Lesson 4

Quick Adding

Welcome to Lesson 4! Yeah!

Today we are going to learn how to manually enter in calories or macros using the ‘Quick Add’ feature. I find this specifically useful when you are eating out where they have the calories posted. But first, we should probably define what calories and macros are.

tl;dr - Calories are units of energy. Fat, Carbs and Protein, are the 3 Macronutrients - they are the building blocks of all foods. A super over-simplification: Fat is for long-term energy, carbs short-term energy, and protein for building muscle. Now that those are defined it will be easy for us to log ‘just the numbers’ with the quick add feature.

Alright, for today’s logging feature, ‘Quick Add’, I felt it was necessary to introduce what we are tracking. At their core what makes food, food is their nutritional value. At the highest level, every food has calories. Calories are not bad! They are just a unit of measurement, they’re just marketed to be scary. Not unlike their equally spooky sounding units such as inches - a measure of distance, or Fahrenheit - a measure of temperature, calories are just a measure of energy. Specifically, the energy that we humans (and other animals) can use to live breathe, and weave underwater baskets. The amount of calories in any particular food is determined by 3 macronutrients, you may have guessed them: Fat, Carbohydrates, and Protein. I won’t go super in-depth about them here, because we will be talking about them a lot more later. But for now a very quick overview and oversimplification. Oh, and no, none of the macronutrients are naughty… They all serve a purpose. Fat is the densest at 9 calories per 1 gram of fat - that's why it’s useful for long-term energy - think of them as big logs in a bonfire. Carbohydrates on the other hand are like the kindling in the fire, at 4 calories per 1 gram of carb, they are a fast-acting energy source. Lastly, there is protein, again at 4 calories per 1 gram of protein, it can be used for energy but that’s kind of a waste of its potential. Instead, protein fills a different role - it helps maintain and build muscle. Do you want to be mobile for the rest of your life? Then take care of your muscles (oh and your heart is a muscle too). Protein is vitally important and unfortunately, most people do not get enough of it, seriously. Protein also has the added benefit of being the most satiating of all 3 macros, meaning you feel fuller longer. So a quick PSA, if you want to become healthier today - just start eating more protein - fish, eggs, chicken, beef, tofu. Alright, protein rant over. Here is a useful infographic to summarize:

A quick note on calories in terms of our fitness goals. We learn about this later, more in-depth, but I want to set the stage for what’s to come. Calories in/out are ultimately what determines our weight and fat levels. Eat too many calories, you gain fat. Eat too few, too fast you lose fat, but also muscle. Eat the right amount and you can keep most of your muscle AND lose fat - this is generally what we’re striving for. 3500 Calories = 1lb of body fat. No need to do anything with this info now, I’m just planting a seed. 🌱

Alright, now that we have that out of the way - we should know enough to use our next logging tool - the ‘Quick Add’ feature. Like I said before at the very top of this lesson, this is primarily used when you need to add something that you are lacking total information about. For example - I love McDonald’s, I’ve argued with momma bear over them having the best 🍔. Specifically the McDouble, only ketchup, and pickles - now don’t get me wrong, this is a treat I indulge in very seldomly, but when I do it’s great; although not at all healthy - I know I said we should get away from the healthy/unhealthy dialog - but I’m 99% positive McDoubles are not good for me (here is a gross little article about them: here). Despite all of that, if you’re me and been a good boy all month you might order 2 McDoubles which on the drive-through menu will tell you are 400cal a piece. How would you log that? You probably don’t want to go online and look up all of the nutrition facts, so you can actually get away with just logging the calories - it takes less than 30 seconds. So to quickly add calories or macros to your log, follow the gif below and finish with tapping “Complete TODOs” at the bottom!

From now on, every time we eat something we’ll want to log it, but only if it falls under what we’ve learned so far!

TODOs

• ☑️ Log your weight

• ☑️ Log your food

• ☑️ Special Challenge: Log and un-log the 2 McDoubles from above (2 * 400 calories)

Complete TODOs Below