You just signed up for nutrition coaching and received your macronutrient (proteins and fats) prescription from your coach. And you’re now thinking “I got my macros! Now what?”
The first thing you will need to do is purchase a body weight scale, a food scale, and a flexible measuring tape. These are some of the tools that will help us measure progress.
Now you are ready to go grocery shopping. We recommend keeping your meals simple the first few weeks until you become proficient at planning and hitting your protein macros. Your first grocery haul should consist of basic foods such as meats, eggs, chicken, fish, and dairy. After a few weeks, we encourage clients to broaden their meal choices and learn how to cook more elaborate meals.
Here are MacroLab’s “Top 10” best practices to getting off to a great start:
1. Pre-plan your day. Take 10 minutes every day to plan out the following day’s meals. Then execute your plan!
2. Although MyFitnessPal is a great tool, it is not always 100% accurate. Get familiar with nutrition labels and verify what you are eating against what you are logging.
3. Weigh everything – at first, so that you know how much protein is in whatever meat you’re eating.
4. Make sure that you hit your water and protein goals.
5. Get at least 7 hours of sleep per night.
6. You don’t get credit for undereating. Eat a minimum of your bodyweight in grams of protein.
7. Workout! But don’t overtrain as more is not better.
8. Don’t let the scale get you upset. Your weight will go up and down all the time. What is important is that we make progress long term.
9. Ask your coach for help when you need it.
10. Be fully committed to the program!