I have and overall I think it’s great. I don’t advocate counting and tracking macros in most situations though for a couple of reasons.
- A lot of the clients that I work with are already obsessive about food/exercise and some of them were/are counting and tracking when they come to me. Having an eating disordered past, my goal for most folks is to teach them how to eat so that they don’t need to track. I tell them to let me worry about numbers, they just need to focus on food choices, portion sizes, their goals and how they feel.
- There are a lot of people who just tap out when you tell them that they need to track numbers. Simplicity is the name of the game to keep these guys onboard.
I think the Vertical Diet approach is great for a certain subset of people but it’s not the perfect fit for everyone. My approach is to set folks up with a solid eating template designed for them, their goals and their lifestyle and then let them loose. As long as they stick to that template, the numbers should line up and they’ll get the results they’re after.
As one client told me early in my career, “Amy, I’m paying you to worry about the numbers. If I have to do it, this isn’t going to work.”
I’ve adjusted my approach accordingly and it’s not failed me yet! I do have some clients that want the numbers, and in those cases the approach is a bit different, but for the most part I avoid giving them out. It also really helps avoid falling into an IIFYM debacle too. Donuts and fries don’t fit nicely into my templates, but they can be worked in more frequently if we’re just filling in numbers.