Honestly, it varies. The thing I love about intuitive eating, is that I get to honour my body’s hunger levels. This means some days I eat 3000 calories, other days I eat 1500. When I focused on macros alone, I personally found I disregarded my hunger levels and focused only on the numbers – fats, carbs, protein. In some ways this was great because it really helped me to understand what macronutrients I was overdoing and which ones I wasn’t getting enough of.
However, focusing only on the numbers can leave you in a bit of a challenging situation on days when your macros don’t align with your needs. I personally experienced this quite often. For instance, on days when I was more active than usual I would find myself very hungry even after “finishing” my macros for the day. I’d then have the opposite problem on rest days, overly sedentary days or days when I just lacked an appetite. I’d be forcing myself to finish off my macros because numbers, numbers, numbers and honestly nothing makes me feel worse than feeling like I have to finish something.
And while you certainly can make modifications to your macros based on training days, rest days, etc., I didn’t do well with having 2 different sets of macros for different days. I don’t regret tracking macros for such a long period of time because it taught me so much about eating, myself, my needs and it allows me to understand the pros and cons to another way of eating. However, this is also why I believe there is no best diet or approach to eating. Some people will thrive with macros and find it extremely sustainable. Others will find it detrimental to their relationship with food which will do more harm than good. The best approach will always be one that you can sustain long term, think lifelong! More often than not, it means taking a little of this and a little of that and finding your own way through trial and error.
If you’re looking for help reaching your goals (weight loss, weight gain, maintenance) you can contact me for more info on nutrition coaching.
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Just curious how tall you are? I know height plays a factor in aesthetics obviously. 150 lbs on someone 5”8 is going to look a lot different than on someone who is 5”2. Thanks!