Good morning. Hope everything and everyone is treating you well. The sight of little buds on trees is getting me all kinds of ready for spring and fresh starts once again. 🌸 

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Imagine a World with No Macros

The field of nutrition science is young. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that scientists started to discover and define calories and the three macronutrients—carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

Prior to then, we just knew food was necessary for survival. Imagine a world with no macros, or calories, even. For the vast majority of human history, that’s how we lived.

• Picture you’re an 8th century laborer and a freshly cooked lamb shank falls onto your plate. You have no idea how much protein it contains, or even know that protein is a good thing.

• Picture yourself in 17th century France with a fresh baguette on your table. Not only do you not know how many carbohydrates are in it, but you don’t even have that word (or its French equivalent) in your vocabulary.

Fast forward a century and a half from the discovery of macronutrients to today, however, and I’d say the vast majority of nutritional information we consume (pun intended) centers around calories and/or macronutrients. 

“Only 100 Calories! You burned this many calories today, so eat that many to lose weight. Be sure to consume XXX grams of protein! Watch out for carbohydrate intake exceeding X. Fats should comprise at least 20% but no more than XX% of your dietary calories.” 

The list goes on.

Science rocks. Information helps us improve our lives. I certainly feel more confident in my dietary choices because of the knowledge we now have available about nutrition.

That said, people were generally metabolically healthier 150 years ago than most are today. And they had a fraction of the information we had. 

So what did they eat? They just ate… food. No Goldfish crackers, no Oreos, no Pepsi, no ice cream, no Taki’s. Basically, if you saw it in the Doordash Super Bowl commercial, our great great great grandparents weren’t consuming any of that. 

They were eating beef raised on a neighboring farm. Potatoes and carrots grown in the backyard. Eggs and chicken liver from the coop by the garden. Milk that the milkman dropped off. Whatever fruit’s in season at the local market. Maybe some sunflower seeds from the corner store. 

And guess what. Aside from diseases, poverty, etc., most of them were healthy. Cardiovascular, atherosclerotic, metabolic, neurodegenerative, and cancer-related diseases were nowhere near as abundant as they are now. (Granted, numerous other factors go into that, but the point stands.)

People relied on wisdom and passed-down knowledge to know what’s good for them and in what quantities. 

What would you eat today if there were no macros? If not only did you not know how many carbs, protein, and fat a food contained, but if you didn’t even have a concept of them in the first place.

I suppose that depends on whether we consider if ultra processed foods are available. If not, we’d of course opt for whole foods: plants and animals. Fruits, veggies, meats, eggs, dairy, maybe some grains and seeds if available. Very basic, very simple. 

If ultra processed foods were available, and we had 0 data on how calorically dense and nutritionally deficient they are, I can only imagine they’d wreak more havoc on us than they already are. We’d have no idea a bag of chips was as many calories as an entire chicken. In that sense, it’s a good thing we have nutritional information to know that one serving of ice cream is not the whole container. 🍦 

But if we listened to our bodies and ate normal foods that were available to us, I can’t help but imagine that a world without macros would be simpler and healthier. We wouldn’t obsess over carbs or whether we’re getting enough protein. We’d just eat a regular, omnivorous diet that met all our nutritional needs through its natural diversity. 

I do believe there are certain benefits to our knowledge of macronutrients, however. Perhaps most importantly, we can target an ideal range for protein intake, somewhere between 0.7–1 grams per pound of bodyweight. We can time and dose carbohydrates around exercise to maximize performance. We can target healthy fat consumption to improve heart, brain, and hormone health. 

Have no doubt that knowledge is power. But when that knowledge gets overwhelming, remember that for the vast majority of human history, we lacked so much of the knowledge that stresses us out today. And by and large, people were much healthier—and less stressed—than we are today.

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Try out intuitive eating: If you’re hungry, eat what feels nourishing; if you’re not, don’t eat.

Level 2: Check out what macronutrients the foods and treats you eat on a regular basis contain. Did anything surprise you?

Level 3: Obsessing over macros? What if you just forgot about them for a day or week and let your body and intuition and culture guide you?

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• 🪥 Brush, floss, don’t mouthwash?: This episode of the Huberman Lab podcast is a deep dive into oral health that we all need.

• 😴 Snooze: I recently dog sat at a house and slept in a room with no fan. I can’t sleep in silence, so I turned to this podcast for the perfect noise to keep me asleep. So long white noise, hello deep brown noise! 🤎 

Take care, pals. Let your light shine and remember:

It ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward 💪 

—Rocky

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).