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Quick Wits: Tracking vs. "Counting" Calories · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: On today's Quick Wits, you're gonna hear one of the modules from the Crack, the Calorie Code course within Wits and Weights Physique University.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: This is a full module all about tracking versus counting calories.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: It's a little bit of art.
• 0:13
  Philip Pape: It's a little bit of science.
• 0:14
  Philip Pape: You will definitely learn why one is different than the other and what's important and how to do it, effective tools for the job and how to make this part of your journey so that you can get results.
• 0:24
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:29
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:40
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:50
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:52
  Philip Pape: Welcome back to the next module of Crack, the Calorie Code, and today we are honing in on the art of tracking calories.
• 1:03
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it's a little science, but it's mostly some art, and we're going to talk about the nuanced approach to do this.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: That is more than just about numbers.
• 1:11
  Philip Pape: This is not just if it fits your macros.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: Instead, I want you to think about this whole tracking for awareness situation as gaining insight into how different foods fuel your body and support your goals.
• 1:28
  Philip Pape: That is the key of what this is about, and, for all of us who are using Macrofactor in this program, you're tapping into a tool that already adapts with you as your metabolism adapts, and then it also tracks things like your micronutrients, your saturated fat, your fiber, as well as your body metrics and everything else.
• 1:46
  Philip Pape: So you've got a powerful tool at your fingertips that makes tracking a much more insightful, enlightening and liberating thing, rather than the tedious kind of restrictive thing that some people make it out to be.
• 1:58
  Philip Pape: Keep that in mind, that this tool actually does a lot of the heavy lifting and the insights that we can gain from it throughout this program are going to open up a whole world of possibilities for you getting the goals that you want.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: So when we talk about tracking versus counting, I think there's an important distinction, because tracking tracking anything tracking your food, tracking your budget, tracking your lifts is about awareness and informed choices right, not random choices, not emotional choices, but informed choices.
• 2:29
  Philip Pape: And it is not about adhering to strict numbers and limits.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: It really is not.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: Even though we set targets, there's still a lot of flexibility around those targets and there's flexibility of choosing how to get to those targets.
• 2:43
  Philip Pape: And this is where the sustainability comes in, because having that flexibility means a healthier relationship with food.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: We focus on nourishing ourselves and how our bodies respond to the food, choosing indulgences as part of our dietary pattern so that we don't feel like we're restricting right.
• 3:02
  Philip Pape: And again, you have great, really good tools at your disposal to do this.
• 3:07
  Philip Pape: But there is a big difference between saying I'm going to track every single little calorie excuse me, every single little calorie and gram, versus I'm tracking the big picture and I am using minimums, but I have this massive set of choice-based flexibility within that context and that's a very freeing way to look at it.
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: Then we talk about accuracy.
• 3:30
  Philip Pape: I don't mean being obsessive or neurotic, I mean getting close enough that it more than allows you to meet your goals, if that makes sense.
• 3:40
  Philip Pape: And so, yes, you might be using a food scale to measure your food, which I highly encourage because it just makes it easier, easy to use, it tells you what it is, you can log it that way, but it's okay to be within 30%.
• 3:52
  Philip Pape: It's okay to estimate when you go to restaurants.
• 3:54
  Philip Pape: It's okay not to log every ingredient.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: If you have a complex recipe, just log the big ones or log a few of the ingredients and make sure that they represent the total size of the dish so that you don't get too obsessive about it and don't try to be perfect.
• 4:09
  Philip Pape: The consistency is what's important.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: If you can log daily within 30%, you are going to get to your goals, versus skipping days regularly and not logging on those days.
• 4:21
  Philip Pape: So we want to log everything, but we don't want to stress about hitting the exact Ram, knowing that there is all this tolerance in our ability as humans to log this stuff and also food labels, and also you don't know what's in the restaurant food all the time, and that's okay.
• 4:36
  Philip Pape: Just logging it all on a daily basis is going to get you there, and having this more flexible approach is going to reduce the pressure on you and make tracking this very manageable, less neurotic part of your daily routine.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: And at the end of the day, when you're doing it this way, if you look at your screen time or macro factor, for example, you'll find it probably only takes a few minutes every day once you're in a routine.
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: The last thing here is I want to talk about dealing with uncertainty, the biggest sources of uncertainty for folks with calories is when they go out to eat and like unlabeled foods.
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: Okay so, and that could be anything.
• 5:14
  Philip Pape: That could be a food that has a label but it's not in the database.
• 5:17
  Philip Pape: Or just like a common food that you're you bought, like a fresh food you know, like you got a package of meat, you're going to cook it up.
• 5:22
  Philip Pape: It doesn't have a label.
• 5:23
  Philip Pape: So you've got to know how to how to track it Right.
• 5:27
  Philip Pape: So let's start with dining out and and we, by the way, we're going to have we have a lot more detailed modules on a lot of these topics in our foundations course.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: This is this is more of a mini course on calories, but I wanted to address it because it is important to tracking your calories.
• 5:43
  Philip Pape: So when you die now, you um have to learn to estimate right, like estimation becomes a skill, and this is about estimating portions or grams, and this is the reason I like logging everything in grams when you're at home to train your brain to think in terms of the same unit of measurement.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: So when you go to a restaurant, you're going to say, oh yeah, 100 grams of rice, 150 grams of chicken, 75 grams of broccoli, and I'm going to throw in 10 grams of butter, because I know they put butter in everything at a restaurant, and that's it right.
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: And that whole tracking exercise takes you like two minutes.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: When you get home Maybe you took a quick photo of it just to remember later on, but that's it Like.
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: That is the way I would approach eating out.
• 6:23
  Philip Pape: And when you pick foods from the database, I would just pick common foods that are close enough.
• 6:27
  Philip Pape: Or here's a little trick when you go to a restaurant, pick a chain restaurant's entry, like an entry from Applebee's or Chili's or something like that that's close to what you had in this other restaurant that is not a chain restaurant, right?
• 6:41
  Philip Pape: Simple things like that.
• 6:42
  Philip Pape: Educated guesses, they're part of the process.
• 6:44
  Philip Pape: They're kind of fun actually when you think of it that way, as a little bit of a game.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: And then you can just enjoy the culinary pleasure of going out to eat without guilt and without stressing over the eating or the tracking part of it.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: And that goes back to my previous point about you know, track everything, but don't sweat about making it perfect.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: Just the tracking alone is going to get you where you want to be.
• 7:03
  Philip Pape: And then same thing for common foods and unlabeled foods.
• 7:07
  Philip Pape: You'll get used to looking up the things that you need Like.
• 7:10
  Philip Pape: One of the common questions is do I do raw meat or cooked meat?
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: Either?
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: The answer is either.
• 7:15
  Philip Pape: Don't sweat it.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: Raw meat is probably preferred because then you don't have to worry about the moisture that gets lost when you cook and how much that can change the weight.
• 7:24
  Philip Pape: But I'll tell you what.
• 7:25
  Philip Pape: I log a lot of my meat as cooked meat and it hasn't slowed me down Again.
• 7:30
  Philip Pape: It gets you within the ballpark of where you want.
• 7:32
  Philip Pape: Just make sure it's the right entry.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: But once you get there, it's not a big deal.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: So embracing calorie tracking is about empowering yourself.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: It's empowering yourself with knowledge and control.
• 7:43
  Philip Pape: This is not about binding yourself to rigid rules, right?
• 7:46
  Philip Pape: This is a tool, just like if you used a budget.
• 7:48
  Philip Pape: It's a tool for making informed decisions that align with your aspirations for your health and fitness.
• 7:55
  Philip Pape: That's it, all right.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: Next up, we are going to talk about how to adjust your calorie intake for real life scenarios so you can really ramp up that flexibility and sustainability, like we've been touching on up till now, and until then, make sure to keep tracking every day, log everything, stay consistent, but don't worry about being perfect and if you're within 30%, that is okay and that's how we start to enjoy the process and not worry about the end result, because we are going to get there.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: See you in the next module.
• 8:23
  Philip Pape: So again, that was a module from Crack, the Calorie Code, one of many high value courses within Wits and Weights Physique University, and if you're interested in learning more, definitely click the link in my show notes.
• 8:36
  Philip Pape: We are still open for enrollment.
• 8:38
  Philip Pape: We've got a ton of students that joined in the first few weeks.
• 8:42
  Philip Pape: It is becoming a thriving community.
• 8:43
  Philip Pape: We've had our first live coaching call, we've had our check-ins and it's just an amazing place to be if you're looking to build your dream physique and do it based on the evidence, effectively, time efficiently, without all the silly deprivation, restriction, chronic cardio, restrictive diets and all the other things that others tend to flock to.
• 9:06
  Philip Pape: So if you're looking for that evidence-based approach, again, you can learn more about wits and weights physique university by clicking the link in the show notes or going to witsandweightscom slash physique.
• 9:18
  Philip Pape: That's witsandweightscom slash physique.
• 9:20
  Philip Pape: We'll see you in the next episode, the next quick wits and stay strong.
• 9:24
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 9:44
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.