleep instead of fighting them, the first thing that often improves is sleep. For most people, this can happen in days to a few weeks, especially things like falling asleep more easily, fewer middle of the night wake up or deeper sleep.

[00:07:43] Emily Field: Overall sleep tends to be the canary in the coal mine. When the body starts to feel safer, sleep is usually the first place it shows up. Next energy and mood usually follow. This might look like more stable energy throughout the day, fewer crashes, better sleep tolerance, or just feeling a little less on edge.

[00:08:02] Emily Field: This often happens over weeks, not months, and it’s usually subtle at first. Then comes the body composition changes, muscle gain, fat loss, reduced inflammation. These all take a little longer, and that’s not a failure or a sign that something isn’t working. It’s because the body needs to feel safe before it’s willing to change.

[00:08:21] Emily Field: Your body will prioritize survival and stability long before it prioritizes aesthetics. And finally, cortisol rhythms themselves can take time to normal. Especially if someone has been under fueling dieting or pushing hard for years. This is not an overnight fix, and it’s not something you can rush.

[00:08:39] Emily Field: Here’s the reframe I want you to hold onto as you listen to the rest of the episode. If your body has been compensating for a long time, it doesn’t instantly stand down. It watches first, then it adapts. And one last thing that’s really important to say. Early improvements in sleep or energy are not placebo.

[00:08:59] Emily Field: They’re not you imagining things or being overly hopeful. There are signs that the system is responding. Those early changes matter, and they tell us that we’re moving in the right direction. Let’s start by grounding ourselves in what cortisol actually is, because it’s gotten a pretty bad reputation online.

[00:09:16] Emily Field: Cortisol is often talk about like it’s this destructive hormone that needs to be lowered or eliminated, but that framing is not only inaccurate, it’s unhelpful. Cortisol is a survival hormone. You need it. Cortisol helps you wake up in the morning. It mobilizes energy so you can move, think and function.

[00:09:34] Emily Field: It plays a critical role in regulating blood sugar. It helps maintain blood pressure and it allows you to respond appropriately to stress, whether that’s stress. That’s physical, emotional, or metabolic. Without cortisol, you wouldn’t have the energy to get out of bed, handle challenges or adapt to your environment.

[00:09:53] Emily Field: So the goal is not to get rid of cortisol, and this is an important line I want you to hold onto as we move through the rest of the episode. The problem isn’t cortisol existing. It’s cortisol being asked to do too much for too long. That’s the difference between a healthy stress response and a system that feels like it’s constantly under pressure.

[00:10:14] Emily Field: When cortisol is working the way it’s supposed to, it follows a very predictable daily rhythm. Cortisol should be highest in the morning. This is what helps you wake up, feel alert, and get moving for the day. From there, cortisol should gradually decline throughout the day, not drop off a cliff. But gently taper and at night, cortisol should be at its lowest point, which allows melatonin to rise, sleep to happen, and recovery processes to take over.

[00:10:41] Emily Field: One way to visualize this is like a landscape. Cortisol should look like a mountain at sunrise high and supportive, and then a gentle downhill slope throughout the afternoon. And finally a quiet valley at night where rest and repair happen. That rhythm is what we’re aiming for. When cortisol follows this pattern, the body is very resilient.

[00:11:02] Emily Field: Stress feels manageable. Recovery happens more efficiently, sleep comes more easily. This rhythm is not about perfection. It’s about flexibility and balance. Now, instead of diagnosing or labeling anything, I wanna describe some patterns that people commonly recognize in themselves, because if you’ve ever thought.

[00:11:22] Emily Field: This feels familiar. That’s awareness not pathology. One common pattern is a flattened cortisol rhythm. This often feels like being tired all day, even after sleeping. You might rely heavily on caffeine just to function, but then feel wired or restless later in the evening. Energy feels low, but sleep isn’t restorative.

[00:11:42] Emily Field: Another pattern we see is high evening cortisol. This looks like feeling completely exhausted, but when it’s time for bed, your brain won’t shut off. You’re tired, but alert. You may fall asleep late or wake up during the night, often between two and four in the morning. And then there are erratic cortisol spikes.

[00:12:01] Emily Field: This can feel like energy crashes, reactive hunger, cravings that show up suddenly, or anxiety around food or workouts. The system feels really unpredictable. Here’s the most important reframe I want you to hear in this section though. These patterns are not signs that your body is broken. They are adaptive responses.