Accidental Fasting

Over the past 1-2 years, I feel like my progress in the gym has been stagnant. I could make a lot of excuses as to why: working 80 hours per week, transitioning from working days to nights, or living off of hospital cafeteria food (it’s actually pretty decent/healthy). The truth, however, is that I haven’t had a goal and I’ve been perfectly okay with that. Making it to the gym a few times per week and going through the motions was success enough. Recently however, I have found myself a bit beat down by residency, one of the many phases shared by all of my co-residents. We dedicate so much our time to our career and our patients, that it’s hard to prioritize ourselves. I’m sure this is a feeling shared by many of you. After all, life is busy, and we are constantly pulled in numerous directions.

I have felt the need to make a change and to work toward a new goal. In doing so, I’ve started to track calories and macros, something that I have never done before with any consistency. I have always considered myself a fairly healthy eater, partly by choice and partly due to my picky nature. What I’ve discovered has shocked me. Call it accidental intermittent fasting (minus the intermittent part). The calories I have been consuming at meals have not been enough to sustain a workout, let alone make any gains, and my daily fat content often reached 50%. Granted these were healthy fats, a handful of nuts here, avocado toast there, but I also had no problem eating peanut butter out of a jar rather than making a meal. A) It tasted better. B) It took less energy. C) It’s peanut butter, enough said. [Pro tip- buy natural peanut butter. It may take some time for your taste buds to adjust, but you’ll never go back and your body will thank you.]

After the first few days of tracking to get a baseline, I made a new goal for myself. I had a generalized idea of my target macro ratios, but little idea of whether research supported that goal. So… I did a little dig. Excited to share the cold hard facts in my first evidence-based mini-series on #Macros.

#Embracemovement #Macros #PhysicianLife #RealHealth #PeanutButter