A simple guide for tracking food WITHOUT macros or calories!
- Coach Tom NASM-CPT, Pn1
- Oct 3, 2019
- 7 min read
Tracking calories and macros are a great way to track your daily food intake but it's not the only way, nor is it the easiest. There is a simpler way to get started and keep track of your food without the hassle of calculating. Beginners don’t always need to jump right into a more advanced way of tracking.
Majority of my clients come to me for fat loss and strength goals and start off using this method because they are new to improving their nutrition and don’t have a background of understanding how much and what they eat daily. As a coach, it's important to find the appropriate starting point for them and even have set amounts that they're able to have daily while focusing on hunger cues, good eating habits, and hydration. After applying this method to those who it's appropriate for, within just 1 month they usually end up losing weight. I've seen 7 lbs up to 10 lbs right off the bat without even adjusting anything. This is just what I've seen. Understand this isn't always going to happen but it's just really interesting to notice changes like this with such a simple first step in improving someone's nutrition.
So what is this method of tracking I'm talking about? It may shock you but it's using your hands to portion your foods! Keeping things simple and estimating with your hands is a great way to start and is very practical as you can see from the image below.
It is important for me to say that the goal of this method is to simply start and have mostly whole, minimally processed foods for ease of estimating.
Why does this work?
It works because it helps you establish a starting point. Sometimes we can spend so much time worrying about each and every macro-nutrient and not following any method of knowing what we eat. We get stuck in this place of trying to create motion but end up doing little to no action. This method provides you with a place to start that isn't overwhelming, doesn't add much more thought to track foods, and give you no excuse to not apply what you learn. You'll always have your hands so all you need to do is be accountable and estimate. Making an educated estimate (because we're not necessarily "guessing") using the picture above is much better than nothing. It can help you count your meals and foods for something in your day and essentially this is a surface level of tracking calorie intake.
What if I have already started losing, gaining, or maintaining weight?
That's OK! If you wish to keep things simple this is a great way to do that. You can also adjust for your goal using this method too (I go into simple steps to do this below).
What about when eating out?
Great question! It does require a little bit more work but how badly do you want to reach your goal? You can see that a palm of protein is ~25g of protein, a cupped handful of carbs is ~25g of carbs, a fist of veggies is, well... about a fist and a thumb of fat is ~12g of fat. Using these numbers how would you estimate how many palms, cupped hands, fists of veggies and thumbs of fat are in The Original BBQ Chicken Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen? (I love pizza) Follow my step by step method below.
--Wait! What do veggies count as?
Veggies are also a form of carbohydrates. They're a lower-calorie carb. To avoid splitting hairs you don't need to worry about the macro-nutrients in veggies and can just use your fist to represent a serving. You, of course, can choose to count them differently, just be consistent with what you choose.
Now, follow my step by step method below to find out how many portions are in The Original BBQ Chicken Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen.
Step 1:
You find the foods nutrition facts online by searching [Insert the name of Establishment followed by Nutrition Guide] or in this case, we'll use California Pizza Kitchen Nutrition Guide.
Step 2:
Find the specific food you're going to have (pictured below) and take note of the protein, carbs, and fats for the number of servings you're having (veggies are usually much rarer when eating out so don't worry about those unless they have oil in them, then they'll be counted at thumbs of fat).
Step 3:
Seeing that in a whole pizza (6 slices) there is:
66 grams of protein
150 grams of carbs
30 grams of fat
No veggies
Take those numbers and divide them by what your portions would be.
Step 4:
Protein: 66g / 25g per Palmful = 2.64 (we'll say 2.5) Palmfuls of Protein
Carbs: 150g / 25g per Cupped Hand = 6 Cupped Hands of Carbs
Fats: 30g / 12g per Thumb = 2 Thumbs of fat (It's always safe to estimate a little high with the fats when eating out to take account for how they cook the foods etc. You can count this as 3 thumbs of fat)
According to the nutrition facts listed by their website eating all of The Original BBQ Chicken Pizza from California Pizza Kitchen would be:
2.5 Palmfuls of Protein
6 Cupped Handfuls of Carbs
3 Thumbs of fat (estimating high to play it safe)
That's just one example! You can do this with any food. Here, take a look at this video I made for my clients who asked about fitting Ice Cream into their daily diet:
We used a Pint of Enlightened Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream and yes, it was delicious!
Video Credit: Original Tom Mercatante
Now, I must say that while this gives you a great, simple place to start, allows for some flexibility and takes account for calories, the easiest thing you can do is stick to whole, minimally processed foods.
Why?
Because estimating a piece of chicken breast or fat free Greek yogurt is much easier than estimating a portion of pizza or a pint of ice cream. Whole, minimally processed foods are the nutrient-dense, ease of use, go-to foods to help you keep things simple and build a strong foundation for your daily nutrition.
Another question you may have...
Where do I start?
Start with being aware of what your current meals are made of and see if you can match or estimate what's in them. Then, start to create new meals using the guide above. Need foods ideas? Precision Nutrition has an amazing guide. Here, check it out by clicking THIS.
How do I figure out how many of each portion I can have per day?
I wrote an entire post on that! Click HERE to read it.
Being more aware of if you need to eat more or less will come down to whether you want to lose, gain or maintain your weight. But, you have to know how much you're eating daily.
Simple steps to adjust for your goal:
How many palmfuls of protein, cupped hands of carbs, fists of veggies and thumbs of fat are you consuming per day?
Ex: Amounts per day for an active male wt. ~190 lbs
8 palmfuls of protein
10 cupped handfuls of carbs
6 fists of veggies
6 thumbs of fats
(This is just an example)
With those numbers in mind here's a short and simple way to adjust for your goals:
If you want to lose weight: Eat a little less. Start by taking some food out of your day. A cupped hand of carbs less for a week might cause the change you're looking for. Be patient. Assess your weight to see if it drops. If it does, good! If not, check your consistency and "accuracy" when estimating. Be patient. Assess your weight to see if it drops. Be patient. If still no drop you can either drop more food (preferably from carbs) or increase your activity daily (try making some time to walk a bit more than your pervious week). Assess your weight to see if it drops and yes, be patient!
If you want to gain weight: Eat a little more. Start by adding a cupped handful of carbs or a thumb of fats to your daily intake for a week. If there's no gain, repeat the first step and wait. If you find there's no change in weight add a cupped handful of carbs every day for the third time and add 1 thumb of fat to every day for a week. Be patient and be consistent, check how accurate you're tracking.
If you want to maintain weight: Eat about the same. Focus on gym performance. Try a new recipe every week to keeps things fun and interesting. Remember the scale normally fluctuates daily based on things like sodium, hydration, the volume of food, when you weigh yourself and plenty more. Don't let that number dictate a change in your nutrition. If you see a trend, then we have some changes to make by using the tips right above.
How do I find out many portions of each I can have per day?
I wrote a post on how to calculate your macros and equate them into portion sizes for ease of use and if you don't want to or, if you aren't ready to track macros or calories yet. Click HERE to read it.
What if I want to use this but also be a little more flexible with my food?
For my clients, I like to save 1 cupped handful and 1 thumb of fat for a snack of their choice. Since 1 cupped handful of carbs is ~25 grams of carbs. We know 25 grams of carbs is 100 calories. And since 1 thumb of fat is ~12 grams of fats. 12 grams of fats is 108 calories. Add those two together and you have a 208 calorie snack of their choice per day. This especially seems appropriate because most snacks are mainly comprised of carbs and fats, but this doesn't have to be 208 calories exactly. Just have a snack and make sure it's not above that number. Some utilize the flexibility to their advantage and some keep it simple and stick to mostly whole, minimally processed foods. The choice is theirs as it is yours!
So, as you get more familiar with this method you can stick to it as long as you need. Eventually, if your goal requires a more precise method of tracking where specifics come into play, calories and macros are always your next progression. For now, this is a great starting point and I wish I had known about this when I first began. I hope this helps keep things simple and get you results.
Questions, comments, and feedback are all welcome in the comments section. Thank you so much for reading! --Tom
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