95. Fix These 5 Common Nutrition Mistakes and Watch Your Body Transform

If you have been waiting for a sign to start 2026 feeling strong, confident, and actually in control of your body again, this is it. The New Year Reset program is back, and this year it's bigger and better than ever. Last year it was four weeks. This year it's eight weeks, eight live coaching calls, deep dive support, and you get lifetime access to my full breakthrough program, all for the exact same price as last year. Why am I doing this? Because I do not want there to be a single reason you don't hit your body goals this year while still living a full, real, busy life. If you're ready to get a custom plan, real support and results that actually last, go grab your spot now. Seriously, pause this episode and go over and join the New Year Reset program with me. Head to mindinmymacros.com forward/reset or or scroll on down to the show notes and I'll link it for you there. All right, let's get into the episode.

Welcome to the Mind and My Wellness Podcast. Your podcast for all things macros, movement, mindset, and everything in between. I'm your host, Dani Merenberg, an ex yo yo dieting cardio junkie turned sustainable nutrition coach who's helped over 1000 women feel confident in their skin by learning.

How to eat for their goals without.

Sacrificing a life well lived. I created the Mind and My Wellness Podcast to give you simple, effective and manageable tips you can take away from each episode and implement in your daily life to look and feel like the best version of you. Each week, my guests and I teach you the secrets to mastering your health and owning your power. Nutrition, mindset, movement, and women's health are all topics you'll find here. Think of our time together as your productive little health break from the day. So grab your headphones, fill up your water, and let's dive into today's episode.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Mind and My Wellness Podcast. This is Dani, your host, and I am so, so fired up because this is the week of my free live trainings. I have three this week and I have not done a live training for you. Where I hop on live, we spend an hour, sometimes a little bit more. I teach you a lesson, I answer your questions at the end. I have not done this in two years. Almost two years. Like, almost two years to the date. Because last year I was pregnant, having a baby. And I absolutely love doing live trainings with my community because the chat, the chat in the live training is just blowing up with so many women who feel like seen and heard and feel like their problems are being answered and they're getting a solution that they haven't heard of before. Because of course there's just so much noise out there when it comes to dieting, when it comes to wanting to lose body fat or build muscle, see body composition changes, there's so much noise out there. So these live trainings are really there for me to break down that noise, give you a proven formula to experience body fat reduction, body recomposition, increased energy, mental clarity, all, all of that through a science based technique that I use with all of my clients, but in a free training session. So I am so fired up because we are in the midst of those live trainings. If you haven't signed up, if you're listening and it's my training week, please go sign up. You are doing a disservice to yourself if you are not going to these trainings because I am loading them with stick. So much information. The exact two step formula that you can use starting today to see lifelong fat loss, increase your energy, your mental clarity, everything that I shared about, like I just provide this for free because I am so passionate about this. I want to scream it from the rooftops and literally tell every single woman out there who grew up in a diet culture where they think they have to eat as little as possible to see results and then keep eating as little as possible to maintain those results. Anyway, I don't want to give too much away because I want you to come to the free live training and sit with me live and like ask me your questions live and I'll answer them on there. But anyway, I am just if you can't tell buzzing because of these trainings and I'm so excited to bring them back and I know I'm going to be doing more of them as well. So today I, I wanted to talk through five things that you're probably doing wrong with your nutrition that can be leading to why you're not seeing the results that you are so curious as to why you're not seeing because you feel like you're doing everything right. So when it comes to these five things, these are, some of them have to do with macros, some of them don't have anything to do with macros. Sort of have something to do with macros, but really are more generalized and they're things that I see really, really often with the women that I'm working with and they're very small tweaks that can make a huge difference. So I'm excited To share these with you. When it comes to your body goals, your health goals, nutrition really is the foundation. Nutrition is like 80% of what will get you to that goal. A lot of us think, like, if I just exercise and exercise and exercise, like, that's what will get me there. And don't get me wrong, I used to think that too. But the truth is that nutrition is the foundation, and everything else builds upon that foundation. And I have a podcast series here on the Mind and my wellness podcast that dives into exactly how our body burns calories, what makes the most impact versus the least impact. And actually the least impact that we have is our exercise. So if you want go listen to those episodes, they're super helpful. I love to just, like, load you guys with information and knowledge so that you have the knowledge to make those educated decisions. And honestly, like, live a lifestyle that doesn't feel like you have to fit a certain mold, but rather it can fit your lifestyle. Because we don't have to be working out seven days a week and should actually not be working out seven days a week for hormonal purposes. So there's, like, a lot to uncover. I have so many episodes that dive into these, but today we are talking about nutrition and five mistakes I see very often, because again, nutrition really is that foundation that we build upon. And next week, in next week's episode, because we are so quickly approaching summer, I am giving you some tips for the next eight weeks leading up to summer. What you can do if you have a goal to reduce some body fat or see body recomposition changes so you feel extra good in your bathing suit this summer. Cause I know that's what a lot of you want. So stick around for next week's episode too, and make sure to tune into that. So without further ado, let's jump into the five mistakes most women are making when it comes to their nutrition. Number one is skipping meals or under eating to save up calories. So if you are, let's say skipping breakfast because you're going out to eat, thinking that that's a way that you can save up calories to help for that dinner out, this is a huge mistake because skipping meals or drastically cutting back on calories can lead to a slower metabolism. It can train our metabolism to adapt to a specific eating style that's actually not supported by your hormones, and it can increase your hunger later on. And a lot of this has to do with blood sugar and our hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin, which I have a whole podcast episode on those gals. It's really important that we are optimizing our blood sugar levels. We are eating to support our hormones, which will then allow us to make better decisions come that dinner later, if that's what we're saving up for. So oftentimes what happens too is that we actually this kind of backfires and it results in overeating or cravings again because of that blood sugar dysregulation. It also can disrupt the balance of some essential nutrients and energy for your body. So instead what I want you to do is I want you to focus on eating regular balanced meals throughout the day to support your metabolism, to support your hormones, and to support your hunger. And what these meals can look like is making sure that you're building your meals around a protein source. You have plenty of fiber, some healthy fats in there, and then any additional carbohydrates. Just be mindful of those. So let's say you are saving up your calories for something later in the day. Instead of actually saving up your calories, think of it from a macros approach where if that dinner out or, you know, whatever it is that you're saving up those calories for, if that meal is going to be potentially more carb or fat dense, then what I want you to do is structure your macros accordingly. So maybe the first part of the day, don't skip your meals, but have those meals more structured around proteins, higher protein in the earlier meals that you have a little bit more control over. And then that gives you the flexibility with your calories and your macros for later in the day. So this is really where you can see those amazing body composition changes is when you're thinking instead of just calories, you're thinking macros and you're thinking about how you can balance them in a day versus like, let me just restrict a meal altogether to quote unquote, save up the calories, when in reality that can completely backfire because of our blood sugar. Number two is that you are trying to look for the golden ticket. You are jumping from the one thing to the next thing to the next thing that you're seeing on social media that is promising you the body that you want. Whether that is a shake, whether that is a supplement, whether that is massively expensive gut test that you have to do, because that's the root of all of your problems. Not to say it's not, but if you don't have the foundation in place first, everything else you're like searching for the 1% of things that might actually make a 1% difference. When the 99% that you need is the unsexy stuff, is the stuff that is the day to day, week to week, month to month, mundane unsexy stuff. That's the stuff that's actually going to move the needle. The nutrition, the movement, the optimizing sleep, the managing stress levels. Just building that foundation, that is what I spend most of the time doing with our clients inside of our programs is just building that foundation. Because as soon as you can do that, you will see everything else fall into place. I kid you not. I mean, go onto my Instagram and go to my highlights, look at our client highlights, look at the TMA highlights. You'll see for yourself the screenshots there of people and clients just expressing how the benefits are far beyond just physical, their mental, emotional, all of the things. So looking for the golden ticket can get in the way. A lot of times when we see something come up, we put a lot of money, energy towards that one thing, really holding onto it, hoping that that is the one thing that changes everything for us. If you have not built that foundation, that's what's going to change everything for you. So a huge mistake is that we're jumping from one thing to the next thing to the next thing when we don't already have that foundation in place. And sometimes when we do have that foundation in place and we need a little extra encouragement, there can be small tweaks that you can make or small things that you can add that can make a lot of a difference. But for the majority of us, it's that foundation that it's just like not the flashy thing that we're like, yeah, that's what I want to do right now. No, we want things that are going to be more instantaneous. We want things that are going to give us that instant gratification. And the truth is, is that's just not how sustainable fat loss or body changes happen. Number three is most women in particular are not eating enough protein. And protein is essential for muscle preservation, for muscle development and for fat loss. It is also so beneficial for, I mean, the longevity that we have as we're aging with our hormones. It is so, so critical. So without eating enough protein, your body may start to break down muscle for energy. And it can slow your metabolism, it can hinder your fat loss progress. And I know that this is just one that a lot of us now, I think it's, I love that it's becoming way more popular. I feel like it's like this protein is this huge buzz word right now, which rightfully so, it deserves its glory because protein is queen. And it truly does make such a difference when you're implementing that into your diet in an amount that is right for you. So instead of thinking about calories in your meals, what I want you to do is think about protein in your meals. If nothing else, think about how much protein build your meals around that protein source. Even if you're eating something like, I use this example all the time, pasta. We use a chickpea pasta base and that's because it is also a protein source. But I'm not thinking about it as the pasta first. I'm thinking about it as like, okay, what protein am I going to have with that pasta? Is it ground turkey? Is it ground beef? Is it shrimp? Whatever it is, and thinking protein first always. So make sure that you're eating enough protein for your body. Now, the next two are strictly macro focused. So number four is that with your macros, if you have macros and if you are following your macro plan or making adjustments to your macros, you're changing them too often. You're seeing one week of progress or maybe lack thereof, and you automatically think you need to change your macros. And that's not at all true. We want to give our macros time to work and also your body weight and measurements and things like that. They're going to fluctuate throughout a period of time for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with body fat, whether that's gain or loss. So changing your macros too often can actually be a hindrance and detrimental to your overall progress. So what I recommend doing is setting your macros and staying there for at least two to three weeks to assess overall how it's going to before then making any adjustments to your plan. I talk all about plateaus in an episode here. You can go search for my plateaus episode. This is going to provide you a little bit more guidance there. But don't change your macros too often. This is a huge problem I see very, very, very often. And last but not least, number five is with your macros, you're always trying to eat under your macro goals, thinking that you're going to see better progress. I've seen this happen and I'm honestly very early on in my own journey. I was guilty of this where I would try to eat under my macro goals, thinking that, okay, if I'm like a little bit under, I'll see quicker fat loss. The truth is, you're what you're gonna see quicker of is your metabolism slow down. So we are building, and I say we. If you're getting a macro plan from us, we're looking at a very extensive intake form that you fill out. Cause we're looking at more than just what you'll get from an online calculator or we're looking at your dieting history, your hormones, if you have that information. We're looking at your cycle, we're looking at your current lifestyle habits, we're looking at your current diet intake. We're looking at so many things and this helps us build the right plan for you. So if you're trying to eat under those macros, you're actually doing a disservice to your metabolism and in as a result to your hormones as well. So making sure that you're not try to trying to undermine any program that you're doing the macros that you're given. If you do get macros, and I won't say from anywhere, I can't speak for anyone else, but I know from our programs and inside mind and my macros, if you do get a custom macro plan or you're working with our coaches or you're learning how to do it yourself inside of our programs, you are always going to get a macro count that is right for you. So trying to undermine those macros is actually going to do more harm than good. So make sure that you're always honoring your biofeedback, your macros, and you're not cutting too steep, too fast because it can honestly harm your metabolism and your hormones more than it could, you know, help you reduce overall body fat. I hope these five mistakes, if any of them, really hit the nail on the head with you, it's not a way of calling you out, but it kind of is. It's kind of a way for you to become more aware of anything you may be doing, whether you are aware of it or not. Maybe you're just realizing like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that I do that, but I totally do. There are so many better ways to go about these types of things in a way that's going to honor your metabolism and your hormones, which again, in pair in tandem are going to result in the body that you want, but not just the body physically, the health that you want as well. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions DM me over on Instagram, you can find me at mindedmywellness podcast or at mindedmymacros and until next week. Keep minding you'd wellness.

Thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. I love hearing from you, so shoot me a DM over on Instagram Instagram at mindandmymacros to keep the convo going. If you've learned anything from this episode or any of my past episodes, I'd really love it if you took a few seconds to leave a quick rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I love hearing what you've learned or what you've taken away from any of these episodes. It means so much to me when you do that. And if you have any friends you know that need a little help kicking some some old dieting mentalities to the curb and want some simple, effective and sustainable tips to feel their best, share a link to this episode with them. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time.