My weightlifting coach asked me to track my protein...
ZERO regrets from last Friday’s dinner out.
[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 55 seconds.]
Plenty of articles have been posted as of late of the importance of increasing your protein intake as you age. If you have missed them, I’ll link to two of them here and here. If you have more questions, post in the comments or reply to this email (another good reason to be on the mailing list!).
The hubs and I both happen to share the same coach, even though we receive different programming based on our specific needs. So she asked how open we would be to tracking our protein after the recent Memorial Day getaway for 3 weeks.
[To be clear, this is about what I did and is not a recommendation on what you should do. Talk to a licensed professional, if you are unsure. I can help you find one.]
Had I done something like this before?
I had only seriously tracked my protein via macros once before. I did it for 3 months and I hated it. Why?
I decided to do it on my own. The hubs was not involved.
I was using the most popular tool at the time. But it had all sorts of data quality issues.
Entering new foods was a pain in the ass. So I started eating the same things over and over again just to make things easier. I was miserable.
You can definitely say I had reservations about doing this. Also I LOVE my protein and I was pretty sure I was getting enough, but if the hubs was going to do it, I figured I’d join him.
After a fantastic long weekend of eating and drinking all of the things, we came home and started the process. Our coach set us up with Cronometer and off we went. But I decided that I was going to enter in all of my food - not just the obvious protein items.
Why after my previous experience?
I wanted to see if I was right on my protein intake. The other thing that I noticed after a few days of tracking was that I could import data from other sources. I then started importing my Garmin data from my workouts and day-to-day movement on Cronometer.
What happened?
Make no mistake. The hubs joining me on this journey made this less onerous. But it’s still a decent amount of work.
I am consistent on hitting my protein goal. But good to check anyway.
The data quality on Cronometer is way better. They let you scan the bar code and if the food is in the system, it gets automatically populated into your food diary.
The onboarding process for new users is klugey. Lots of hidden settings and features that could be better explained so users can get more value from the product sooner rather than later.
We weren’t going to be eating out much in this 3 week window given how much we ate out on the trip just before we started and the upcoming trip. That also makes it easier to measure and manage. I told our coach that if we went out for a meal that I wasn’t bothering to track anything. You have to live.
Adherence is easier because I am working from home. Breakfast becomes much more difficult when you have a commute to figure in and you workout early in the morning before work.
I definitely made better food choices at home knowing I was logging it somewhere and would have to look at it. My coach immediately gave me feedback on getting protein from real sources as opposed to being really dependent on protein bars/shakes for my breakfasts and lunches.
Measuring food….
Gimme data and more data
When I was training for half marathons and marathons, I looked at my Garmin watch incessantly. This is mostly a good thing, but can turn into a bad thing. Sometimes how you feel isn’t aligned with what is showing up in the data. And if your watch stops working properly, which happened to me in a race, you’re f**ked.
That’s when my running coach started teaching me to run based on feel, which resulted me in learning the “thirds rule” that I talked about in a previous post.
The Cronometer platform synthesized my workout data with my nutrition data in an easy to understand way. I am now looking at my sleep, heart rate variability, heart rate and respiration rate in conjunction with my workouts and food intake.
Some screenshots from Cronometer while I was tracking food intake over the past 3 weeks
Bottom-line: I don’t have to triangulate (aka “connect the dots”) as much. Patients have to triangulate data from so many different data sources to get the care they need. It’s why I wanted to get into healthcare tech because it needs to be better.
When you are easily able to triangulate your data, you can be a better advocate for yourself with your healthcare team.
Do I recommend food tracking?
It depends. If you have an eating disorder or have been known to engage in disordered eating, I wouldn’t do it unless you were under the care of a registered dietician or other licensed medical professional.
It could be useful if you’re trying to just capture a general state of things. For example, you could track one week per quarter that is a typical week in your life.
You should be clear on what your goals are. In order to make this a habit, you may need to set-up reminders in your calendar or put stickies on your fridge.
For example, knowing if you’re doing this to improve your body composition vs. measuring protein intake is an important distinction to make. Depending on your answer to your ‘why’, the approach will likely differ.
Finally you have to determine what boundaries you are going to set for yourself. For me, it was going out to eat or hosting a dinner party. No tracking for those meals.
If you’re thinking about switching up your nutrition plan and need help finding someone who will partner with you, let’s chat. I can find that person who will be empathetic, non-judgmental and knowledgeable, particularly as your body changes as you get older.