How to Track Your Nutrition

Tracking nutrition may feel like a daunting, laborious task, but it will provide value if you are aiming for particular health goals.
In this episode, Cam and Amelia unpack the what and how of nutritional tracking. You can start small, with just daily protein. Then, if needed, you can expand your tracking to all macro nutrients (fat and carbs). There are several apps that will lend a hand.
It can be an eye-opening experience to track your nutrition. It lets you know what you are really consuming but be honest with yourself. If you don't accurately track, you can't trust the results. 

01:59 Tracking diet helps understand what's missing.
04:52 Food diary: start small, track daily protein.
09:24 Displaying information with circles, setting individual goals.
10:12 Tracking with a coach is fantastic and accurate.
13:05 Don't let numbers control your life.
19:00 Collagen and protein powder as supplements in moderation.
22:45 Eating colorful fruits and veggies provides healthy carbs.
24:22 Misconception about nutrient-less carbs, organic corn chips top choice.
26:49 Tracking biofeedback, blood sugar hacks, food order.
29:50 Curiosity in food transforms health and happiness.

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Amelia

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Cam

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Transcript

0:00

Oh my gosh, Cam. I've been to the grocery store, the dry cleaners. I went and bought the pet food. Like, I've done all the things, and I just got home, and I'm starving. I think I'm just gonna eat all these crackers. Hi. I'm Cam, Holistic health coach, mom to 2 humans and 4 pets. Hi. I'm Amelia, laboratory scientist by day and food scientist by night. Welcome to our show. Join us as we share our holistic approach to life after 50. You can expect real life stories with a dash of humor and a ton of truth. If it happens in midlife, we're going to talk about it. So hit that subscribe button and follow along. We're the Midlife Mommas. This is a fun one today, you guys. We're going into the holiday seasoned and so there's gonna be lots of yummy foods at our disposable our disposal, excuse me. So we're gonna be talking about tracking nutrition today. Yeah. And so we're talking about tracking your macros, your macronutrients, and your micronutrients, and, like, why in the world would you even wanna track? Have you tracked before, Amelia? Yeah. I've done it several times in in, specific instances. Like, I don't do it all the time, but I'll pick blocks of time and do it. How about you? Same thing. And I keep an eye on protein. So I would say I eyeball my protein the most, and I can always tell when the day days I, like, fall behind sick or I don't start with enough. Yeah. Absolutely. I hear you. So let's just kinda talk about why what are some of the reasons why someone would want to do this? And first of all, let's let's square up on macronutrients, the proteins, the fat protein, fat, and carbs, and then micronutrients would be like, vitamins, minerals, maybe what else? Well, yeah, that's what I would consider the vitamins and the minerals. All the little things that make your cells operate better. Right. Right. So give us, like, what are some of the reasons you think it might be beneficial to track your your nutrients? You know, it's really like an experiment of 1, which we are a fan of. Like, what are you eating to really get curious and understand? A lot of times in mid we're gaining weight and although our diet is not changing and I believe it's not changing, we just don't have the bandwidth. Like, there's no there's not as much wiggle room in our diet. So right. It's a it's a great a way to, like, track and say, okay, what am I truly eating? Am I missing something big? Like, what's missing in my nutrition? Absolutely. And I've done a minor amount of nutrition coaching and that's what I tell people. That's the very first thing I say is I want you to keep a food diary. And it could be that you are mindlessly eating, so you're eating more volume than you think of nutrient nutrient less food like chips or crackers or it could be honestly that you're undereating. Absolutely. Undereating is a is a thing for women. I still just have to tell a story. Like, my we went out to dinner last night, and we had pizza. We went to, like, a deep dish Chicago place, and we had leftovers, like, a ton. So We came home today and I'm like, I really want a piece of pizza and I opened the box and, like, some of it's missing. I'm like, Dan, did you get a pizza last night? I went to bed he ate pizza, I guess. So for example, when he's tracking, he doesn't do that kind of stuff. So tracking keeps you accountable to stopped. Sure. Absolutely. And I and I do love that because, again, with the few clients I've worked with doing it, little things, they don't realize how much it makes a big difference. You know, you grab a few things as you pass through the kitchen, even little things, Cam, as tiny as if you eat a bunch of mints or gum or here's my downfall is that there's a candy bowl at work and they're literally bite sized things like Hershey Kisses. But if you eat 12 of those a day, that can be adding up. Absolutely. Yeah. So just really think of it as an opportunity to learn about yourself And how you respond to food. Like, if you do eat 12 Hershey Kisses, do you notice your energy is different? Does your brain work as well? You know, things like that. Great, great question. Yeah. I don't know. And, you know, if you're grabbing it at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, which is typically like our lowest energy part of the day, I would say that it would be true for most women. Yeah. So you're looking for energy outside of yourself. You're looking from it from like sugar or carbs or something. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Cam, let's talk about how to track your new nutrients. What is your recommendation? Yeah. So I'm really free when I work with people on this. There's no right or wrong way to do this. You can start where you are and just lean into new habits because I know for a fact this all or nothing mindset will fail you. You're setting yourself up for failure if you're like, I'm doing this, and I have to track everything and If you do that, you're setting yourself up for failure. It's a it's a new habit and it's not established. So how how would you start? Well, I love that. I mean, like I said, I've asked people to keep a food diary and I've usually done the whole, you're not really accountable to me, you're accountable to yourself kind of thing, and it's meant as more of a guide to be honest. Mhmm. You know, it's it's not, you know, if you're hiding intentionally 4 candy bars, that's not hurting me, it's hurting you, but, you know, there's different ways to do it. You can start very simply, especially if you have some sort of mental block around this. You can start just by tracking your daily protein because that doesn't feel, punitive at all to me, like, that's easy, right? Like, you can, I've got a really small food scale, which I actually only bought within the last couple of years and it doesn't feel like I'm I'm infringing upon my own freedom just to weigh a piece of chicken. So just just starting small. Yeah. And I love that's usually the first stuck I take with people is to start measuring or, you know, tracking their daily protein. Are you I want you north of a 100 if possible, but let's see where you're starting. So, like, the first 2 weeks or so. It's literally just tracking. No judgment. Where are you? What can we what are some easy things we can do? I've gotten to the point now I can look at somebody's food log, and I know, like, little changes that will make a huge difference in their overall energy and the nutrition they're getting. I've I've gotten pretty good at that, but I love starting with protein. That's my first thing for sure. Absolutely. And another thing that's really important to me personally, I know it is to you is maybe and it could be do done through food journaling is color and diversity, especially of plant food. So my personal, I try to get between 6 8 different plants a day. 8 is great and I can achieve that pretty easily if I have a salad that has lots of, different vegetables and maybe a fruit. It's a little bit harder if I don't, but I love tracking that because in essence, once you look at your color and diversity, you're basically tracking your fiber intake intake too, which is also important. Yeah. And then you're getting all those vitamins and minerals. Yeah. You know, other ways to track is just track your food before noon. Starting your day with a really healthy, hearty breakfast is a great way or you can track everything that you put in your mouth, but really honestly you need to be honest with yourself and if it's going to tip you over the edge and it's going to be too stressful for you then, You know, that kind of tracking isn't for you. It's okay. Just tracking for you. Yeah. Absolutely. So let's talk about some mechanisms for tracking. The the the first one is really easy. We've already talked about it. It's a it's a simple, notebook and a pen. Yeah. So you can track simply by writing it down. I've had people use spreadsheets. Like, they'll just you know, if they, you know, are big into to that, you can use a spreadsheet, but there's also some apps you can use. Just Yeah. The the hands down, it's called the Coaches app. In my world, it's called Cronometer, and it does a fantastic job at tracking all the micronutrients. If your food has a barcode, you can scan it in and it will track everything. It's amazing. Super accurate, which I love because, all of the entries are vetted by Cronometer, so it's not like some random person putting in whatever on MyFitnessPal, for example. First of all, you have to pay to scan now because MyFitnessPal has changed their ways, so that stinks. But also anyone and their brother can make up a food entry and add it to MyFitnessPal. So it's not always accurate. So that's a problem. So is Cronometer a paid service or is that free? No. It's free. I paid for the professionals, so my clients get free access to it, but the free app is is good enough. Absolutely. Yeah. Very good. That's great. Yeah. I've used MyFitnessPal in the past. I haven't used it probably in, I don't know, several meh, it's maybe it's just been a year. And because I'm very aware of the general nutrient balance of food, the inaccuracies weren't a huge hindrance for me. I've also used my NetDiary, that's one my daughter recommended and, again, it's not gonna be I'm sure it's not as accurate as the Cronometer, but for me, with with the basic knowledge I already have, it's a good place to start, especially for the, like just tracking the protein. So there's a bunch of them out there, but I love that you have picked 1 that A, is free and be where the foods are bedded. That that especially if the if you're new to this and really don't know, like, where you are, I think using something like that would be super beneficial. Yeah. And the way it's like on like, the way they display the information, they'll be circles. And so, like, for example, your fiber. Maybe you're at 85% of the daily total of your fiber. And I can go in and set different totals for my clients, which is amazing. Like, for me, I liked I like people having 25 grams of fiber a day and so I can make sure that it's set properly. The other really cool thing about Cronometer, I can go in and turn off the carbs and the fats. If numbers if numbers make them crazy, now they'll have an overall salary goal, but they'll also have an overall protein goal. And if it's making a little nutty about the other data, then I just turn it off. And I can still see it and it's still there, but it's not like in your face when you get in your app. So I don't know. It's fun. Yeah. That is fantastic. And if you're new to tracking, that's a wonderful way, especially if if you have someone like Cam or you have Cam as your coach to help you navigate that. Because the ones I've used, you can adjust the goals. But if you don't know if you have no idea what you're shooting for, a lot of times the apps are not accurate in their assessment of what you might need. So having someone like you to be able to say that, I adjusted when I was, the latest one I used was the My Net Diary. I adjusted for myself because, again, I feel like I have the knowledge to do that, but and and not being able to see some of the things that might pose problems for your clients is brilliant. I love that you do that for them and you just kinda you watch it and keep them on track, and that that's a great service, honestly. Yeah. And it's just it's nice too because I can log in and look at their stuff and not, like, bothered them. Hey. Send me your food log. Exactly. I can just just get in there and peep in. What's happening? Oh, look. That breakfast was amazing. Like or, you know anyway. So I'm just just curious if you do have when you do follow people like that, if they're kind of fall not falling off the wagon, but if they're kinda getting too much of something or not enough of the other. Do you actually say, hey, in the next you set interim goals, like, I want you to try to shoot for more protein or whatever. Yeah. We have weekly calls and so on the weekly calls, we kinda debrief what's going well, what's not going well, and then we make tiny tiny adjustments. If we're if we're shooting for the stars, you know, that's you're setting yourself up for failure, so it's baby steps and then getting that established. Oh, that worked really well. I feel amazing. You know, this breakfast is working. I can do this before work and I like the way I feel and you know, so yeah. We just kind of tinker, but it's a slow process. I have 1 more question about Cronometer. Does it have recipe suggestions for you? It does not. Not that I know of, but you can enter your own recipes. So for example, when I am tracking, which I'm not right now, but I made this chili, which I've talked about. I made it all summer even though it was summer, but I put the whole entire recipe in there and I saved it. And then if I'm eating, you know, a cup full, then I'll just that then I'll only enter a cup. So it'll it'll, you know, calculate the entire recipe. So if there are foods that you're eating meals that you're eating over and over, yes, you can save it. Like, my coffee's saved too. So my coffee has element chocolate salt in it, has collagen in it. Like, I just hit my coffee and it's already there. I don't have to That's so cool. Yeah. I don't have to enter those things separately. So Time saver. Yeah. I love it. I love it. You should check it out. So Cam, I think we've touched on this for a second, but let's go back to it and be very clear. Certain Mhmm. There are, there are segments of the population or certain people who tracking may not be really health full or healthy. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. If it makes you feel anxious and the numbers are making you wacky, then don't do it or if it takes the joy out of eating, You know, like if I, one of my friends from the CrossFit days, she tracked and tracked and tracked and tracked and we had a conversation recently and it kind of like took the joy oh, it kind of took the joy of eating away from her. Now this is 10 years down the road. Yeah. So it messed with her mentally. So if it messes with you mentally, I'm always checking in with people like how are you feeling about this? Is this okay with you? Because we don't have to do it this way, we can do it a different way. So, yeah. What about you? What do you think? I mean, I think that the because I have scared slightly. I don't think I'm a complete whack job. But, I tend to be a little food obsessed. So that's one of the reasons why I track for a while and then maybe not because I can get you know, I was an extreme athlete, so I tend to go overboard pretty easily, so I have to be careful. But the the other population that I would really caution is if you've had an eating disorder before, you may really, you know, I I've never had a diagnosed eating disorder. I've never made myself throw up. I've never been, you know, underweight, like nothing like that, but if you have, this might be a really slippery slope. Yeah. I agree. And so you've got your mental health is way more important than you put in your mouth. Absolutely. And speaking of mental health, I know that we talked about this before we hit record. Have you ever known anyone to, like, quote unquote, save their calories for dessert or Alcohol. Yes. Yes. And I've done it, Cam. In fact, that's one of the things I learned about food tracking is I didn't understand what a normal day would look like. And if I got to the end of the day and the, quote, calories left was, like, 200, I freaked out. Like, I don't know what I thought I was gonna eat for dinner that was gonna be 800 calories, but, you know, if if you're if you truly don't know, it you have to learn what that looks like. And so I did it. Like, I was like, oh, I need to save 500 calories for dinner. Well, most days, that is absolutely untrue. I mean and what was happening was I wasn't eating enough to fuel my brain and my body during the day. So, it is concerning to me so bad for people that do save, especially for things like desserts and alcohol because I do know people that do it. Yeah. Right. And there's not much nutrition there. Let's be honest. That's so the whole point. Exactly. There is no nutrition. You know, we had it was actually a man friend years years ago, and it was a joke, but, you know, he would call beer sandwich in a can. And I mean, it's like, yeah. That's awesome. But I mean, at the time he was probably like 27 and it probably didn't make a whole lot of difference, but it does it is a little bit of a clue to a mindset. Right. So, you know, people that were like, yeah, you know, it's the weekend. I haven't drunk all week. I need to save like 1600 calories because let's face it, if you drink a high gravity beer, that's that could be as much as 400 calories of beer. Mhmm. So, you know, yeah, I I don't typically endorsed anything like that. I just think it's it's it's a little dangerous. Yeah and I want to reiterate, when you're beginning to track or you're interested in tracking. I don't want you to put any limits on your calories or anything. I just literally gather data for a week or two. Right. And see where you are. Where are the gaps in your nutrition? Are you undereating? Are you overeating? Like yeah. Don't censor yourself when you're in the beginning stages. And then we can tinker with the amount of fat, the amount of protein, the amount of carbs, the amount of overall calories. But yeah. So if so doing sandwich in a can. What is it? That's right. Sandwich in a can. Yeah. Yeah. So don't sense if that's if that's where you are right now, don't censor that. Like, get the data and then decide what's going and what's staying. Anyway Good deal. So let's talk about what we're tracking. We already kinda talked about the the macronutrients. Let's start with our favorite macronutrient, protein. Yeah. So protein has 4 calories per gram, just so you know. And ideally, now this is gonna be shocking, you want 1 gram per ideal body weight. So whatever your ideal lean awesome body weight is, that's the goal to get your grams up to. Now I that's shocking, isn't it? Yeah. So let's just let's just call out a number. If you weigh a 140 pounds or or if that's your ideal body weight, that's a 140 grams of protein. Nope. Nope. 2 years ago, I would have thought you were crazy if you had told me I needed to eat, you know, 1 gram per pound of body weight, but now that I'm pretty much there, I feel so good. Uh-huh. Yeah. And so again, you're taking you're experimenting and you're working your way up there. They're like, do not do this overnight. That is crazy. It is not sustainable. Your digestion is gonna be like, what the heck's going on? So work your way up slow slow and steady. Yeah. Because, Cam, I think when I first started on the journey a couple of years ago. I think I was around 55 to 75 grams of protein a day, which isn't, like, tiny, and I really thought that was enough. Let me just say I weigh more than 75 pounds. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So it's your lean body weight. It's not like your body weight. It's like a lean number. So just make sure you get that. And the easiest way is to build your meals around protein, so we are a fan of. Where's the protein? That's why I always ask. Where's your protein? What are you planning first? That's a great thing. So I have a question. I know you and I both take collagen. And we we mentioned that with the coffee recipe. Do you count your collagen as part of your protein number? I do. Now there would be people because it's not a quote unquote complete protein that's missing if it's 8 of the 9 essential aminos. You know, I still count it. So I do too. I do too. I just wanted to see if we were on the same page. Stuck. And, when I, again, when I first started this, I might have a couple of scoops approach collagen. And now I've been like, I think 1 is enough and I will count that, but, you know, I I'm always about real food as much as possible. I do use a protein powder in my smoothies for breakfast which is usually like berries or a banana, a scoop of protein powder, almond milk, maybe some peanut butter or yogurt, but I don't, you know, I don't abuse that. Like I'm not taking a protein shake or a protein powder all day long, but I do, you know, I try to base it around real foods and use that as a supplement because there are some some vitamins and minerals in in in because I use a vegan protein powder and I think it's a good quality protein. And I would like also to mention that we have 3 kinds of protein powder in our house. We have a whey protein which is amazing for building muscle. We have a meat based protein by equipped protein. I know it sounds gross, but it's meat and it's amazing. And then we also have a vegan. So I sometimes will mix different. Sometimes I'll mix 1 of 1 scoop of each. Sometimes I won't, but I use that as part of my diversity. I don't want it always coming from the same source. So I Sure. And I think that's great. And as a matter of fact, it's funny you should say that because I just got my ButcherBox, like, a couple of days ago, and they had on special chicken bone broth. And I make my own bone broth typically, but this was on sale, I got it and on the container cam, the the nutrition label says it's 50 calories a cup and 13 grams of protein in that mouth. That's amazing. So it hasn't thawed out yet, but I'll have still report back about what it tastes like and how I use it because I was like, wow. This is great. Uh-huh. That's amazing. Yes. So yeah. Yeah. And bone broth is an amazing snack for, like, the 3 PM. Make a bone broth Right. Yes. Like 20 grams of protein and it doesn't, like, fill you up and ruin your dinner, but it, like, gets you through that yucky 3 PM hour. Are you like that at 3 PM or is it just me? No. I mean, usually, mine's actually earlier. I mean, I eat breakfast usually around

8:30 and lunch around 12: 21:09

30. And honestly, my depending on the size of the lunch. If I ate a really good lunch with enough protein, I'd probably last till 4. Mhmm. If it's not big, then sometimes I get hungry as early as stew. But, yeah, I almost always have some kind of snack and I always include protein in that snack. Yeah. It's interesting. I my meeting habits have

changed maybe because of the time change, sick. I wanna eat dinner at 4: 21:31

30 now. Thank you. A 100%. Yeah. Yeah. It's so yeah.

Anyway, 4: 21:39

30. So Everyone, that's when I wanna eat dinner. I hear you. We're we're soul sisters for sure. Oh, jeez. Yeah. We could talk about protein for another, you you know, 45 minutes, but let's move on to carbs. Carbs are 4 calories per gram just like protein. Yep. And we do need carbs. So let's talk about that because the most recent quote diet culture was the whole, you know, carbs are evil. So let's talk about those. Yeah. So we need carbs. It's our brain's preferred energy source. Yeah. And a lot of times, the women that wake up in the middle of the night, it's because their brains need carbs, which is amazing to me. Most women do not thrive doing keto. So if you have men in your life and they've tried keto and dropped all this weight and were, like, feeling like $1,000,000 and then you try it and you didn't lose the weight and you felt like poo, Yeah. It's because we're not designed the same way as they are, so Keto was not really designed for us. Now I do wanna say we have a tipping point of carbs. So if you're eating more carbs than you're using in your body, like moving and exercising, then that it will be stored as body fat. There is a tipping point, but you need carbs in your life anyway. Yeah. And I think that's just sound advice. And here's the thing I would add to that is most fruits and veggies are carbs. I mean, there is some protein in there and obviously, there's some fat and something like an avocado. But if you you know, just like we talked about tracking color and diversity. If you eat that color and diversity, you're gonna get carbs. Mhmm. Some car some fruits and veggies star, you know, much higher glycemic index than others, but the bottom line is is when we tell you to eat carbs, we're not saying go eat a bag of chips or a box crackers. We're saying, you know, healthy carbs. Now, I gotta be honest, I do eat crackers and chips occasionally, but that is more in the days where we talked about the food pyramid. Think about those sorts of naked carbs kinda being at the top. They're just an accoutrement or or a treat, but I don't base my carb intake on that sort of processed carb. Yeah. And the so Diversity is gonna give you the fiber and the, the vitamins and the minerals that you need for your body to function optional optimally. Right. If you're eating single ingredient foods most of the time, you're gonna be feeling amazing and your body's gonna be getting what it needs. So, s Yes. Think of carbs as fruits and vegetables. And, honestly, I remember when I learned that that's what they were. Gosh. I think it was after my son was born, and I actually did Atkins because so Anyway, just to get the weight off after he was born because I was eating Twizzlers and drinking Coke. Yeah. I hear you on that. All that sugar and all that fat free stuff. Anyway, so I remember learning that, oh, I did I thought carbs were only like packaged things when I was 30 or I guess I was 30. I think it's a common misconception and the thing about those naked carbs or or nutrient less ones. For me, you know, I can tell myself, oh, I'm only, and we buy, Cam, we buy the organic corn chips, not just the the, you know, the organic ones. So clearly, these are fine, right? Well, I'm gonna tell myself, I'm just gonna eat like 4 of those chips. Girl, if I'm really hungry, I have eaten like 4 servings and I haven't even blinked an eye and I'm still hungry. So, you know, these sorts of carbs, there's and that is crunchy and it is salty and it just like totally quenches that need for quick energy. Yeah. But I have to be really careful because I can mow down a bag of chips in, like, no time. So Yeah. Because of the bliss point, they're designed for us to crave them more, the salt and the fat combo. Yeah. It's crazy. Our our, Taste buds have been hijacked. Yeah. So let's move on to fat. I don't know why our notes are out of order, but fat is the We're good. Stuck. The 3rd macronutrient and fat actually has 9 calories per gram. So just like carbs, we need fat in our life too. And I mentioned a minute ago the fat free phase struggling. When in the nineties when my kids were being born, Yeah. We need fat. Yeah. I did all of that too, Cam, and we didn't know that all of those, quote fat free foods were just pumped full of sugar. Mhmm. And so there was a reason for why they were so good. I mean, who wants? Yeah. And, you know, the fat is the basis for or you need fat for the metabolism of the fat soluble vitamins, which are a, d, e, and k, and and they're also the basis for your hormones. Yeah. Yeah. The grandmother of your hormones, believe it or not, is cholesterol. That's like, yeah. It's not fake news. That's where our hormones are made. So that keeps us full and satisfied and it feeds our brain and we need fat. You mentioned avocados. Avocados are a great example and they're also loaded with fiber. So yeah. Exactly. I love that. And, you know, there there there are just like there's unhealthy carbs, there's unhealthy fat. So Yep. We're not telling you to go, you know, get the the jumbo size french fries, but things like olive oil or I cook with avocado oil. I think you do too, Cam, and and avocados. And, you know, now, Cam, when I buy yogurt, it's full fat. Like, I'm okay with that. Yep. So there there's ways to get fats in your diet and they're healthy and they provide additional nutrients and I'm all about it. Yeah. Yeah. We have some other notes in here about tracking and, like, when you're tracking, it's also important to keep an eye on your biofeedback. Like, how do you feel afterwards? How's your energy? Are you hungry? Do you have cravings? Is your brain working? Are you bloated? Do you feel blah or do you feel amazing? Like, all of those things. And I've noticed that using the blood sugar hacks are super helpful when it comes to eating food. And if you just slow down enough to pay attention to these little things. You'll notice, like, for example, food order is amazing. We already mentioned naked carbs, but if you dress your carbs with fat, fiber, or protein, you're not going to have a blood sugar effect. It's not going to spike you and crash you like it would if you ate it naked. I love that. And and my hack would be, we take a walk after dinner 2 or 3 nights a week just to kind of aid that stayed the whole digestion process. But and I'm not as good at food order as you are, but I do try really hard to to not eat the carbs first. Yeah. I love the walking. Walking reduces your glucose by gosh. Was it 75%? It's a very large percent. Yeah. And it's doing that without insulin. So when you eat food, your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin and the insulin's job is to clear your blood sugar from your blood and take it to the cells and take it to your muscles and store it for the future. So when you're walking, your insulin the need for insulin is not there because you're, contracting your muscles. It's kind of like a sponge or a suitcase for your blood sugar. Yeah. And it's amazing because then you're storing your you have all this glucose in your muscles for your next workout. So it's like a cycle. You're ready to go. Yeah. That is fantastic. I mean, I have found tracking to be super beneficial at times, and I gotta be honest, I probably will at least take a look at things. For me, the holidays already feel a little bit out of control, so this makes me feel a little bit in control. Some people might have the opposite. They're like, I'm not doing it during the holidays and I respect that, you know, whatever works for you, as we move into a super busy time. It just it feels like for me, you know, if I can kinda tap into what my protein numbers are every day, I feel like, okay, I've done I've done something for me. For me actually, Cam, I considered that self care. Absolutely. And if if nothing else during the holidays, start your day with a savory protein laden breakfast. And you're gonna start your day on the right foot. And, you know, if you want the Christmas cookie, eat the Christmas cookie. But pleased do it not on a on a empty stomach. If you're doing it on empty stomach and then that hits your system, you're gonna spike and crash your blood sugar, and then you're gonna be on this craving roller coaster all flipping day. So, you know, eat eat the cookie, I don't care, but make sure there's food in your belly first that's not a cookie. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. I mean, I just think tracking can be a really great thing in your toolkit. It's just one of the things in your toolkit to keep you operating optimally in midlife. Yeah. And I don't think it's forever. Let it be an experiment. Do you know? Be curious about what you're eating and how How you're responding to it? Because quite honestly, at the bottom of the pyramid of life, I feel like if you can get your sleep figured out and your nutrition figured out, spent the exercise and everything else and your joy is easier. So I totally agree. Uh-huh. Well, Cam, this has been such a great conversation. I feel so inspired and now I'm off to track my dinner. Have a good dinner. Thanks for listening today. You can find us on Instagram at midlife.mommas. For all of our other contact info, check out the show description below, and we will talk to you next week.