I was responding to the last part of the sentence specifically: “… which obviously means cutting back on carbs on easy days and recovery days.” (Sorry, if that wasn’t clear.) If today is an easy day and tomorrow a hard day, it might mean you might want to take in more carbs rather than cut back.
Well, ISTR that they were talking in terms of meals not days. Thus an extra helping of carbs the meal or two before and after a key workout.
They have never specified how many extra carbs so it seems to be an area for each person to navigate on their own and figure out.
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MFP personally, used it for a long time and have a lot of my meals/recipes saved. There’s probably better options.
I think that’s a good point, which is why I gave both options. I wasn’t hedging my bet, I don’t remember whether Kyle has mentioned that on the podcast episode. (It was packed with information, so I didn’t pay attention to this point specifically. But Matt Baer mentioned the importance of “pre-loading” on last week’s episode.)
I’ve never been on the “logging food is easy” train. It’s a PITA having to enter and weigh every ingredient of every meal and snack. Especially when eating leftovers where things are already mixed together, or when just grabbing a handful or bite of anything. Sure, you can create “recipes” so everything is pre-entered, but that assumes the mix is identical every time, which it never is, and if you’re just guessing at weights and portions, I don’t really see the point of logging.
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I don’t think you have to be that exact. I’ve been using the Lose It app over the years. I find that it seems to work well enough and you get a lot of functionality with just the free version.
I only weigh stuff every now and then just to calibrate my eyeballs. Like, how many ounces of chicken is that? Once you know what it looks like, then you can just eyeball it. Sometimes I put stuff in a measuring cup just to make sure I know what an exact serving looks like.
I’ve been wondering how well the ‘take a picture of your plate’ apps work… I read that you can even have chatgpt look at the picture and analyze it for you. (haven’t tried it)
I seem to be able to go for months at a time, happily tracking and then I lose interest and fall off the wagon. 
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Yeah, I don’t see the point in logging if you’re eyeballing. YMMV of course.
I might eyeball individual portions to enter into the app but tracking tends to keep me on track for the day/week otherwise I’ll just eat whatever based on mood.
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Cronometer, free version, moved from MFP. Quite happy with it.
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The main thing is just habit forming. You can just eat less and see if you lose weight and don’t need to track anything. But the tracking can help keep the habit of not snacking or not taking seconds because you are seeing what you actually have already eaten even if its just close enough. There are also times I have used to make sure I did eat. I was 1000+ calories short the other day because I was out of town and didn’t prep my lunches. Since I have been doing IF I wasn’t actually hungry but I knew that that kind of deficit would be a bit too much, since that was 1000 short of already being in deficit. I skipped fasting and ate dinner.
There are people that will argue that you can’t actually count right, you can’t actually figure out what you burn so why bother?
Then there are the people saying if you can’t do it exactly then why bother.
Amusing that the two main arguments against tracking are complete opposite of each other.
Neither matters, if something else works then do what works. For me I have 2 modes forget to eat or eat a whole pizza myself and look for more food, there is kind of no middle ground unless I track and just have some sort of accountability through the tracking.
For macros again still just looking for a ball park, even the suggestions are usually a range, shoot for the middle and if you are over or under you’re still in range.
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Nah, it’s not that hard to get a good estimate..
My wife made a ground turkey enchilada thing in the crock pot the other day and everything was mixed together. I know quinoa, ground turkey, and black beans are around 1.2 calories per gram. The peppers and other vegetables are about .2 calories per gram and the enchilada sauce is .4 calories per gram (she still had the jar). By looking I can estimate it’s about 80% the more calorie dense stuff, giving me just over 1.0 calories per gram. I ate around 850g, so if my 80% is off by 10% one way or the other then my calories are off by about 75. Not a big deal for the biggest meal of the day.
I try to be a little conservative with my estimates and if I’m ravenous in the evening I’ll eat an extra apple or something. I know pretty well what it feels like to eat at maintenance, a ~500 cal deficit, and a huge deficit that’s unsustainable.
True that the mix of leftovers or whatever won’t be the same every time, but on average the difference will balance out and your estimate won’t be biased.
Given that the alternative is basically just guessing, measuring what you can and estimating what you can’t measure exactly works pretty well.
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But the whole point is trying to manage your daily calorie intake to lose weight. If you’re just guessing, you could be off by a ton, and why waste your time logging. I see other people say that if they don’t have to log it they’ll eat the whole pizza or gallon of ice cream, and I understand that use, but that’s not really the point of this topic. It’s how to extremely accurately measure your macros and calories, which guessing doesn’t even come close to doing.
I don’t think you have to be super accurate. Kyle’s recommendations are a range anyway. Coming up with a daily calorie allotment is a guesstimate/calculation.
The practical way to handle this is to track and then if you are not losing weight, you cut back on the daily calorie allotment. Hopefully, your tracking doesn’t get worse and worse.
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I don’t think Pfaffenbach has said that though. “Shoot for” is probably the most common thing said before someone gives a target for macros, and fairly certain how he phrases it as well. So as far as his techniques it’s really just about targeting protein and fat in the ranges he has said. Fill the rest in with carbs. Adjust as needed.
I’m down right around 20lbs in ~7.5 weeks since starting to track again. Would be little more if it wasn’t for going away for the weekend and just not caring, I’m basically back to where I was last friday. Guessing is doing just fine for me, won’t speak for others but for me I’ve got the data it is working. To clarify I don’t pay that much attention to macros specifically. I’ll look every so often to make sure I’m not sure if I mix up my base meals but don’t check daily, just calories. So I’m not necessarily saying I’m following his recommendations of macros exactly, but basically I’m there.
My FTP is up about 30watts in that same time too (renoob gains as I didn’t do much first half of the year). I may try this weekend to match a ride I did same weekend last year where I set every one of my power records from about 15 minutes to 2 hours.
Close enough really is fine.
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That’s awesome. Congratulations!
I mostly agree with this part. I just don’t think you need to listen to podcasts, do a bunch of math, and use an app to track macros to do it. We’re basically back to “just pay attention to what you put in your mouth, eat healthy food, and eat less of it until you lose weight”.
I disagree with that last part. I think it’s hard to know if one ate 2700 or 3200 calories in a day without some sort of tracking whether that is an app or writing it down on paper.
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Which is what I’ve been trying to say about guessing
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Right. We’re not dealing with three balanced meals with x palm fulls of veg, meat, fruit, and grains.
The good news is that Pbase doesn’t have to use any calorie or macro counting method if it’s too complicated for him, but to me it always seems like his concern about all the minutae is what makes it so complicated. I have to worry about whether that’s .7 or .8 tbsp of butter I put on that potato if I’m going to use an app, or alternatively I can just use my (broken) hunger signals and look at my plate to decide if I’m eating too much. That’s quite the juxtaposition.
Making my own food, and sticking to lots of whole foods and dishes with low ingredient counts make tracking a lot easier. Probably half the meals I enter every week are meals I just copy (the whole meal with 2 clicks) from another day, and tweak the portion after weighing/measuring.
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It’s estimating, not guessing. Big difference.
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