A nutrition case study

Five years ago, I hired a nutrition coach because I wanted the extra accountability. This was during the pandemic when everything was shut down except for essential businesses. Unfortunately, the gym I used to co-own was not one of those businesses.

I had nothing but time and a razor-sharp focus on my goals. Each week, I checked in, received my updated macros, and was on point. Inevitably, all that focus reached a point where I had “macro fatigue,” and I wanted to start to eat without the detailed weekly tracking.

I emailed my coach and explained the situation to him, but his reply was not what I expected. You see, all he knew how to do was track macros, and his reply was paraphrased as such:

You could do that (not track), but you won’t have that data in place, so you won’t know what happens when we add a few carbs here or take some away.

I decided to end our coaching relationship, and that interaction made me realize that many nutrition coaches cannot troubleshoot someone’s lifestyle without using numbers.

Numbers are easy.

You have calories, protein, carbs, and fats.

Every day, you look at those numbers and try to get as close to them as possible.

It sounds simple, right?

It can be anything but simple for many people, and that is the gap between food and life.

It is never about the food. It’s about food in the context of your daily existence.

A 25-year-old powerlifter without children isn’t the same as a 27-year-old single mother of three. The lifter only has himself to worry about, and that provides a more comfortable level of food competence. It is easier to stay on a plan when your life is solely lived for yourself. That isn’t to say the lifter won’t have food issues, but those issues are significantly different from those of the single mother who can barely find time to eat.

Using the single mother as an example, she has to wake up early, get her kids ready for the day, cook them breakfast, ensure they eat, and rush around to get ready for work. She may not often have time to make herself something to eat because her time is pressed, and sitting down to enjoy a meal while worrying about her obligations can be impossible.

Is the answer, “track macros, harder,” or do you find a way for her to get some calories in without stress?

Greek yogurt, berries, and granola - these can be easily mixed into a bowl for her to eat between checking the stove, ensuring the kids are fed, and getting herself ready for the day.

You’re looking at a quick and easy breakfast that requires no cooking, minimal time to prepare, and can be eaten while the rest of her morning is spent hustling.

After dropping her kids off at her friend’s house, she goes to work. Now we have to deal with lunch, and you can surmise from her morning that prepping food for the day is probably not going to happen when she’s already short on time.

Finding time during the week to prep proteins, store them, and have them easily accessible for meals is critical. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to prepare proteins in a situation like this is to visit the supermarket (or Costco), buy a rotisserie chicken, and shred it for the week. These are easy enough, cheap enough, and convenient enough to use that if you run out of chicken during the week, you can stop at the store on the way home from work and pick up another one.

She can shred it with two forks or use the Ziploc bag method by placing the warm (not hot) chicken into a large Ziploc bag and massaging the meat off the bones. Once you’ve picked the meat out, removed the bones and skin, you can then store it in a container in the fridge for easy measuring and access.

A rotisserie chicken contains both white and dark meat; therefore, it isn’t macro-friendly unless you expect to pick through the meat to find the exact type of meat you want. We know this woman is already pressed for time, so she probably won’t want to do that, and that’s okay. Eating is more important than having the perfect macro-friendly meal.

While she is getting everything ready for the day, she can easily throw this together into two containers for her lunch:

I don’t expect any normal person to weigh and measure greens, so it doesn’t matter if it’s one cup or two. The berries and chicken can be added on top of the greens, and the pistachios can be added in a smaller container on the side.

What about dressing? There are multiple options for low-calorie or no-calorie dressings to choose from. Pick some you like, keep them at home, and add one to the side of this meal for later.

You have two meals down, and one to go.

Her work day is over, so now it’s time to pick up her kids, go home, and get ready for the gym. She has to bring her kids to the gym with her, as that’s the life of a single mother. Having some protein on hand to drink before her workout helps keep calories in.

One scoop of whey protein is easy to drink and provides 25 grams of protein per serving.

Her workout is finished, and now it’s time to go home, feed her children, and manage a dinner for herself.

My fiancé gave me a great idea the other day about prepping potatoes. She would dice her potatoes, store them in freezer bags already weighed for her serving, and keep them in the freezer for use later.

In the morning, this person can take one of the bags out of the freezer, defrost it during the day, and when she is ready to eat dinner, they will be ready to season, cook, and eat.

Adding vegetables is as simple as steaming them, adding them to the oven with the potatoes, or microwaving a bag.

What about protein? This is where she can prepare food for her kids and also prepare the protein for herself.

If she is making chicken tacos for her kids, she can set aside extra chicken to use in the food she is preparing in the oven, or she can make a couple of extra chicken tacos for herself. The choice is hers with this, so let’s make the easier choice:

Adding some Pico and shredded cheese will be perfect, and since you can buy both already prepared and ready to use, it makes this meal easier to prepare.

She can choose to eat this meal with her kids or eat it while preparing theirs, cleaning up the kitchen, and getting together what she needs for the rest of the night.

You can examine the entire day and see a well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, and fats.

All of these meals can be quick, easy, and convenient, but they require some thought to put into action. Chances are, she feels overwhelmed with her life, stressed, and thinking outside the box about food isn’t her top priority. Taking care of everything and everyone around her comes first, and this is the dilemma of a working single mother.

As a coach, I must help guide a client to nutritional success, and success can mean different things to different people.

Some want to lose weight, others want to gain muscle, while others want to prepare for a competition or aim to manage a healthy lifestyle more effectively.

Can you use an app to help coach you through the nuances of food and your life? Sure, if you are that person who can do that, but the reality is that most people aren’t.

Macros aren’t always enough; weekly check-ins are only the start, and helping a client achieve nutritional success often requires helping them find a way to eat properly despite life throwing everything it can at them.

Sustainable, repeatable, adaptable.

That is what eating well should be.