Podcast Transcription: 564: Simplifying Food Tracking: How To Count Calories Without Getting Obsessed with Ted Ryce (Part 2)

Ted Ryce: Welcome back to the podcast. Today is part two of ‘How to Track Your Food Without Becoming Totally Obsessive’. Now, if you haven't listened to part one on last Monday, that's episode 477. You want to go and listen to that episode first because I talk about how to approach food tracking properly, how to look at it properly, what are the proper expectations you should have, and how to get started if you're a complete beginner.

So, if you haven't heard part one, I want you to go back to Episode 477 and listen to that one first and follow what I give you to do there. And after you do that for a week or two, then you're going to get on this episode, and follow what I'm going to share today.

Now if you've already done a week of what you learned in Episode 477, in part one, welcome to today; we're going to take things up to the next level. I want to be clear here. This is…how should I say this? Well, let me say like this: tracking is the single best way to achieve sustainable weight loss. You probably heard me say that. But why? Why would you say such a thing? Why would you make a strong statement like that? That sounds like those dumb things that everyone says online, and they don't really back them up. It's just about marketing and taking a tough stance. Why would you say that, Ted?

And I'll be honest with you, I could quote research, there's, I believe, 22 studies that I'm aware of that support tracking as a way to achieve weight loss. But I want to give you a different perspective on this. I want to tell you something that I believe is more important for you. Here's the thing: most diets have you go from what you're currently doing to something completely different. In other words, let's say you're eating a lot of carbs, and you're like, “Oh gosh, I want to lose weight, let me do keto.”

So, you have a natural inclination and natural tendencies in terms of your food choices, right? And doing keto, let's say if you like carbs—I like to eat bread. I like to eat fruit. “Oh, but I’ve got to do keto, because I’ve got to lose weight.” So, you drastically change what you're doing. Now, this works, but the problem is, it's hard for people to stick with.

And look, I want to tell you something, I'm not against doing restrictive diets for a short period of time. The problem is, most people can't stick with it. And there's even research on Keto. Now, if you're a person who is a Keto person, welcome, this will work for you too, it doesn't matter. And that's what I love about food tracking. There is no: oh, sugar makes you fat or fat makes you fat or carbs make you fat, all of that dogma, all of that really, you know, what is it? It's like nutrition as a religion, sort of cultish behavior and beliefs. It all goes away.

And what you learn is that, ah, you don't need to be that perfect with your diet to lose weight and get very lean.

And you don't need to get on that yo-yo cycle or binge-restrict cycle where if you resonate with this, where you're super strict—like, I used to be super strict, I would not buy fruit, because fruit had sugar, even though it was natural sugar and put with fiber and water, and it's actually very satiating, but still it had carbs in it, especially sugar, sugar was a dirty word. I never bought fruit and I tried to avoid eating it. And then I would just go crazy after a while and I would have to binge on something.

And if you've been down that road, this is where tracking comes in. Because you don't necessarily need to change the foods that you're eating. Actually, I'll be honest with you, technically, you don't have to change them at all. Even if you're eating Oreo cookies and pizza and pasta, lasagna. What you do need is to learn how many calories there are in the foods you're currently eating, and then making them fit into, what I like to call, your calorie budget. And if you do that, you’ll lose weight.

And I want to talk about this budget idea. You're on a budget, I'm on a budget, there's a certain money I can spend in my lifestyle. And if I overdo that, then I'm going to go in debt, just like you. So, I could walk down the street and just throw money in the street, I could buy $20 drinks at the bar, I could invest in a Tony Robbins seminar, I could go to the movies, there are so many things that I could do.

And as long as I stay within my budget, I’m not going to go in debt. And the same thing is true with your food budget, or your calorie budget. You can eat a certain amount of calories from all different types of foods. And as long as you hit your calorie target, you're going to lose weight. And that's what I love about this, because there's flexibility here. And also, you get results without the craziness.

Now, some people do get a little obsessive or a little crazy with tracking. In fact, there's some research that links track food tracking to…how should I say it? It can be triggering to people who've had eating disorders before. So, if you've had an eating disorder, and I mean, a real eating disorder, not, “Oh, when are you one potato chip, I have to eat the whole bag.” That's a normal response to process food or hyper palatable food. That's not an eating disorder, okay?

If you have a diagnosed eating disorder, then you want to make sure you work with a therapist. But if you're not that, or you've diagnosed yourself on WebMD, you're a Google doctor, you're good to go here, okay? You've Googled a few things. Come on, we've all done it trying to— and I'm guilty of this as well.

But anyway, back on task here. So, what I want you to understand this is that even if you're eating some ice cream, cookies, pizza chips, even every day, you can still lose fat. And what you also learn is even if you're eating super clean, organic paleo approved foods, it doesn't matter, if you overeat your calories, you're going to get fat. And that's the big lesson I took away from tracking my food. I'm like, “Man, it doesn't matter if I make these super healthy choices….’

Now I'm going to get into details because it does matter. There are some things that do matter. But for the most part, you have this freedom. And you may say, “Well, Ted, I don't want to eat cookies. That's terrible. I still think that's terrible. I don't care what you're saying right now. It's still terrible.” Great, but listen to me. I'm not telling you, listen, this is a way you can eat more cookies in your diet.

What I'm saying is it doesn't matter what your nutrition approach is. Are you a vegan? This works. Are you keto? This works. Do you hate sugar, or think it's the devil incarnate, little white crystals, right? You don't have to eat anything you don't want to eat. And on the other side of that, you can eat things that you do want to eat, even if they don't have the health halo around them.

And if you don't know what the health halo is, it's what we do to foods where we think they're healthy, and then other foods are unhealthy, without really adding context.

Now I want to say something, I think that can be a helpful dichotomy when someone's really low in their nutritional education: ‘These foods are good, these foods are bad.”

But listen, you listen to this show, you're way beyond that, you know what's considered good, you know that there's something different about eating salad with a lot of greens and a little bit of olive oil and some chicken breast is very different than eating a bowl of Netflix and chill Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

So, what we're trying to do is take it to the next level. And I want to say this, there are some nuances here, but these nuances only matter if you're trying to get really lean. So, if you're a woman and you're trying to get to 15% body fat, the nuances are really going to matter. If you're a man and you're trying to get to 10% or lower, these are going to really matter.

But I don't want to talk about the nuances today, because it's too much information. You have on your white belt right now. You’ve got to get your stripe and then you got to get the next stripe and then you’ve got to get your blue belt, which in Brazilian Jujitsu, that's the second belt. You don't go from white belt to Black Belt. You've got to pay your dues because you're going to get your ass kicked. That's what happens when white belts try to jump in to the black belt, or purple belt competitions. They just get their ass kicked. And that's what happens.

And what does that show up as, “Oh, I tried tracking but it didn't work for me.” Yeah, you got your ass kick, you don't know what you're doing. You tried to do it too much, you had no instruction and you failed. Of course, you failed. You don't have the skills, you don't have the knowledge, you get your butt kicked. It's okay. I've tried to do it too. I'm not pointing the finger here. I'm just trying to help you understand, or, ‘Whoo, I got a little crazy when I started tracking, okay? Because you don't know what you're doing. And that's what we're going to try to do today.

So again, what I want you to understand here and learn from this is that you can get fat by eating too many calories from healthy foods. I'm going to repeat that again. You can and will get fat if you overeat foods that you've been told they're super healthy. So, olive oil, grass fed ribeye steak, acai bowls from your favorite juice place, Brazil nuts, dried mangoes, goji berries, it doesn't matter, too many calories from these things, and you'll gain weight.

And the other side is true too, just repeat it again, if you want to fit in some ice cream, some cookies, some pizza, some chips. Even every day, I had a client who had, I believe, it was M&Ms. He wanted to eat something sweet every day, so he had he ate all his foods. And at the end, he rewarded himself with some M&Ms.

You may say that's wrong. You say that's wrong, what he did. But that's not how coaching works. That's not how working with people works. You have to work with people—and this goes for you and working with yourself. You’ve got to work with where you are. And if the idea of giving up all the delicious foods, M&Ms and the cookies, whatever, you feel like that…That's what drags people back into the yo-yo dieting, so we don't want to do that. Now it's time to step your game up and find that middle way.

So, let's get into it. And what I want you to do, I want you to take notes here. Now, you may be driving in your car. A lot of people listen to the podcast when they drive in their car. That's cool. But I want you to understand something, you're going to have to go back over this and take some notes because this is more like a masterclass. In fact, I can't do it now, I'm having the idea, but it would have been cool to have like some handout that we could give you to follow. So that you could start getting some results with this.

Anyway, if you're driving and you just want to listen and come back to it to see if you want to take notes in the first place, you're like, “Let me see what you're going to say, Ted, then I’ll decide whether I got to take some notes. That's fine. If you want pause right now, and then come back. And let's jump into it.

So, the first thing to do here is choose your food tracker. I use My Fitness Pal is what I use for my clients. I've tried other apps; I don't like them as much. And My Fitness Pal has some really cool functionality that I haven't seen on other tracking apps. Now, people will tell you different things. People will tell you, ‘Oh, Chronometer is better. It gives you a micronutrient breakdown.” I think that's kind of bullshit, because we’re pretending like these numbers are real. And I'll come back to that a little bit later. You don't want to pretend like these numbers are real. If you don't understand what that means, I will explain it for you later. But there's some error here. There's some estimation, or even better put, guestimation, even by the food companies, they can be off 20%.

So anyway, choose your food app. I use My Fitness Pal, there's also Chronometer. You can even use an old-fashioned pen and paper. What's important here is that you start one and use it. Personally, I hated My Fitness Pal when I first started; I shared that with you. But you're not going to like any of them when you first start. I embrace tech, but I'm a little bit resistant to it. Sometimes. You're going to have the same learning curve. And now I love My Fitness Pal, it's super easy for me. So, choose one, stick with it.

Number two, when you're starting out, just track things, ignore the amounts, don't measure. Unless you've already been measuring and weighing, just start tracking. Just start tracking. And this is different than what I shared before, because now you're going to be tracking everything, now you're going to be tracking the whole day. Not everything; I'm going to share with you later on some of the things that you should skip, some pro tips on that.

But you're going to be tracking all the major sources of calories in your meals, is what I mean. So, try to get the amount right, but don't focus on it too much. Just focus on the foods themselves and getting used to logging all the foods that you eat. Even the peanut, M&Ms, even the Oreo cookies, even mom's lasagna, whatever it is.

What you're trying to do here is to build up the habit of tracking regularly. And also, to develop awareness of the food choices. So just start out by tracking. You're going to be tracking all the days, all the foods, but don't try to get the amounts right just yet, just track them.

The next thing you want to do, if you haven't invested in a digital kitchen scale. After you've developed the habit of becoming consistent after a couple days, should take you three days to become consistent somewhere in there. Start getting more accurate, weigh things, measure things. This is really important because you’ve got to get accurate here. As the cliche goes, “the devil is in the details.” And the details are where the major results are going to come from.

The next one is: have shortcuts. Really important, have shortcuts. I want to tell you exactly what I mean here because if not, you can go crazy. For example, today I had a bowl of fruit. And there was, I don't know, six or seven different fruits in there and just small amounts. So, if I would have like, said, “Okay, well there's an ounce and a half of green apple and then there's half a banana and then there's half a cup of berries,’ drive you nuts.

So, what do I do? mixed fruit, boom. Same thing with veggies, mixed veggies, I don't have time for: “There's a quarter cup of mushrooms, half a couple of kale...” I don't. Nobody has time for that, have shortcuts, have shortcuts for the things that don't matter as much. The fruit isn't making you fat, neither are other vegetables. You’ve got to get an idea of what you're eating, but you don't have to be perfect. The idea here again is not to be perfect, it's to get results.

Another thing is only track things with calories. There's no need to track your black coffee. Now, in My Fitness Pal, there's other shortcuts. What I love about My Fitness Pal, and I think other apps probably do this too, but if you eat the same foods regularly, which most of us do, My Fitness Pal remembers them. So, it's really easy just to go up, boom, have the same thing for breakfast today, as I did yesterday, it remembers it.

You can also even create recipes. If you have a recipe that you eat regularly, you can create a recipe. I have all these classes, these videos, these tutorials rather, in my coaching program. You’ve got to look them up on YouTube, no problem. But have some shortcuts. If you're spending more than 15 minutes doing this, I mean, occasionally, you can go a little bit over if you're really trying to learn something, taking your knowledge deeper. But if you're spending more than 15 minutes regularly, you're overdoing it. You've got to come up with some shortcuts.

I'll share one more thing with you. I ate at a buffet yesterday; delicious buffet, had ribeye, you know, the type of buffet where they grill the steaks for you. And it was a brunch buffet, but they had ribeye steak and filet mignon, and they had bone marrow. So, it's that type of buffet, right? And some great cheese. And so, I eat a ton of food. I just ate for about two hours. Had a bunch of coffees—actually, just two coffees, mostly water, and I had several steaks. Now, they were small steaks, probably three or four ounces each, ate about 2000 calories.

And what did I do? I ate such a disparate array of different foods. Again, what did I do? Did I try to look up everything? No. I have a technique I teach my clients this is called a Chinese buffet technique. Why do I call it that? Because I looked up a buffet in My Fitness Pal, and it's a Chinese buffet, and they do it by the plate. And so, a plate is 1000 calories. So, it just kind of think, ‘Okay, well, how many plates have I had here?” Well, about two, okay. 2000 calories, it is, Chinese buffet technique. Give it a try.

Next one, get your spouse or family involved. You don't want to—I talked about this before—you don't want to break out the My Fitness Pal, everybody thinks you're scrolling on Instagram or Facebook or arguing about politics, on Twitter or whatever it is. Communicate with them, let them know, if your family doesn't understand what you're doing. They might get a little irritated with you, and then you're going to get discouraged.

There's actually even a study that observed that supportive spouses help people lose more weight, because they're supportive, they're in on it. You didn't need a study to tell you that. When people understand what you're doing, and they have your back, it’s going to go a lot smoother. Same thing with your children, explain it to them. If they're like, “Daddy, why are you weighing your food? That's weird.”

That's weird, because I've never seen anybody do it before. But then they see 70% percent of the population overweight or obese. And that's being nice, right? More than 70% of the population are over fat. But 70% of us are really in bad shape. They're seeing that, explain it to them, and don't be weird about it. Just say, “Well, listen, I want to be more…” Just tell them, “It's like having a budget. Mommy and daddy spend a certain amount of money every month. And if we spend too much money, we go in debt, and that's not good.

Unless you're using that debt to build your business, but that's a story for another time. But going into debt isn't good. And when you overeat food, you put on too much fat. Now you don't have to look perfect, but it helps you, it's a way to be budgeting, it's a way to budget yourself. And also, so you can eat all the delicious foods that you love but to get an idea of how much you can eat without going over your budget. Explain it to them.

Next one - log foods you've already eaten after the meal. What does that mean? Well, you want to graduate to anticipating logging the foods you will eat, once you understand your preferences and habits better. So don't wait. To get to that point, you want to get to the point where you're doing this right after. So, if you eat, sit there, two or three minutes, log everything, have the shortcuts, but log everything after right after the meal.

And this last one this is—and I'll be honest with you, I don't do this. This is advanced, but I want to tell you something, I'm able to get obnoxiously lean without doing this, but it's something that I'm sharing with you because some of my clients like to do it, they weigh their foods and log ahead of time. If they know they're eating the same breakfast the next day, they'll log that breakfast ahead of time, and then just eat it. Same thing goes with lunch or dinner.

Now, if that resonates with you, give it a try. For me, I'll tell you, it doesn't work. I'm like, I'm chaotic, that's why I do really well with food tracking, because I'm not trying to be so perfect. I'm just trying to be good enough to get the results.

So, I'm just going to recap there. Number one, choose your food tracker. My recommendation My Fitness Pal. Number two, when you're first starting out, take a break with this scale, just get in the habit of tracking all the foods in every meal, including the snacks. Do your best if you already know the amount, but don't try to overdo it, just ignore the amounts, unless it's super easy.

Number three, make sure you start weighing and measuring. Number four have those shortcuts; you've got to have some shortcuts—some go-to’s. Number five, get your spouse and children involved. You want to communicate to them what you're doing. You don't want to be weird and just start doing something different without explaining it. That's weird, okay? You want to explain what they're doing; you want to get them on board. They may want to do some things with you, it might be really cool.

Number six, log your foods right after you eat them. Don't wait till tomorrow. Don't wait till a few hours later and try to rely on your memory. Take a few minutes, even go to the bathroom, do it, sit on the toilet, I don't know, find a way to make it happen.

And then number seven, again, this is advanced, and I don't even do this. And I don't think you need to I'm only sharing this because some of my clients are— you might find it helpful. So, weigh and log ahead of time. If you know where you're going to eat, if you know what you're going to eat, why do it right after the meal when you can do it before? Now again, I don't do it, I just logged my meal right after.

So, there you have it, these seven tips I have for you, but I have more. Because it's not just about this, I gave you how to do it, how to track. But what's also important here is how to make sure you're getting results.

So, number one, weigh in weekly. Losing fat isn't about some magic number, calculated from some equation you found online. You may be asking, “Well, you didn't give me any calories to hit.” We're going to talk about that now.

Weigh, and you may not have to adjust anything. Just start tracking, weigh yourself weekly. Is there a change after a week? Yes or No? If yes, then don't do anything. Don't manipulate your numbers. No need to. If you're losing weight, take the progress, and keep going until you stop getting results.

Now what happens if you're not getting results? Well, then we're going to have to make a change. And what is that? Well, that brings us to number two. If you're not losing weight after one week, drop your calories by 200. So go into My Fitness Pal, go into your calorie goals, drop it by 200 of whatever you're doing. And then test that for a week.

And what you're trying to get here, half a pound or a pound a week. If you get more, fantastic, great for you. But you’ve got to get something consistently when you're first starting out, unless you're already been dieting down and you've lost a bunch of pounds.

So again, if you're not getting results, drop by 200 and do that for a week. And if you're not losing weight after that, again, drop it 200 again. And you keep doing this until you get this scale moving.

Actually, it would be better to use other things and not just the scale. What I like to do in my coaching— I not only have them weigh weakly, I have them take photos.

To cut

So, make sure you're doing something else, either using the way your clothes fit, or taking some photos, in addition to weighing in to make sure that you're losing fat. However, the weight should show, the weight loss should show.

Number three exercise, you should be able to lose weight without any exercise at all. Remember, when I said it's easier to cut 500 calories from your diet than to burn 500 calories through exercise. That's not just a pithy one liner that you say because it'll perform while on social media, that's the truth. So just know that if you're not going to exercise, you're going to lose more muscle than you want.

And even if you're doing cardio, around 25% of the weight you lose is going to be muscle. So, you really want to make sure your weight training two or three times a week and you do total body workouts.

Number four, choose hunger fighting foods. Are you losing weight, but hunger is causing issues? If that's the case, then we're going to need to adjust some of your food choices so that you're able to stay in the calorie deficit without turning into one of those people in a Snicker Bars commercial.

Here's what I want you to do. Look up Google the “satiety index” or DuckDuckGo if you're that type of person, the “satiety index” and click on images. Find the version of it that's easiest for you to read and save it to your phone or desktop or both.

And start looking at your meals, review your breakfast, your lunch, your dinner, your snacks and see how many of the foods from the satiety index are on your meals. Now, the satiety index doesn't have every food on there, but it has a bunch of them. And you can start making sure, for example, boiled potatoes, maybe not super sexy and appetizing, but they can help with hunger.

And if you're willing to have some boiled potatoes with dinner, you might be able to squeeze in something hyper palatable that usually triggers people to eat more like ice cream for me. If you have a bowl potato for dinner, I'm not saying you should do this, I'm saying that's an example. And that's an example from my life.

So, look up that satiety index and start using the higher satiety foods and look to see if you're eating some of the low satiety foods. And then now you understand because most people think, “Oh, I'm hungry, that means I need food.”

No, you don't, if you’ve got a gut, you’ve don't need food. Not from a survival perspective. You may need it for your energy levels and so you don't get irritable and snap at everybody, but you ain't going to die. Not for weeks.

You could go weeks without food, not healthy for you. I'm just saying it's not necessary. But why are we hungry? Why are overweight people and obese people hungry, it doesn't make any sense, except while I'm not going to go into the brain signaling of hunger, but just know that if you're trying to get full eating potato chips and ice cream, that's not going to work very well, because it signals to our brain to eat more, they're hyper palatable foods.

And some of us are going to be more susceptible to hyper palatable foods than others. And some of us are going to be more susceptible to certain foods than others. For example, croissants score really low on satiety, but I had a croissant today. I don't feel like I need another croissant, but if you give me ice cream, or if you give me a bag of cashews, I don't care if that bag of cashews is three ounces or five ounces or however many ounces, the whole thing is probably going to disappear in one day. And if it's a really big bag, then I'll give it a day and a half.

So, some foods, even if they're not hyper palatable like nuts, they're very low satiety. And you want to personalize this. Again, I don't have problems with croissants, even though that's the food that rated the lowest and satiety. But ice cream is a real problem for me. You want to individualize this as well.

And the last thing I'll say about this is hire help if you're struggling with this. I had a client, sign up with me recently—shout out to you, Gregorio. Man, this guy's crushing it. He's lost six pounds in less than two weeks. Some of that's water, but let me tell you, that weight on the scale ain't going to go back up. He's going to be such a rockstar, I can't, you know, I love…He's super fired up too. Oh, this guy's going to make such an impressive transformation.

But here's the thing: when he first came to me, he was tracking, he lost 60 pounds on his own, I believe it was. And to take things to the next level, he started tracking. And when he started tracking, he actually gained seven or eight pounds from tracking. So if you're struggling with this, if you started tracking and you gained weight, if you went through all these things and said, “Oh, Ted doesn't know what he's talking about, I tried what he said, and it didn't work.” I get results with everybody. You just probably need some more specialized help.

Kind of like with me with business. This stuff is really easy to me. I've been doing it for almost 23 years. And it comes really easy. I learned things quickly. I can learn things from podcasts and from reading—coaching is better. But I can learn things very easily because it's something I already have a high amount of knowledge and skill in. But when it comes to business, I just hired my second coach this year, I worked with a coach for six months, a coaching group, actually. And now I hired another coach or got into another coaching group. They helped me with my business.

I'm kind of slow learning business stuff. I mean, that's just me. And if you relate to the way I'm talking about business, if you if that resonates with you with the way that you're struggling with your weight, with getting in shape, with losing fat, with looking and feeling your best. Hire help, it’s that easy. All it takes is money. Of course, you’ve got to show up, you've got to do the work. But if you're motivated, and you're doing well financially, if you're financially stable, it's the easiest way to get results. It's so easy. When you work with someone.

Like Gregorio, he went from gaining weight on tracking to boom, he lost all that weight that he put on—almost all of it, he's he gained like seven pounds from tracking. And he's going to make a massive transformation. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait. If you want that type of results, just find someone and pay them. If you've got the burning fire, and you want to get this handled, and you're struggling on your own, and you're financially stable, just find someone and pay them, it's that simple.

It's the fastest. It's like, the biggest secret, right? It's like the secret to get results. Listen, I did it recently with business, I find the best, I pay them, I follow what they told me to do. I have the motivation, boom, and my business does better, I make more money, and do it in a way that is less stressful, most importantly. And for me, that's worth it financially, because the stress you're going to have to pay for anyway, some way.

Anyway, enough about that, but just go over how to make sure you're getting results, number one, weigh weekly. Also use photos and how your clothes fit, as well. But you kind of track your progress, is what I should have called that. Number two, drop 200 calories per week. If you're not getting results, test it for a week, then do it again if you need to. Keep doing it until you finally get the results you're looking for, until you finally get this scale moving. By the way, you don't want to lose weight too fast unless you're in the obese category, so you might need to bump up 200 calories.

Number three exercise you should be able to lose weight without any exercise at all, but we don't want to do that. Strength training is best, cardio is not as good. And if you're just one of those people, it's like, “Ah, I can't do cardio, can't lift weights,” then get your butt out there and walk. But do something.

Number four, choose hunger-fighting foods. Look up the satiety index, Google it, save it to your phone, refer to it frequently until you've memorized some of the choices. And number five, hire help if you're struggling, fastest way to get results, easiest way to get results.

And that's that, folks. Hope you enjoyed this, and I will speak to you this Friday.