Happy Tuesday, ! 

Calorie tracking tends to get a bad rap! It is an invaluable tool and a lot of folks could greatly benefit from using it for a period of time!! It may be tedious, annoying and time consuming at FIRST, but it's 100% worth it!

Also, note that tracking your caloric intake isn't just for fat loss/losing weight!

As a matter of fact, it can be an empowering approach to making sure you are fueling your body adequately. You are gaining awareness too!

When done from an empowered approach, tracking is a pretty amazing tool in our nutritional tool bag.

Many women only know tracking as a means to an end, and that's usually restriction only! A poverty diet!

Tracking your nutrition can be so much more!!

It's a great tool to pull out in all phases of your nutrition journey - fat loss, eating enough food, maintenance, and the building phase. Even just tracking one macronutrient such as protein.

So many women under-eat. So much so that it becomes a way of life.

And sometimes, they don't even realize it. A lot of times, this way of life also comes from years of dieting.

The side effect of this is that hunger signals become almost nonexistent until you can't help but eat everything in sight. Oh, and what is fullness? Then we eat way beyond fullness.

No shame here; the body will do what it is designed to do! It will eventually increase hunger to the point of no return. So you'll eat and eat until the satiety hormone called leptin signals the brain to stop eating!

It also happens after too-low-calorie diets, or dieting for way too long!

If you struggle with eating enough food from day to day, you may have noticed a thing or two:

• A decrease in performance at the gym!
• You're not gaining strength.
• Not recovering from your lifts.
• Have no energy throughout the day.
• Low sex drive!
• Moodiness
• Brain fog
• High cravings
• Constant hunger
• Mowing down the pantry at night - hungry right after dinner!
• You're often cold
• Can't sleep at night

Just to name a few! I'd encourage you to track for a while!

 Of course, this is not something you have to do forever, but it will bring awareness to your nutrition as a whole!

What get's monitored gets managed!

You can go about it a few different ways...

1 - Keep a good old fashion journal - pen to paper - write down what you're eating - how much, time, etc.

2 - Track your intake in an app such as MyNetDiary!

3 - Plan your meals ahead of time so that you have food readily available. Building your plate in a way that has a source of protein - 1/4 of the plate, carbs (starch - 1/4 of the plate & fiber - 1/2 the plate), and fat - as a condiment!

4 - Start paying attention to your portions via the hand portion guide - palm size & thickness for your protein portion, fist size for veggies, a cupped hand for carbs, and 1 thumb accounts for a serving of fats! Adjust accordingly to hunger needs, activity levels, etc.

5 - Keep a journal focusing on your fullness & hunger cues, which brings awareness to your eating - what you're eating, why you're eating, and how much! If this is lost on you, this is an amazing way to get back in tune with your biofeedback!

6 - Photo food log- check out the wonderful app Ate. I love their slogan - Pause. Eat. Reflect. Feel Good!

With each of these ways of food logging/track, you can look at your meal choices, composition of the foods, how much you’re eating or not eating, and your eating patterns for the day; therefore, there will be no guessing about what you've eaten for the day!

Then you'll be able to see and know where the missing pieces are regarding your meals, nutrients, protein, etc., and how much you need to eat to live your best life!

If you need guidance, this is one of the biggest things I help my clients with! I would love to support you. Book a call here!

Eat STRONG, STRONG friend! Your body, soul, mind, muscles & metabolism will thank you!

Thank you for reading, have a amazing week!

In Strength & to Your Success,

Much Love
Coach Candace