373: Can You Count Macros and Eat Out? Yes, Here’s How

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 373

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and today's topic is Macro Counting and Eating Out. Can we do it? And how do we do it successfully? That is what this episode is about. Because if you're like me, maybe you've had the experience where you're sitting in a restaurant, you're looking at the menu, and in the back of your head is that little voice that says, how the heck are you going to track this? Because it's not a chain restaurant. There's no macros in sight. And, you know, you want to hit your macros. You want to be successful on your weight loss journey, but you also want to live your ding life. And sometimes we want to eat things that don't come from our own kitchen. So if you've ever felt like macro counting meant that you had to give up eating out or that every single bite that you don't log exactly perfectly is going to ruin your progress, I want you to know that that is not the truth. Now, as we dive into this conversation, I do want to make a quick caveat because I know somebody who's listening to this is going to be thinking this. So if you are somebody who is trying to get stage lean, or you're prepping for a photo shoot, and you're aiming for extreme results, like you want to get super lean. Yeah. You're probably going to need a more rigid, exact, accurate process. Okay? The more extreme the results you are looking for, the more extreme the process is going to need to be to get there. That is not who I'm talking today. I'm not talking to somebody who wants to get stage lean, who wants to get like 14% body fat, who wants to like get on a stage and do a fitness competition. Okay. I'm not talking to those people. I'm talking to the woman who wants to feel better in her body, who wants sustainable fat loss that works with her lifestyle. And I'm talking to somebody who is looking for a way to reach her goals without cutting out date night or family dinners. I call these your non-negotiables in MACROS 101. I help clients figure out what are your non-negotiables. 

So in today's episode, I'm going to be helping you to let go of that all or nothing mindset and finally feel confident while eating out and tracking your macros because yes, you can lose weight and eat out and yes, you can hit your goals without having to cook every single thing from scratch. And yes, you can do it without obsessing over every bite or having every single thing that you track be a hundred percent accurate. Now we are going to talk about the real tension that comes up because my guess is you want to be as accurate as possible. And that's where this drive for like perfectionism comes from and tracking accurately and all that stuff. But you also there's a part of you that wants flexibility and that's the part of you that wants to live life and enjoy life. And so I'm going to be showing you what I like to call flexible consistency and what that actually looks like. And I'm going to share five practical tips that you can actually use and implement the next time you eat out so that you can stay on track without actually losing your mind. And hopefully you find this episode as a little bit of a permission slip, although you never knew I had permission for anything, but hopefully it's a little bit of a permission slip to stop having to choose between results and your real life and help you to learn how to create success that includes going out to eat, that includes restaurants, that includes parties, that includes spontaneous events. And it doesn't mean you have to cut those out.

Balancing tracking with real life 04:14

So let's start by talking about that very real tension that I mentioned that comes up when you're trying to count or track macros and then also, you know, live in the real world because there's this moment that I see happen for so many women and maybe you've been there yourself where you start tracking and you feel super motivated. You know, you have everything dialed in and you have everything tracked and you're weighing your food and it's all going great. And then somebody invites you over for dinner and immediately your stomach drops and you're like in this choice bind and you start wondering, should I go? What if I blow it? What if I can't track it? How am I going to be able to track the food that is there? Maybe I should just eat before. Maybe I should just estimate. Well, that's not very accurate. Is it going to ruin my progress? And in that moment, you're feeling this tug of war that so many of my clients experience because part of you wants to stay on track and part of you wants to stay accurate and part of you wants to follow the program and plan that you're on. And then the other part of you wants to feel normal and free and you want to just order the dang tacos without overthinking it, right? It's like this devil and this angel on your shoulder. 

And here's what I want you to hear loud and clear about this moment. That tension does not mean you're doing anything wrong. It's not a sign that you're failing or that this is a problem. This is part of learning to navigate a new skill and especially one like macro tracking, which is a tool, but this tool uses numbers and sometimes we can take those numbers and create pressure from these numbers because it's really easy for us to see if we're on track or off track. So my goal in talking about this is not necessarily to completely eliminate the tension. I think to some extent that tension is always going to be there a little bit because that tension is just exist in life. Like there's just a lot of tension in life of like you, part of you wants this thing and part of you wants that thing. And growing up and growing is learning to navigate those tensions. It's learning to navigate the different aspects of part of you wants this, part of you wants this and how do you navigate that tension that is maturing and growing and part of life. So the goal isn't to necessarily get rid of that tension completely. The goal is to get better at managing it, at to be able to hold two seemingly opposing things simultaneously so we can care about our results and also simultaneously care about our real life.

Avoiding all-or-nothing mindset trap 06:43

So this is where a lot of women fall into that all-or-nothing trap and they think, well, if I can't track this meal perfectly, then I may as well not track it at all. You know, you've been there. I know. I know so many of you have been there where if you can't track it accurately, then what do you do? You just throw in the towel tracking and you say, I'll just start again tomorrow or the opposite. We get to this place where it's like we have this idea of if I just do this perfectly, maybe then I'll earn right results faster and I get where this comes from. It's a very like diet mentality. You've been told for so long that here are the rules of this diet and if you just follow these rules exactly, then you'll get results and if you don't follow those rules exactly for whatever reason and you don't get results, well then that's your problem. That's on you, right? That's the messaging that we've heard and I will tell you, neither of these extremes works long-term. Swinging to, I guess throw in the towel because I can't track this accurately or like I have to be so perfect in order to earn my results. Neither of those works long-term, but what does work is finding the middle ground, that messy, imperfect, flexible space where you're still showing up, you're still practicing, you're still learning without needing everything to be perfect. There is a middle ground and I call it flexible consistency so you can stop feeling stuck between track everything or track nothing. So let's talk about what I mean when I say flexible consistency because this is a concept that's very easy to nod along with, but a little harder to actually live out when you're in the thick of it and when you're making decisions.

Compliance vs Defiance 08:27

So let's break it down. Most women start macro tracking and they fall into one of two camps. Camp number one is what I would call the rule follower, someone who is really big on compliance. Okay, this woman wants to do everything right. I hear it all the time. I want to do this right Amber. So she's going to track everything. She's going to get frustrated when restaurants don't have the nutritional info and if she doesn't hit her number, she kind of spirals a little bit, right? She's my type A, going to get an A plus and going to do it right. And that sounds very admirable until it burns her out or until she's not able to do it perfect and then she quits and throws in the towel. Okay, so that's one camp. 

The other camp is what I call the free spirit. This is like the defiance model. Okay, this is the woman who wants to eat intuitively. She doesn't really want to fill box in. But at the same time, she doesn't actually feel in control. And she's frustrated because she's trying to eat healthier, but she's not actually seeing results. And deep down, she knows that part of it is because she's just eating whatever she wants. Like there's no consistency. There's no follow through on anything. 

So my guess is that most people can kind of find where they fall into either those camps, either compliance or defiance. I will note that what I see with a lot of people is they swing back and forth between the two. So they start a program. They start a diet. They're in the compliance mode. I have to follow it. I have to do it right. I have to check all the boxes and they can do that for a while until that defiant side, that rebellious side comes out and then they swing to the other side. And then it's like they just rebel against the diet. Can't tell me what to do. I'm going to eat all the carbs. I'm going to eat all the sugar, right? So what I see a lot of people doing is falling, swinging back and forth to the two extremes between compliance, rule following, and then that free spirit, rebelling, defiance to the other side. 

Strengthen your weaker mindset muscle 10:31

Now, what I think is really important because what we're trying to find is it feels like it's like a balance or something in the middle between these two, right? Instead of swinging between these two extremes of like having to do everything perfect and then just throwing out all the ideas and rules and structure, it's like something in the middle there would be something that would be a little bit better. What I often will coach clients to because let me see if I can explain this. The solution to this conundrum depends on where you currently are falling on the continuum. If you tend towards rule following and compliance and perfectionism in order to come to the middle of this continuum, what do you need to do? You actually need to give up some of that perfectionism. Like you need to relax a little bit. So that would be probably hard for you too. My perfectionist, it's hard for them to let go. It's hard for them to not do things perfectly. It's hard for them to do B plus work. So that's hard, but that's going to move you towards the center. My like defiance, free spirits, rebels. I just want to eat intuitively. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. Where do you need to move in order to move towards the center? You actually probably need to get yourself to do things that maybe you don't want to do a little bit. It's like you don't want to brush your teeth, but like you do it anyway. So there's things that we do all the time that we don't want to do, but we make ourselves do it. It's like that's your work and that's probably hard to like hold yourself to the line to do something that you don't necessarily want to do in the moment. That's challenging for you, but that moves you more towards the center. Why am I saying this? Because what I often tell clients is how do you know which choice to make in the moment? Do I push myself to be less perfect or do I push myself to be more perfect? Right. And I'm using perfect in like air quotes. I don't actually want anybody to be perfect, but do I, do I give myself more structure or do I actually pull back from structure? Maybe that's a better way to frame it. And I often will say, which one's harder? Because which one is harder for you is probably the weak muscle that needs to be strengthened. 

For my perfectionists, my compliance-oriented people, perfection, like aiming for perfection is really easy. Letting it go is very hard. That's because it's a weak muscle for you. For people who are a little bit more free spirit, I don't want any structure. I don't want any like any requirements. I don't want to hold myself to the fire when it's like going to the, the gym. I told myself I was going to go to the gym and then I'm, I can't give myself an excuse. For you, the hard thing is actually following through on what you said that you were going to do or following through on the goal that you set or, you know, just that follow through that structure, creating structure. That's hard for you. So knowing which end of the spectrum you tend towards, you can see how the solution to get towards the middle is a little bit different. And that's why there's no like one blanket. Here's what to do in this situation. It's like you need to know which side of the continuum that you tend to fall on and the way that I help clients make decisions is like, what's harder for you? Is it harder to let go? Or is it harder to hold yourself to the flame and hold yourself to the fire? That's probably the weaker muscle. That's what we need to work on and strengthen it. 

Tracking something is always better than tracking nothing 13:53

Okay. So here is the truth. I say this over and over again. Tracking something is always better than tracking nothing. Eating mostly on track is better than going all in or all out. A lot of us tend towards that all-or-nothing mentality. We tend towards the extremes and what I'm always trying to get my clients to do is move more to the middle. The extremes are not where success lies. The middle is where success happens and specifically long-term success. It's that middle ground, that middle way. That's what we're looking for. You don't get a gold star from doing things perfectly. You get results from doing things consistently. Perfection is a quick burst of energy that falls off. I think about it like a rocket that's shooting off and you know how the very first part of the rocket, they have a huge jet fuel of fire that pushes the rocket off and then what happens? That dies out because it's like this huge push of energy and it just can't sustain it long-term. And so it has this huge push of energy and then that dies out and then the other rocket boosters turn on. They're not as powerful, but that's what keeps the rocket going and getting it out into space. And that's what's sustainable for the rocket. I think about it the same way. The problem that I see with people who are perfectionists when it comes to tracking macros is that they can't do it long-term. They can only maintain that intensity and accuracy and focus for a short period of time and that's never what's going to produce long-term results. Doing something imperfectly consistently for a long period of time will always produce better more results and better results than doing something perfectly for a very short period of time. So when you eat out, you don't have to panic or throw your hands up. You just adjust. We just take it in stride. All right, this is flexible consistency. The kind of consistency that lasts beyond just the first few weeks of motivation. It's the kind that gets you results and lets you enjoy living your life because the truth is, and hear me when I say this, your body doesn't respond to what you do in one meal. It responds to what you do consistently. 

So instead of chasing stars or perfect days, I want you to chase practice. I want you to chase awareness. I want you to chase the version of you who keeps showing up even when it's messy. And so that moves us to the next section where I want to walk you through some practical tips that will help you take these concepts, right? There's a lot of like thought concepts that I've presented here, but I want to ground them into actual practical tips that allow you to take this mindset and actually use it the next time that you're eating out. Because mindset is huge, but you also need to know exactly what to do when you know that menu lands in your hand. So these are five things that I personally do when tracking macros and eating out and they're simple. They're doable. And no, I'm not telling you to bring your food scale to the restaurant. Okay, we don't need to be perfect. You just need to be thoughtful. 

Look at the menu ahead of time 17:15

So tip number one is to look at the menu ahead of time. And this is such a small thing, but it can make such a difference. If you can pull out the menu ahead of time, you can make your decision in a more controlled, easier-to-make-a-decision environment, right? We just, we all know that when you're at a restaurant and there's pressure to decide and there's other people at the table and the waiter standing there waiting and you're just like, ah, I'm just going to like pick something. You're going to make a better decision. If you can take some time to look at things ahead of time, make that decision in a quiet environment at your table or at your desk or in your bed or wherever you're looking at the menu, you'll make a better decision. And then you can go into the meal a little bit more confident. This also allows you, if you would like to, to pre-log what you're eating into your day ahead of time so that you can build the rest of your day around what you want to eat when you go out to a restaurant. 

So we're not making any decisions when we're hungry or when we're at the restaurant, you're giving yourself time to make a choice that you're excited about and feels exciting to eat and then also aligns with your goals. And you're also taking the time to kind of figure out how am I going to track this? You know, if it's a chain restaurant, it's usually pretty easy to find the nutritional info online, but for many restaurants, it's impossible to find the nutritional info online. So now you can come up with some sort of plan of attack of how are you going to track this? You're going to have to estimate to some extent and that's okay because remember, repeat with me, tracking something is always better than tracking nothing. So you're going to have to estimate, but now you can kind of come up with a plan of how do you want to estimate or is there something that's easier to estimate than maybe some of the other options on the menu? So that's tip number one, look at the menu ahead of time. 

Choose a protein-focused meal 19:03

Tip number two is to choose a protein-focused meal. This does a couple of things. One, protein is the most satiating macro. So it's going to help to fill you up, hopefully on less calories. Number two, protein is often the macro that we struggle the most to hit. It's a lot easier to hit carbs and fat. And so choosing something that is more protein-focused will allow you to be able to hit that a little easier. The third reason that this is really good advice is that when you, most protein-focused meal options are like single item. So what do I mean by that? I mean, you're getting a piece of fish or you're getting some chicken or you're getting some pork. It's a single-ingredient protein serving. And that is much more easy to track than something that is a recipe, you know, of a bunch of ingredients, right? You think of maybe a pasta dish and if you're trying to track it now, there's a lot of ingredients in that pasta dish. So you're going to estimate and you're going to do your best, but it's probably not going to be quite as accurate as just taking some grilled chicken. Grilled chicken at any restaurant is going to be a lot more consistent because it's just a single macro food. It's just a single, it's just a chicken breast. There's, you know, not other things mixed in with it and a recipe. It's easier to track. 

So choosing a protein-focused meals does quite a few things for you. And that's usually the easiest place to go if you're trying to make tracking easier for you, hitting your protein easier for you and, you know, being able to feel a little bit more satiated in the process. So pick your protein, you know, grilled chicken, steak, shrimp, salmon, whatever it is that you're wanting. And then you just kind of build around that. You don't necessarily need to go low carb. You don't necessarily need to skip the sides, but you're giving yourself a really solid macro foundation to be able to work from. 

Overestimate 20:57

Okay, tip number three is if you are going to track when you're going out, I really highly recommend that you overestimate how much fat you're consuming because here's the deal with restaurant foods. It almost always has more fat than you think. Butter in the pan, oil on the veggies, extra dressing or sauces, like the cooks back there, their job is to make the food taste delicious. And guess what makes food taste delicious? More fat. And so restaurants are notorious for adding fat in almost every step of the process. So instead of pretending that there's no fat anywhere, just assume that there is. Assume that there's a little extra fat on everything that you order. And if you're estimating, because you're probably going to need to estimate for a lot of times when you're going out to restaurants, just round it up. Okay, that doesn't mean you're being paranoid. It just means you're being realistic. And if we're estimating, we can either overestimate or underestimate and overestimating gives us a little bit more buffer room.

And on the same vein, if you would like to ask for something to not be made with fat, you certainly can ask the waiter very kindly if that's possible. You know, if you're ordering broccoli or something, you can ask for it steamed rather than, you know, sauteed, that's going to net you less fat. So there's ways to be creative around asking for things to be cooked without fat, ordering things grilled versus fried. But just overall in general, there's just a lot of fat when we go out to restaurants. 

Track what you can to the best of your ability 22:27

Okay, tip number four is to track what you can to the best of your ability. Right? That like that, that is really the name of the game. And this one is for all my perfectionists out there who get really hung up if they can't track it accurately, they just throw in the towel and they don't track it at all. Repeat with me again. Tracking something is better than tracking nothing. You don't need to be exact with the exact grams of butter in the mashed potatoes. You don't need to be exact with exactly how much pasta was in that dish. Focus on tracking the main components of the meal, right? The protein, the carbohydrate source, the sauce, the fat that comes with it. And then it's okay to just let go of the rest, right? Take a deep breath. Something is better than nothing. It's not going to be exact. Just just go in knowing if you are tracking something from a restaurant, it will never be as exact as if you were making yourself. That's just that's just straight up facts. Okay, even if the calories are listed, I promise you the people in McDonald's do not care if their burger is actually exactly what the menu says. Okay, there's so much discrepancy in calories. So you just got to let it go. If you're choosing to eat out, you're choosing to introduce a little bit of inaccuracy and that is okay because again, we're balancing accuracy with living our life in a way that brings us joy. Okay, so something is better than nothing. Track the main components of the meal. Let the rest of it go and what you're avoiding is tossing in the towel just because you can't track it accurately. Progress doesn't come from tracking perfectly. It comes from tracking consistently. 

Zoom out and to remember the big picture 24:04

Okay, and then tip number five is to zoom out and to remember the big picture. One meal does and never will break your progress. Say it again. One meal does not make or break your progress. If you are mostly consistent, if you are 80% consistent over time and you do that for a period of time, you will see results. So if you enjoy the meal, you track it as best you can and then you move on and if you can do that, my friend, you are winning. And the other thing I want to point out here is that you are learning a skill that you're going to use for the rest of your life because you're learning how to make choices without that lifeline of having the macros exactly there because ultimately that's where we want to get to. At least that's where I want to get to. It's where I want to get my clients is I don't want you tracking macros for the rest of your life. I want it to be a tool. I want it to help you understand food. I want it to help you understand portion sizes. I want it to help you understand your body and nutrition. But the whole goal of utilizing it for a period of time is to learn that knowledge, integrate it into you and be able to utilize those tools without having to track. So I want you to be able to go out to eat and be able to eyeball portion sizes. I want you to be able to go out to eat and to be able to kind of estimate in your head, hey, this has about this much protein and that has about that much protein and you know, this is probably a little lower in calorie than this other menu item. Those are skills that I want you to be able to develop. And so if you think about going out to eat as an opportunity to develop those skills that you're going to need for the long term, it almost becomes like a little game that you can kind of play with yourself of like how, how good am I getting at making decisions? How good am I getting at being able to look at the menu and decide, find this balance between deciding something I like and then also deciding what's going to help me to hit my goals. The problem is, is when people feel that tension and they feel like they have to choose one or the other and forsake that other part of them.

So there's a part of them that wants to eat whatever they want and just enjoy the food. And then there's other part of them that wants to stay on track. And it's like, if you pick either part of that of yourself, you feel like you're forsaking or disregarding the other side of you. And so that's a lose-lose situation, right? You can kind of see that you've set yourself up for a lose-lose situation. Either you stick to your plan and you, you know, you don't order the thing that you really want. That's a lose. Or you order the thing you want and then like your plan is in the toilet and that's a lose. So you basically set up a lose-lose situation for yourself. So what's the solution? The solution is to make a choice and to actually own and decide what is important to you at that moment. What is important to you the next day? What is important to you the week after that? And make the decision from that place. I get it. This is like it sounds like easy and then it's really hard when you put it in practice. But what it looks like for me is if I'm going to a restaurant and maybe there's a part of me that wants the chicken Alfredo and wants the, you know, 2,000 calories that come alongside of it. And then there's other part of me saying, well, that's not really worth it to me. I really want to stick to, you know, something that's closer to like five, 600 calories. And I, instead of setting up a fight between those two parts of myself, I'm able to integrate it and say, hey, you know, what's most important to me right now is how I'm going to wake up feeling tomorrow. And so I can look at both of these options and I can decide that I want to eat the 500 calorie option. Not because I can't have the fettuccine Alfredo. I could, I could choose that, but I will not feel good waking up tomorrow having eaten that. So it's not that I can't choose it. It's not that I shouldn't choose it. It's not that I will never choose it. It's that in this moment, I am choosing to have the 500 calorie, even though it's maybe it's not as delicious as the 2,000 calorie option would be, but I'm making the choice. Nobody else is forcing me into, I'm not shitting all over myself. I'm just in that moment, making the decision from the place of how do I want to feel tonight? How do I want to feel tomorrow? How do I want to feel next week? And making the decision from that place and then owning that decision. 

Developing flexible decision-making skills 28:20

It's a process. It is a process for people to learn. And I will say it is a skill that a lot of people lack. It is a skill that is developable, is that a word? Developable. You can develop it. But a lot of people don't have it at this point. And so I think that putting yourself in these situations is actually really great because it's helping you to develop the decision-making capacity and making a decision from not just what I will like in the moment, but being able to make the decision from what do I like in the moment and how will I feel tomorrow? And how will I feel next week? And making the decision from both the short-term benefit, the long-term benefit, the short-term consequence, long-term consequence, that's a skill. And this is an opportunity to be able to practice that skill. 

So these five tips that I just gave you here are tools. They are not rules. So use what fits, leave what doesn't. And I promise you the more that you practice this, the more confident you'll feel walking into any restaurant knowing, hey, I got this. I can figure out how to be as consistent as possible. I can figure out how to estimate this as good as possible. I can let it go that it's not going to be exact because I want to live a life that I enjoy and that is not constrained by having to have everything be very, very exact and very, very rigid. 

What I do when I’m eating out 29:38

Okay, for the last section, I want to do a little like take you behind the scenes and show you what I actually do when I'm eating out. Because again, this is where a lot of women get stuck. They're like I can track fine at home, but if when I'm making the food, but as soon as I go out to eat or go over someone's house for dinner, I feel really lost. So I just want you to let you know that I do not track perfectly when I eat out because that's not the goal. My goal is to stay aware, to stay intentional, and to make good, like make choices, to choose and own the choices that I make. So let me break down what that actually looks like in real life. Sometimes I will log in advance. If I know I'm going somewhere, I will pull up a menu and I will pre-log something that I'm likely to order. Not because like I have to stick to it no matter what, but because it gives me a framework. It helps me build the rest of the day around that meal if needed. Now, I don't, I can't always plan ahead of time. Sometimes my husband comes home and it's like, let's go out for dinner, right? I didn't know we were going out for dinner. It's spontaneous. And so sometimes I will log after the fact because I don't usually like to log in the middle of it because I don't want to be glued to my phone. So I will eat with awareness. I will either take, this is a little tip, I will either take a photo of it or I mean, I can take like a mental image, but I really like to just take a photo of my food and that allows me to like remember all the components and be able to log it when I get home. 

Again, I'm not stressing for like gram level accuracy. I'm looking at the ballpark. I'm searching MacrosFirst to find something that's similar. You know, if I go to a Mexican restaurant and I have a burrito, I'm searching for a burrito that's, you know, similar on MacrosFirst. I'm not looking for the exact burrito. And this again is where the longer that you track, the more nutritional knowledge you're going to have is I can kind of look at burritos now and be like, yeah, this one is more closer to like a 900 calorie burrito versus like a 300 calorie. So when I go on MacrosFirst and there's like all these burritos that I can choose from, I've done this long enough. I have enough just knowledge and information from tracking to know, yeah, this is probably more like a 900-calorie burrito. So I'm going to find one that's closer to that 900-calorie mark. Again, that comes from utilizing the tool that comes from the knowledge that you gain over time of being able to just understand more about nutrition.

So then I make my best guess and then I move on, right? Let's say I get a chicken sandwich and fries. I log, you know, I find a grilled chicken sandwich entry that looks close. I'll pick a generic entry for the fries. I probably will overestimate my portion a little bit. I do this a lot when I'm going out to eat or I'm guesstimating. If I'm going to guesstimate, I'm going to overestimate on how many calories is in something instead of underestimate. And then I move on with my day. I don't worry if the bun was, you know, 100 grams or 200 grams. I don't spiral over how much oil was used. I just make a confident estimate and then I move on because again, I know that my body responds to what I do over time. Not what I do in any one decision or any one day or any one meal. 

And then I will say sometimes I don't track at all. Yeah, but here's the thing. I decide that ahead of time. This is a really important distinction. I'm never going out to eat with the intention of tracking it and then not. If I'm deciding that I'm not going to track it, I'm making that decision ahead of time. I'm deciding this is going to be a meal out. This is an untracked meal. I'm choosing to have this be an untracked meal. This is one of the techniques that I teach inside of MACROS 101 is untracked meals. So I'm having this as an untracked meal. I'm going to go out and I'm going to enjoy it. But that decision is made not in response to feeling like I can't log it. Does that make sense? It's I'm choosing that I'm saying I'm going to go out to eat and I'm just going to enjoy it. And this is just a fun night. It's a conscious choice. It's not a reactive choice. It's not an emotional choice. It's not me just saying screw it. It's not me saying I don't know how to track this. So I'm not it's saying for this experience tracking isn't my priority. And I'm owning that and that's okay.

So the bottom line is when I'm not cooking, I still track it's just a little bit more estimating. I let it be flexible. I let it be imperfect. I let it be good enough to just keep me consistent. And that's exactly what I want for you as well.

Takeaway 34:01

So here's the big takeaway. I want you to walk away with you don't have to choose between eating out and making progress. You don't have to choose between tracking macros and living your life. And you definitely don't have to do it perfectly to see results. You are allowed to want to feel confident in your body and to order a meal. That sounds good. You're allowed to estimate and still move forward. You're allowed to make it messy and figure it out in real time and do it badly and poorly and to get better at it over time. Because the truth is, is this is a becoming process, right? You're becoming the kind of woman who walks into a restaurant without a panic who makes choices that aligns with her goals, who doesn't crumble if the fries weren't measured. You're becoming a woman who is in charge of her own experience. And you're not just following the rules that someone else gave her. You're becoming a woman who is in charge of her own experience. And you're not just following the rules that somebody else gave you. This is what it looks like to own your process, to start to learn to trust yourself, to start to build results through consistency, not through obsession. 

So here's what I want you to do. The next time you eat out, try just one of the tips from today. Preview the menu, pick a protein-forward meal, make your best estimate, move on, you know, track what you can or what you can't and see how it feels to choose to track something rather than nothing. And then, and this is a really important part, reflect on it. Ask yourself, how did I handle that? Would I do it the same in the future? What might I tweak next time? One really great question I love to ask myself is if I had that to do over again, what would I change? And then I change that next time. And that's how you get better. That's how you improve. That's how you build that consistency over time. Not because you're perfect right out of the gate, but because you're willing to do it messy. You're willing to not be great at it. And you're willing to get that feedback, have that little debrief session with yourself and then improve it for the next time. That kind of reflection, that is where real change starts. So you've got this, I promise you progress is still possible, even if you aren't perfect. 

And if you want more support with this process from, you know, figuring out your numbers to adjusting your macros to making this all sustainable, I highly recommend checking out MACROS 101 when we open doors. So you can get on the waitlist now, if you go to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist, and you can come join us the next time we opened up doors to MACROS 101. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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