Physiological Feedback Explained

One question we want to address is in regards to the Physiological feedback. Youll

see these on your sheets as Stress, Hunger, Energy, and Sleep. You may be
wondering how to properly rate these and youre probably asking yourself What
does this have to do with MyMacrosApp and their Alpha Testing?!

MyMacrosApp [MMA] is about more than tracking. The body is a complex biological
machine and science is our way of understanding how it works. MMA is about
bridging science and math to help you succeed. MMA is being designed to help give
you concise and useful feedback on your progress and change. The information you
provide will help us to apply this information to our formulas and develop a way to
make it meaningful to you in the final version of the application.
Ill go over each metric with a little insight on why we care and how to rate these
from 1 to 10.

STRESS
Why Do We Care? - Besides the obvious impact stress can have, stress over an
extended period of time results in elevated levels of the hormone called cortisol,
aka The Stress Hormone. This hormone works in a few ways to undermine our
ability to lose weight and gain muscle, and may even lead to depression. Without
getting too complicated, elevated cortisol affects how the body processes macros,
can create excess glucose, and will break down muscle mass.
How Do I Rate It? When determining stress, each individual is as unique as the
next. So it can be a little overwhelming to rate from 1 to 10 and express how
stressed you are on any given day. This requires a little bit of introspect, looking at
yourself and assessing your current state. This comes with practice, but there are
no wrong answers. There are countless outside factors that can affect stress levels
so dont ignore them.
A rating of 1-4 would be a relaxing to low stress day, whereas a rating of 5-7 would
be a day that wasnt overwhelming but wasnt without its hiccups. Its when we get
into the 8-10 range that we see high levels of stress, and this can be influenced by
anything and everything. When should you be concerned? A single or a couple of
days with high stress are not something to worry about; life happens and when
things arent perfect they can really rock the boat. Its when we start seeing a trend
of high stress values over a week or longer that we need to be concerned. When
this happens, your cortisol levels are elevated and your fitness plan wont succeed.
When your diet doesnt succeed, your stress level increases. When stress levels get
to the point of affecting your diet, evaluating and trying to reduce your stress can
help and we might recommend you take a break from dieting to make this easier.
While we cant always give advice on how to do that and its often easier said than
done, we do know that communication and reprioritizing can help with a lot of
stressful situations. Mental health is just as important as physical health and they
are fundamentally tied together. If youre a female, elevated stress levels may be
normal for several days or weeks during monthly menstrual cycles or pregnancy, so
its important to be aware of any correlation between these periods of times and
your stress levels.

HUNGER
Why Do We Care? When it comes to dieting, hunger is one thing that plagues us
all. One of the key aspects of flexible dieting and IIFYM is being able to monitor your
intake without spending the entire diet hungry. You may be surprised to hear that
going for long stretches will lead to elevated levels of a hormone called ghrelin, aka
The Hunger Hormone. This hormone regulates your appetite and your GI
functions, and it plays a major role in how energy is distributed and the rate of its
use. Increased levels of ghrelin over time, like stress, can work against you and your
goals so its important to pay attention to how hungry you feel throughout the day.
Fun fact, ghrelin is one of a few endogenous peptides that can cross the blood-
brain-barrier. This means when youre hungry, this hormone directly affects your
brain. Now you know why people get so cranky when theyre hungry!
How Do I Rate It? Hunger is probably one of the easier metrics to measure! We
are almost always aware when our hunger reaches a certain point that we cant
ignore the feeling. It is usually not too hard to determine if we feel like a light snack
or hungry like a bear. Still, it can be a little confusing when we turn that feeling into
a number. As with stress, everyone has different tolerances. When youre rating
your hunger level, simply rate it as you feel best summarizes your day. Dont let
things like not eating because you were busy all day affect your score, if you felt
hungry, rate it based on that feeling just the same as if you had eaten all of your
planned meals that day and felt full all day. Regardless of the reason WHY you were
hungry, its all part of the drive for hunger so its important to rate this without
worrying about cause. A rating of 1-4 means you felt full most of the day or had a
desire to snack a little, where 5-7 means you felt hungry off and on throughout the
day with your eating schedule but light snacking and your meals satiated that
feeling reliably. If youre in the lower ranges of feeling satisfied, but say you had a
single instance of strong hunger at some point during the day it does not mean you
should turn a rating of a 3 into an 8. This can be normal for your body, especially
when you first wake up, but do increase your rating a few points to reflect the
intensity of that feeling. Ranges between 8-10 are reserved for those who feel
consistently hungry throughout the day and in spite of eating planned meals and
snacks, the hunger is not satisfied. If youre a female, this may be normal especially
during monthly menstrual cycles or pregnancy so, like with stress, its important to
be aware of any correlation between these periods of times and your hunger.
Temporarily adjusting your macros during this period may be necessary for some
women but always check with your coach/trainer before making any changes to
your macros.
 ENERGY
Why Do We Care? Your macronutrients have a huge impact on your energy
levels [as well as sleep and other outside factors], so when were asking you about
your energy level were checking to make sure your balance of carbohydrates and
protein are sufficient for your bodys demand based on your goal. You may be
surprised to know that at rest, obese people expend more energy than lean people
thus we always need to consider this when doing macro calculations. So by knowing
your energy level, we can better assess whether or not we need to modify certain
macronutrients or if it might be time to take a diet break if you have been severely
lacking energy over the last couple of weeks. If lethargy persists, it may be a time
to see a doctor as another step toward maintaining physical wellness.
How Do I Rate It? When we think of energy, the first thing that comes to mind
are the states of being sleepy or alert. If someone asks you how was your energy
level today? you might think oh I wasnt too tired! or Man, I was just a sloth
today! While these are the obvious signs of energy, there are some more subtle
characteristics to energy that you want to consider. Other aspect of energy are how
your mind works, how active your mind feels, and how quick it your mind to respond
to stimuli. If you feel well rested in the morning and feel ahead of the curve the rest
of your day, then your energy level would be a bit higher than if you feel rested all
day but are a bit slow to respond mentally. Likewise, if youre feeling tired and
sluggish but youre mentally alert then you should rate your energy that day higher
than you would if you were sluggish and mentally diminished. Unlike with Hunger
and Stress, a lower rating means youre less energetic and a higher rating means
youre more energetic. For example, a 1-4 indicates that youre feeling that you are
lacking in energy and mental alertness, whereas a 5-7 would indicate you are
feeling rested and aware but not overly so. A rating from 8-10 indicates that you
feel a plethora of energy that you cant seem to burn off and your mind is overly
active. While an 8-10 sounds GREAT, sometimes being that high over a long period
of time could be a cause for concern as our bodies are not always designed to run at
full speed over long periods of time. There are exceptions and if youve always been
a high energy person then it may be less cause for concern.

SLEEP
Why Do We Care? Directly related to energy, sleep is also an important aspect of
personal health. The quality of your sleep directly impacts the quality of your day.
The amount of sleep required for most people is around 8 hours with a small
percentage of the population [only 1%] able to be fully rested on just 4-6 hours of
sleep a day. Sleep deprivation can sabotage your every move! If youre sleepy while
youre at work you may grab for an extra cup of coffee as a source of energy or you
may cut a gym session short or worse skip the gym all together.
How Do I Measure It? Easy! Take a look at what time you go to bed, if you spend
an hour lying in bed reading or on your phone, do not count that time as sleeping.
Its important to keep this simple, when you wake up in the morning you can quickly
note that you slept x number of hours. You dont need to be exact, but to the
hour is sufficient and can be done by adding or subtracting .5 hours to the start/end
times. For example: Go to sleep at 11:14 PM and wake up at 7:05 AM, you can just
note that you went to bed at 11PM and woke up at 7AM for a total of 8 hours. If you
go to sleep at 11:09 PM and woke up at 7:20 AM, you can round that to 11 PM and
7:30 AM for a total of 8.5 hours. Youre welcome to go down to 15 minute
increments for added precision by adding or subtracting .25 to your start/end times.