Your best weight is whatever weight you reach when you’re living the healthiest life you actually enjoy living.
Emily Field RD
This week on Ivy Unleashed we sat down with registered dietitian and coach Emily Field where she shared her secrets on how to create a meal that will leave you feeling satisfied and how to make your metabolism work for you. Emily shared with us her recommendations on where to start when thinking about tracking your macros, how to avoid the energy crash roller coaster and common mistakes women make when trying to lose weight.
Curious to learn how to fuel your body and own your metabolism? Keep reading.
Introducing…
Emily Field, RD
Emily Field is a registered dietitian and health coach with a Masters in public health who encourages us all to eat more, ditch deprivation and nonsense food rules.
Find Emily on….
- Instagram: @emilyfieldrd
- Website: https://emilyfieldrd.com/
IVY UNLEASHED
Gold Ivy sat down with Registered Dietitian and Health Coach, Emily Field, to listen as she shared her secrets on how to eat in a way that will leave you feeling satisfied and make your metabolism work for you. Emily is a powerhouse leader in the nutrition world that promotes “ditching deprivation and nonsense food rules.” She walks Andrea & Brooke through the process of starting to track macronutrients and the benefits associated, common mistakes made when trying to lose weight, misconceptions about fat, the importance of addressing our hormones and metabolism, and so much more. This episode is packed full of ideas to shift the way you view food and how to use it to fuel your body and ultimately, boost your metabolism.
Behind-the-Scenes Video
Episode Highlights-
As a registered dietitian and health coach Emily Field teaches her clients how to fuel their bodies to reach their goals. She believes that having your macros balanced is the secret. Emily shared with us that 99% of problems come from not having balanced blood sugar (weight loss, low energy, sleep issues) and that it can be fixed by eating more, specifically more protein, carbs, and fats.
Emily compares tracking macros to bumpers in bowling- having a guideline of what to shoot for. She believes in freedom and not labeling food. There is no good or bad, no clean or dirty food, just food. Every food can be broken down to a protein, carb or fat. Emily works with her clients to strip away the decades of food rules we’ve all grown up learning. All food is on the table. Emily explains that when counting macros, you have the choice to eat processed food or whole real foods. However, to hit your macros you’re going to be cooking more and eating whole foods.
Simply put, counting macros is a framework for eating. Everybody is different and counting macros isn’t for everyone. Emily explains that some people do really well with data and love to track (if numbers speak to you) and using macros helps them. If you’re not into numbers and it’s triggering, intuitive eating may be a better method of choice for you. Pick what works for you.
Emily believes however, that you can’t eat intuitively if you don’t know what it’s like to feel good. Her approach to tracking macros is the opposite of complicated. She recommends spending 6-10 weeks tracking to help you figure out what it takes to fuel your body. She says simply track and notice how you feel- how is your energy level, sleep, mood? The question then comes to how much of each macronutrient do we need? This is where counting macros comes into play. Counting macros is essentially tying a percentage of how much macronutrients your diet should consist of (what does balance look like specifically for you and your goals). Percentages for each macronutrient are different for everyone, Emily explains. You can use a free calculator online or work with an expert for a more personalized approach.
- A generic calculator takes into account your weight, height, future goal weight, and activity level
- A personalized calculator asks a lot more questions taking into account things like food preferences and conditions
Where do I start?
Emily recommends to first download an app. Don’t change what you eat, just track. Fumble through tracking and see where you fall at the end of the day. Eventually you will slowly change your behavior to hit macros, start cooking more and learning about your body and what eating to support you truly looks like.
Apps Emily Recommends-
- Cronometer (number 1 recommendation due to being backed by nutritionist and goal neutral)
- MyFitnessPal (it will tell you if you’re eating too much of certain foods so may be triggering for some and we don’t need that narrative when we’re just trying to learn, Emily argues)
- Fat Secret
Metabolism/Hormones-
Emily explained that people’s beliefs around losing weight usually fall in 2 categories:
- Calories in vs. calories out
- Hormones
Emily argues you can’t ignore calories and you can’t ignore hormones. She further explains that balanced hormones come from having balanced meals. And when you’re tracking macros, you’re also tracking calories. You need to be eating more to have a quicker metabolism. Tracking your macros is going to be making you eat more. Eating more will actually reignite your hunger cues because your metabolism kicks in. When we’re not eating our body preserves our energy and saves it for the vital processes like keeping us alive, not on our metabolism, hormones or digestion. You also need to be eating more if you wan to have energy to feel good in the gym and recover well. Emily further explains that metabolism is so complicated. There are hundreds of steps that happen everyday and they require macronutrients. She also explains that we need to eat more to build muscle and the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn. Higher muscle mass to fat ratio is better metabolically for you and helps reduce the risk of chronic disease. We need to support our metabolism with more minerals and vitamins and that means eating more.
Emily believes that most women are under eating protein. An easy way to help with this is to start eating more protein at each meal, she recommends. She also took time to explain why fats are such an important macronutrient. Fat builds and regulates our hormones and blood sugar. Fat takes longer to digest so we feel satisfied and full for longer. Emily recommends trying to eat fat in every meal so we can avoid the sugar crashes and have sustained energy throughout the day.
Symptoms of under eating:
- Slow metabolism
- Hormones issues
- Not performing like you’d like to in the gym
- Sleep issues
- Blood sugar issues
- Irritable mood
- Low energy
Does one have to track macros forever? Emily believes that once you understand what it takes to fuel your body you can dip in and out of tracking. If have specific goals, are training for an event, you’re just feeling off, or curious about changing your body composition, using the tool of tracking that you now have practice with is a great option. Emily also argues that once you have this baseline, you can fall back on behaviors that you know make you feel well (skip the alcohol, stop when you’re 80% full). Perfection is not required when it comes to tracking your macros.
Emily explained that all it really takes is small changes to manipulate your meals to be more balanced, for example adding in whole real foods to hit your numbers and you’ll start to feel better. We also want to call out that this isn’t easy work. You’re learning something new. You’re tuning into your body. You’re changing a lot, including grocery shopping differently and cooking differently. Macro tracking is nutrition education, Emily explained. Most of us have learned nutrition through the lens of a diet and have a warped mindset around nutrition. It’s mindset work and health behavior change and not as simple as it seems- we recommend working with a coach who can help.
Common Mistakes Emily Sees-
Individuals drastically cut calories when they want to lose weight fast. She says they’ll go to Google and look up the fastest way to lose weight and it’ll tell them cut calories (not realizing the harm that imposes). Emily argues that nutrition in a goal neutral and we can use nutrition to do whatever we want (think gut health, building muscle, losing weight, improving hormones and metabolism).
Emily’s Ideal Client:
Someone who is already eating healthy, they think they may not be eating enough, they’ll raid their pantry multiple times throughout the day, they feel all over the place, and really just want some regularity. Her ideal client is someone who has a good understanding of whole real foods, but isn’t seeing the results they think they should be for the amount of energy they’re putting into working out. They believe they have the basics down, but feel like now what… And lastly, they don’t want to dip into diet culture, they want to do it right.
Emily left us with some gold that we could not agree with more. She preached that we need to move away from weight as being the most important marker of health. What about emotionally, physically, spiritually, your work life, social life, family life, she argued. If your life is miserable because you’re trying to achieve an ideal in your head that’s tied to a number, we want to urge to dig into why you feel this way. Health is so much bigger than your physical weight, we promise you.
Be sure to check out Emily’s website where you can find her macro guide, (https://emilyfieldrd.com/macros-guide), other awesome resources and for more information on how you can work with her 1:1. Also check out her Emily’s Instagram, where she does an amazing job of providing resources, including lists of heavy hitters for each category (protein, carbs, fats).
3 Gold Stars
- Make your meals more balanced: fat, carbs, protein.
- Download a food tracking app: Cronometer or MyFitnessPal (don’t change anything you’re eating, just track it).
- Aim for at least 100 grams of protein a day.
Ivy Reflections
- What knowledge do you currently have about nutrition and how is it serving you?
- Day-to-day, what does fueling your body look like?
- What would you want to improve within your relationship with food and what would the first step be?
Piece of Gold
Stop overestimating what you can accomplish in 6 weeks and don’t underestimate what you can accomplish in 6 months.
Emily Field RD
Resources–
Tracking Apps-
- Cronometer
- MyFitnessPal
- Fat Secret
Emily’s Macro Guide- https://emilyfieldrd.com/macros-guide
Emily’s Cookbook Recommendation-
We thank you for joining us in the fearless pursuit of self-discovery and growth and hope that you transform our lessons into your gold.
Listen to your truth and go chase your gold.
– Gold Ivy Health Co.
