431. FIT GIRL FALL: "Do I Have To Hit All My Macros Perfectly For Fat Loss?"

Lauren Hubert (0:06)

Hello, my beautiful people, and welcome back to episode two of Fit Girl Fall on the Hot, Healthy, Never Hungry podcast. The entire month of October, we are dedicating to Fit Girl Fall, which is all about getting into the best shape of your life. During a time of year, people usually let their health and wellness and habits go to the wayside.

This year's theme is on lock in, level up, and this podcast in the entire month of October honestly is for the women in our community who are ready to lock in. They're ready to level up. They're not interested. They're fully committed to make the most out of this month of October and these three months left in the year. This is not time to lose steam. This is time to actually speed up, get ahead before the new year push. That is what we are focusing on.

For today's episode, we're going to discuss if you need to actually hit your calories and macros perfectly for fat loss, because there's a lot of misconception around what it actually takes to achieve your fat loss goals. And while I love precision, the reality is no, you do not. Once you calculate your calories and once you figure out your macro split, and if you're new to this concept, macros are the carbs, proteins, and fats in your diet. And you need a certain amount of them in certain percentages, but also in grams. And those grams correlate to calories.

There are a certain amount of calories per gram in carbs, proteins, and fats. And so as they add up together, that gives you your total calorie budget. So your macros are very connected and interconnected to your total calorie intake whether or not you track them. For many women, we may not want to track our calories and macros forever. Heck, I do not. However, understanding your macros split can really help you understand how to hit your calorie budget. It can help you understand how much protein or how many carbs or how much fat you need in a meal or throughout the day, which directly influences not just hitting your calories, but honestly, influences you're hitting your body's nutritional needs. It's wildly important for fat loss. Going back to the question, once you get those numbers, do you have to hit them perfectly? No, you do not. What I often share with my clients is sometimes there are women that we need a lot of precision because that is what's holding you back from fat loss. For many women, we can actually have some flexibility built into your approach that will give you more freedom and flexibility around food while also still prioritizing the goals that you have at hand. So here are some best practices to keep in the back of your mind as you're navigating Fit Girl fall on your own.

First off, when it comes to hitting your calories and macros, the most important thing, which is why I say they are king, are calories. Calories are king. That is why we start with calories before we dive into macros. Even if you don't track your macros, you could hypothetically lose fat and lose weight by focusing on calories, because calories ultimately are the energy that are going to determine if you lose, maintain, or gain weight. Once you get into macro counting, what I often suggest for many women, especially part of slim down, eat up, and the method I teach you inside of that program, oftentimes it can be really helpful to focus on calories and then protein as your main focus. That's helpful because going in day one, trying to hit all your macros is not just very overwhelming, but I think that's you up to fail. You're not going to perfectly eat your calories and macros every single day. Even if you're more advanced at this, unless you're literally eating the same thing on repeat, which I want you to eat many things on repeat, but I also understand that we're humans and this is fall and it's a busy time of year. And when we're trying to make changes, even with the best intentions, we're not always going to be perfect. And you don't have to be, because I'll give you an example here. If I have a client or myself that randomly one day decides to have more fat in her diet, because she decided to go for a higher fat protein a couple of times a day. She went for eggs, she had a full fat yogurt, and she also had salmon as her dinner when she usually maybe eats chicken and overnight oats with whey protein powder for her breakfast and whatever other meals. I bring this context up because she may have still hit her daily calorie budget, and she might have still hit her protein target, but her carbs and fats might be a little different because she allocated them differently. She may have had alongside that salmon, some avocado and some cheese, and while fat stacking can certainly add up into extra calories if you're accounting for them and your protein is still the same, that is no big deal. So this is a really great example that there are days where you might not be just like 5 or 10 grams or even 15 grams over a certain macro, but you might be actually really much higher, maybe like 20 grams higher in a certain macro, which I'm not reinforcing that that's normal in the sense of, I want you to do that and that's the goal. But what I'm trying to convey to you is if you're hitting your calories and you're hitting your protein and you're losing fat, there is nothing that you're doing wrong.