24. How Rethinking Food Boosted My Energy, Training And Peace Of Mind: Why Nourishment Works Better Than Willpower

Ever feel “disciplined” on paper yet drained in real life? I’ve been there. Today I unpack how moving from macro obsession to true nourishment unlocked better energy, stronger training sessions and a calmer relationship with food.

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- Alita <3

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This podcast is intended for general educational purposes only. The content discussed does not replace professional medical, nutritional, or fitness advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual needs and responses vary, especially with exercise and nutrition. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making significant lifestyle changes.

Chapters

• 0:25 Setting The Stage: Food Mindset
• 2:12 Life In Macro Control
• 3:08 Redefining Protein, Carbs, And Fats
• 7:28 When Hitting Macros Isn’t Enough
• 8:28 Micronutrients: The Real Game Changer
• 10:20 From Restriction To Addition
• 12:56 Fueling Training And Daily Energy
• 15:01 Building Plates Around Whole Foods
• 17:00 Care Over Control: Lasting Shift
• 18:01 Listener Invites And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Hey everyone, welcome back to Vita with Alita. If you're new here, I'm Alita, and this podcast is about fitness, health, and building a life that actually feels good to live. Today's episode is about nutrition, but not in the way you might expect. And I'm making this because lately I have just been maybe a little bit obsessed with my nutrition, and we'll get into it in this episode. And just to preface, I'm not here to tell you exactly how many grams of proteins you should be eating, or give you another set of food rules to follow. You can there's other sources that can do that for you, but in this episode, I want to share how I kind of transformed the way I see food, how I consume it, and how that shift honestly completely changed my energy, my training, and just the relationship I have with my body. I am sharing this because honestly, lately I think I've gained such a profound appreciation for food and fueling my body properly, and I really wanted to share that today. So let's start from the beginning where I started. And I started with maybe of a more control-based nutrition. So for a very long time, I thought that being healthy, you should track calories for awareness, just to have a better understanding of like portion size and food. And I just think it's a good baseline understanding, but I've come to learn and appreciate how it's not everything. Now, in this like controlled-based nutrition that I'm talking about here, on the outside, it seemed like I was so disciplined. Everything was, oh my god, look at her hitting her macros. Yeah, it looked disciplined, but honestly, internally, food took up so much mental space. I was constantly thinking about food, and I was constantly always evaluating like, was this good? Was this too much? Did I did I earn this? Did I god, like my I didn't fit exactly hit my macros. I'm at 26% fat instead of 25%. And it was just very mentally draining. And I truly believed that that was honestly just part of being into fitness, and that's what I signed up for, and here we are. And that's not where I am today at all. And the first shift that had to kind of come into play was understanding macros differently. So the first thing that started to kind of change my perspective was learning what macronutrients actually do, not just the numbers and the percentages and the goal that you're trying to achieve or hit by the end of the day or the end of the week. So macros, macronutrients, your proteins, your carbohydrates, and your fats, are the nutrients your body kind of needs in larger amounts to function. But I stopped seeing them as targets that I need to kind of obsess over. And now I kind of appreciate the roles that they play in my body. So, what do I mean by this? So protein, protein, the one that you'll hear left and right and center, within everywhere, you have to hit your protein, protein, protein. Protein is so important. I'm not undermining that. And I even mentioned you should be having adequate protein in your diet. But why? Okay, well, protein is about muscle repair, it's about recovery, immune and hormone support. Almost everything in your body is made of protein, and it comes from the foods that you eat. Like you even have these things called essential amino acids that you can only get from your diet. But these essential amino acids are needed to build foundational things. These are in your body, and these are needed by your cells, and it's just protein is not just this number you have to hit. It's not just a gym thing, it's something your entire body relies on. Alright, carbohydrates, dreaded carbs, right? Well, carbs for me became my main source of energy. I absolutely love carbs. They're there to fuel my workouts, they're there to fuel my brain, and carbs, carbs are not the enemy. Carbs are actually our preferred, our body's preferred source of energy. And especially if you're active, stressed, or even both, like carbs are not the enemy. And fats, fats, fats, fats, especially in women, low-fat diets are not it. Listen, I'm gonna be so real. I know why fats are scary. Because they're higher in calories. Like, have you ever seen the calorie content in like a quarter cup of nuts? If you haven't, you'd be so surprised. And that's just because fats have are like more dense, they're just densely packed, they have higher calories. I didn't bring fats up to talk about calories. I'm just saying lately I've been incorporating a lot of fats into my diet. By putting some extra nuts in my oatmeal, peanut butter just cuz, avocado and cheese just cuz, and honestly, honestly, I my body absolutely loves it. I'm not saying that's for everyone, but I just think as women, it's so important for our diet. Don't underestimate fats. It helps with your just everything hormone production, brain health, even nutrient absorption. So once I stopped fearing certain macros, I realized I wasn't like underdisciplined, especially on those times where I would maybe binge eat or eat outside of that macro breakdown I made for myself. I was actually underfueling. And this is where it gets interesting because we always hear about tracking your macros, and if you hit your macros, you're fine, macros, macros, macros. But macros alone are not enough. So sometimes, even when I was hitting my macros perfectly, something still felt off. And that's because you can hit your macros with the most random food. Maybe not the best food, but you can still hit your macros even with like some sketchy food. So sometimes when you would do that, or when I would do that at least, I was probably tired. My recovery and workouts are not the greatest, and my mood and energy were not always consistent. And that's when things started to shift a little bit for me. You can eat enough food in terms of your macros, but maybe you're not truly nourishing, nourishing your body. So the real game changer here, and where I'm at today, are micronutrients. Micronutrients, your vitamins, your minerals, these are the things your body needs, probably in smaller amounts, but they have an absolutely massive impact. So micronutrients are involved in things like energy production, oxygen transport, nervous system function, hormone balance. What exactly are micronutrients? Things like your iron, which helps to carry oxygen in your blood, magnesium, which supports your sleep, your stress, and even muscle recovery, B vitamins, which help to convert your food into your energy, and even vitamin D, which supports immune health and mood. So suddenly it kind of made sense why like eating more calories doesn't always mean more energy. Restriction and sticking or only looking at your macros can sometimes make you feel worse, not better. And I realized macros gave me something like structure, you know, it made me feel this sense of like false control. But today I'm sitting here truly appreciating the role of micronutrients in my life and how micronutrients give your body function. So now we kind of dive into this mental transformation around food. And I want to preface by saying I don't want to kind of undermine and say it's so easy, intuitive eating, just eat micronutrients, eat whatever you want. Obviously, there still has to be some sort of discipline slash portion control slash a basic understanding of foods and what your body responds well to. So I think in the beginning, if you are just starting out kind of learning about what foods work for you, what don't, what energy needs your body kind of demands, keep some sort of food journal, some sort of log, track for a week, for two weeks, gain kind of this basic understanding, build a foundation for yourself. But I heard this podcast where this nutritionist was talking about instead of restricting our foods and trying to lose weight or become healthier or whatever the goal is by being so restrictive, try instead adding. So it's so much easier to kind of add. So what do I mean by this? Keep your normal dinner, breakfast, whatever you're eating for now. But to start, add an extra fruit, add an extra, I don't know, cup of vegetables, add sprinkle chia seeds or something, but just add something healthier, I guess we can call it, something more nutrient dense to begin with. And then later, as you get used to that, as you build your habits, as you build your discipline, then you can refine what you want to maybe eat less of, or what you want to eat more of. But just start by adding something to your diet. And this is all part of the mental transformation that I kind of started this point with. I am now at a point where I'm looking at food rather than with control and like how I can control it and use it to function and like a machine or whatever. I look at it as a way to truly care for my body. So the biggest transformation wasn't physical, it was actually mental. I stopped using food as a way to control my body, to earn rest, and to actually prove that I am disciplined. And now I kind of use food as a way to support my training, manage stress, and to take care of myself. I say support my training because there were so many workouts that I would feel so exhausted and not strong and shaky is the word. And I thought it was okay because I'm disciplined and yada yada. Right today, I absolutely hate that feeling. I cannot stand getting into the gym feeling shaky and hungry. I will, it's just not, it's not a it's a recipe for disaster. It's not good for anyone there. So the irony here is when I actually look started looking at food in the latter way, that's when my body actually started responding better. And I know it's not about aesthetics, but guys, I I honestly look better too. It's just the truth, that mental shift is kind of what unlocked this potential that my body had that I didn't even know existed. And not just that, my energy improved, my workouts felt stronger, and food stopped taking up so much mental space, and it stopped feeling so emotionally heavy. This is where I come in and say, when you think of food, try not to just reduce it to these macros or to restrict it. Food is there to truly support us. And I know it can it's a big topic. People have literally whole degrees in nutrition and food. So I know it can be overwhelming and you may not know where to start. As I mentioned, one place to start can just be adding something to your diet that you currently have. You don't need a whole revamp and whatever. Just add one small thing, get the ball rolling, and then the rest will follow. So let's get to how this changed the way I eat today and how I think about nutrition today, which is very different from when I first started sort of wellness, fitness, health, whatever journey of like many years ago. I still understand macros, and I still have this conscious awareness of like I need to eat a certain amount of protein because I am looking to build a certain amount of muscle or whatever, but it does not run my life. I care now deeply about the quality of food and micronutrients. And when I say quality, I mean I'm taking time to look at ingredient lists, the nutrient calorie label, the value nutritional label, and I prioritize eating enough. I have full plates that are so colorful, that are filling me up, and I just eat until I'm full. I mentioned this, but one of my new years' resolutions was not to overeat, and I think I have been doing so well and I've been feeling so good, and I've realized doing this and eating proper quality foods is keeping me full. It's keeping my energy kind of in check throughout the day. And I'm just on a high when it comes to food right now because I am enjoying the foods I'm eating so much because I'm looking at what they're doing for me. So now I kind of focus on building meals around whole foods. Again, going back to those ingredients, getting a balance of all of my macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fats, and enjoying the fats, let me tell you. Adding color and a variety for macronutrients. I've been picking up every type of vegetable I can. I've been roasting a bunch of vegetables in the oven, and honestly, it's one of my favorite things ever to eat. You know, I'm just I'm loving it. Paying attention to how food makes me feel. I do avoid things that might make me a little bit gassy here and there, but hey, you can still enjoy them once in a while, nothing wrong with it. And today, instead of asking, like, how little can I eat to function, or what's like how can I maximize enjoying my food, but but still letting my macros or whatever rigidity mindset that you may be or I actually used to have, I today I ask myself, what does my body need to feel supported today? Support your body, love your body, it will love you back. So, what do I want you to take from this? If you're listening and thinking, you know, I eat healthy, but something, I'm exhausted, but I'm always thinking about food, but I know the rules, but food still stresses me out. I feel like I'm always trying to control my body, my body's working against me, I'm binging. I want you to know that you're not you're not undisciplined. You may just be under-eating, you might be missing some key nutrients, and you might even be just stuck in a mindset that values control over nourishment. And I've been there, I've been there, and I feel so liberated that I am past there, and I really want to help us to all get to this point where food is not the enemy. Macronutrients and micronutrients are not about perfection. Do I have a perfect diet? Absolutely not. But looking at food in this way literally motivates me to eat better. I have no desire to eat things that are I know are going to be harmful to my body and not out of restriction, it's just out of care, literally no desire. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna eat cake. Like I went to a birthday the other day and I had cake because we were celebrating my friend's birthday, but that cake I'm not like it's not a restriction. That cake came out of you know what, I'm here, I'm celebrating, I'm socializing, I'm enjoying the moment, I'm gonna have this cake, and I enjoyed it so much. But I don't ever I don't feel the need to eat it again if I don't have to, if I'm alone in my house. No, out of care. And that's kind of what I want you to take away from this, and that's the goal I have for all of us here. So food is fuel, but it's it's not just fuel, it's information, it's your support system, it's part of how we truly care for ourselves. And when you stop trying to control your body and you truly start nourishing it, everything begins to shift. Physically, yeah, but not just physically, even mentally and emotionally too. So if this episode resonated with you, feel free to share it or even reach out, send me a text. There's a link at the top of the description that says send us a text. Click it. If you type a message, I will directly see it. I might even pin it on the podcast website. So please send me a text. I would love to hear your feedback and what you have to say. And if there's a topic you want me to dive into next, especially around fitness, nutrition, or balance, please let me know. I would also very greatly appreciate if you can leave a review for the show or even rate the show. It truly helps to see that people are interested in what I have to say, and it helps the podcast grow and to have as many women as possible hear the message so we can all work towards a healthier, more sustainable life together. So this is Vita with Alita. I'll talk to you in the next episode. Take care.