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Macabolic - online nutritionist, Darlinghurst (2025)

03/07/2023

How to build a nourishing meal, the FN’simple way.

If you want to build nourishing meals, that keep you full, and satisfied…

“Protein and plants first and foremost” is a phrase to live by.

It doesn’t mean that every single meal must include protein and plants.

But rather it’s something to focus on as a core foundation of your meals.

Why?

Prioritising the most filling, nutrient-dense ingredient categories.
You’re filling up on those most important things first.

Then you’re adding on the other layers that complete the meal.
It’s a methodical way of ensuring your meals ‘tick the boxes’.

In many cases, weight management can be achieved with the protein and plants model alone.

Without the need for Calorie/macro tracking.

It can be a very powerful tool in the toolkit as a non-tracking approach to lose weight.

However, IMO its greatest strength is providing direction.

27/06/2023

“Does my diet provide the things I need?”

FN’simple

Does your diet provide the nourishment required to flourish?

Is this something you even ask you yourself?

If not, the assessment doesn't need to be complicated.

Use this 9-part checklist to provide you with practical insight.

FN’why

This can be a tricky question to ask.

Especially with the tsunami of information about nutrition available in the world today.

To make matters worse, most of it’s conflicting and misleading.

It's often confusing.

Making things overwhelming and you don’t know who to trust.

FN’opinion.

It doesn’t need to be complex.

A few broad questions can give a general level of reassurance in most situations.

Yes, there are extreme circumstances that require a more comprehensive criterion, or ‘check-list’, Such as those with clinical considerations, or athletes.

But generally speaking, these 9 questions will provide adequate insight.

Without the real need for any further investigation.

05/06/2023

“I crave sweet things at night”

“I crave sweet things at night”

FN’simple.

Every behaviour and habit, even ‘the bad ones’ happen for a reason.

If you want to solve it, start by identifying the reason.

Don’t slap a band-aid on it, by saying “I need more discipline”.

Testing solutions can also be scary.

Starting with a mini experiment can help make it less daunting.

FN’why

How many times have you said…

“I need top try harder next week”.

“I need to stop ____”

How many times has your coach said…

“You need to commit”,

“You aren’t going to achieve your goals, if you keep slipping up”.

…So how’s that going for you?

Let me guess, it never works?

Right.

It’s time to try a problem solving approach, rather than slapping a band-aid on it?

If you experience and give into cravings, there is a reason…

There is a problem you’re trying to solve, or reward you’re seeking.

There might also be other drivers and influencing factors, such as:

Your food environment
People around you
Hunger got too high.

Okay, what can you do about it?

Is there anything you’re comfortable trying? Start there!

FN’wrap up.

Confronting problems rather than slapping a band-aid on it.

It's normal to feel hesitation when trying something different.

Change requires exiting what is familiar.

You might be fearful of what might happen.

Luckily, you don’t need to go from ‘zero to hero’.

Start with something small, that you’re comfortable, willing, and able to try.

Make a change slowly, at your own pace.

An FNC coach can help. DM us.

15/05/2023

Always ask why.

FN’simple.

Every action has a reason behind it.

If you view your nutrition behaviours through this less, it'll be easier to find a solution.

Rather than blaming your "lack of willpower" or personal failing.

FN’why.

You are human.
And humans are complex.

A complex list of factors influence your choices.

When you do something that moves you away from your goals, don't rush to blaming a lack of willpower.

That will only result in you feeling like a failure.

You aren't a failure.

There is always a reason behind every action.

FN’how

Instead, get curious:

“What were the possible reasons why I did X, Y, Z, even though I know it moved me away from my goal"

Consider internal drivers such as emotions, and feelings.

Were you stressed?
Did you try to solve it with food?

Were you hungry?
Were you triggered by excessive hunger levels?

Consider external drivers.
Were in the presence of yummy food, or in a social setting that felt a little awkward.

FN’don’t blame yourself.
You’re not a failure.

That gets you nowhere.

In fact it moves you further away from finding a solution.

08/05/2023

Struggle with nutrition consistency? Spend your self-control only when you really need to.

FN’simple
A failure of self-control can be a contributing limiting factor to executing goal-directed behaviour consistently.

However, saying “I just need to have more self-control” isn’t very helpful.

Making goal-directed behaviours easier, is just one way to reduce the need to spend self-control.
Meaning you can save it for when it’s really needed.

FN’why
Self-control is a finite resource, and it should not be spent ‘just because’.

Making goal-directed nutrition easier, is sometimes labeled as the lazy, or the ‘path of least resistance’, by those who voluntarily seek to make stuff hard because it’s “cool to be hardcore”.

Using ‘self-control’ and accepting discomfort, is often a necessary evil when it comes to achieving a goal.

But, making your life hard “because it’s cool”, meaning you spend a tonne of self-control when you don’t need to, is not a smart approach.

It’s an inefficient approach that only makes achieving your goals more difficult.

FN’how
Making ‘upfront nutrition investments’, managing your food environment, aiming for a consistent meal pattern, and focusing on what you can, instead of restricting are all viable options that are elaborated on in the images.

An FNC coach can help you find the most ‘self-control’ efficient nutrition approach.

01/05/2023

Unpacking Grit: Why Weight Loss Requires More Than Determination Alone

FN’summary.
Grit is important, but alone, it won’t get you far.

This is because weight management is a complex, multifactorial endeavour.

However, problem-solving, skill-building, and establishing personally meaningful goals can work in combination with grit for those who struggle to stay committed in the face of nutritional adversity.

FN’why
Grit, "a personality trait defined as the ability to sustain commitment toward long-term goals despite challenges".

A recent 2022 study [1] in 309 overweight and obese adults measured grit before, after an 18-month weight loss, and @ follow-up a further 18 months later.

Interestingly, they found that grit didn’t always predict more weight loss and weight loss maintenance.

The findings of the study support the idea that successful weight loss/maintenance is more than just ‘grit’ and ‘willpower’, and that it’s damn difficult, especially in the modern food environment.

Also, the study highlights the importance of acquiring nutrition and decision-making skills, as well as targeting goals that have personal meaning and connection with life values.

FN’take home.
Grit is especially powerful when it is combined with goals that connect to your values, a problem-solving approach to nutrition struggles, and better real-time food decision-making.

[1] PMCID: PMC9053131

25/04/2023

The role of your ‘logical brain’ in achieving your nutrition goals.

If you’re impulsive and want to start to make more goal-aligned choices, try this!

FN’simple

Reward drive (attached to yummy foods and ‘comfort eating’) draws you into urges and impulses.

Your ‘logical brain’ (executive function) is the antidote that helps you think more critically so you can make more informed decisions that align with your long-term goals.

Strengthening executive function can help.

Here are some strategies.

FN’why
Executive function (AKA ‘logical brain’): “cognitive control processes that contribute to one's ability to self-regulate and successfully carry out goal-directed behaviour”.

Logical brain has been associated with:
-a healthier diet (more fruit and veg)
-better food planning
-better ability to avoid eating based on emotions, impulses or external drivers (inhibitory control).

FN’how
The things mentioned in the graphics may help strengthen your logical in the context of counteracting reward drive towards mindless food choices and needless indulging.

PMID: 28042040
PMID: 26702601
PMID: 21241726
PMID: 34620371
PMID: 35361348

17/04/2023

Do you struggle with emotional eating?

Are you frustrated because you know it moves you further away from your goal?

FN’simple
If you emotionally eat, consider replacing food as your coping tool with an alternative non-food activity or behaviour.

FN’why
Sometimes you might lean on food as a coping mechanism in response to a mood state.

You could call this ‘emotional eating’.

The thing is, this can cause you to eat when you’re not hungry, when there isn’t a ‘real-valid’ reason to eat, and/or even when you consciously know it conflicts with your goals and values.

FN’what to do about it

Developing alternative non-food coping strategies to cope with a problem mood may help.

You can break it down into 3 parts.

1-Trigger
2-Coping strategy
3-Problem solve

But I also like to pair it with urge surfing.

Take a pause, or reflect on a recent emotional eating episode.

What was the trigger, and what problem were you trying to solve by eating?

What alternative ‘things’ can you replace eating with, that solves the same problem?

FN’example

Maybe it’s to play with the dog, or write down 3 things you’re grateful for.

Having non-food coping strategies might help prevent your mood from causing you to make choices that move you further away from your goal.

An FNC coach can help you break down your emotional eating and collaboratively work on a solution.

13/04/2023

From Tracking to Trusting: How a Food Journal Can Help You Eat Intuitively

If you want to get better at “eating how you feel”... Here is how.

FN’simple
Rating and recording your hunger levels before and after a meal as part of a food journal or in combination with tracking can help you build sensitivity to your body's needs and the confidence to ‘eat how you feel’.

The FN’problem.
You want to ‘be able to eat how you feel’…

You’re sick and tired of always eating to numbers and data (tracking)…

You like the idea of trusting yourself and not stressing that you’re eating too much.

Without your rules or food scales, you’re worried you’ll eat too much.

You might even think “I need tracking because without it I’ll never stop eating”.

FN’how
Building sensitivity, trust and the ability to recognise what your body needs and eat towards those needs is difficult, and seeking professional help is often necessary.

However, if it’s something you want to work on for a period of time, a practical strategy that can help move you in the desired direction is:

Pairing a subjective hunger rating with a food record and/or objective marker of food intake (such as tracking).

What the FN’F**k does this mean?

Taking a moment to rate your hunger before and after a meal.

Recording that rating, as part of a food journal or in conjunction with Calorie tracking.

At FNC, we can help. DM us for coaching options.

08/04/2023

Morocco dumpy.

I’m extremely grateful to have the privilege of travel while working, and it’s been memorable.

However, to be transparent, there are some insecurities and realities that I’ve experienced.

Whilst I’ve learned that ‘core work’ (i.e. the main tasks associated with your job) can absolutely remain unaffected, if you’re willing to work at uncomfortable times and locations…

The desire to plan ‘next moves’, progress and execute ‘life projects’ is building.

But constantly moving locations steals time and mental space required for this.

The feeling of ‘going through the motions’ is started to get to me, and constantly travelling and figuring out new places is getting pretty damn exhausting.

I’m also experiencing hefty anxiety about my future living situation. I’ve never felt further away from knowing where I want to live long term.

Despite this, I still get a buzz when it comes to discovering a new location and I’m keen to 'squeeze a bit more juice out of the lemon'.

04/04/2023

Add instead of subtract!

FN’What.

Do you have a nutrition-related goal?

You might’ve tried cutting things out in the past.

How has that worked for you?

Instead, you can get to your goal by adding instead.

An approach that focuses on adding health-seeking behaviours instead of imposing restriction and restraint, is good for your relationship with food, promotes longer-term behaviour change, and will lead to better outcomes overall.

FN’why
You might think…

“Restraint and restriction is necessary to achieve my goal, because at the end of the day, I have boundaries “rules” or guidelines that I must adhere to… I can’t go around eating packets of biscuits w***y nilly, because that puts me over my Calories.”

… And this is true.

However, adding behaviours instead, often results in adherence to the same diet boundaries needed to achieve your goal…

Without the requirement to use anywhere near as much self-control compared to a subtractive or ‘restrictive approach’…

FN’example.
Instead of saying…

“I must stop myself from eating biscuits in the afternoon”.

Instead try this…
“I’m going to focus on adding fruit to my afternoon snack”

Both approaches will encourage Calorie intake control.

However, the additive approach (2nd option) requires much less self-control, and most folks will likely find it much easier to adhere to, and use it as a springboard to change their behaviours in the long run.

30/03/2023

Social meal trade off’s

FN’simple
If you’re working on your nutrition to become a bit healthier, social meals and indulgences can be a speed bump.

Nutrition is a game of trade off’s - not solutions.

But you can ‘live in the grey’ rather than being all or nothing by applying a degree of consciousness to social meals.

FN’why

Social meals tend to have a high degree of taste appeal, and Calorie density whilst also lacking fibre.

Meaning it’s easy to eat a lot, and in doing so, a lot of Calories.

This is further amplified by social indulgent type environments, which add other elements to the list of non-hunger reasons to eat.

FN’how

By finding your FN’sweet spot, and making small swaps and compromises, a meal/occasion can become drastically more health-seeking and Calorie conscious.

It’s not easy though.

So a reflective food journal involving hunger ratings, and opportunities to list wins, struggles and lessons can help you get in touch with your sweet spot over time.

28/03/2023

BAN IT OR LEGALISE IT?
FN’simple.

Banning ‘problem foods’ that you tend to over eat when they’re in your environment probably isn’t a long term solution.

‘Food legalisation’ may lead to weaker desires over time, and therefore reduced requirements for self control.

It likely offers a superior strategy in the long run.

FN’why
The ‘legalisation’ and permission to eat indulgent foods should not be an unconscious free-for-all.

Instead, it considers health-seeking values, hunger and fullness cues, and eating for your bodies physical needs.

FN’how
Rating your hunger, mindful eating, and repeated exposure to ‘problem foods’ promotes satisfaction, not guilt.

This leaves more cognitive resources available for sensitivity to hunger cues.

Resulting in food habituation over time, which can lead to weaken indulgent food desires, meaning lower levels of self-control are then needed.

PMID: 32993830

22/03/2023

“Help my gut health is bad”.

FN’simple
It’s easy to be convinced you have a gut issue that needs fixing.

Many folks are out there trying to sell you a special solution to a special problem you didn’t know you had.

FN’opinion
“The gut” or “gut health” is a very complicated and well-marketed topic.

Unfortunately, this has led to a lot of misinformation and commentary that ‘jumps the gun’ in terms of what current science knows and can tell us about “the gut”, with reasonable certainty.

FN’how
If you experience gut upset, often the solution is the super simple thing(s) that seem “too basic to be true”.

You can run through this checklist to try and tease out the basics first and foremost.

If symptoms persist, it’s time to visit a legitimate medical professional who can investigate further, and conduct the necessary test.

08/03/2023

Why vegan athletes might have a hard time eating enough.

FN’simple
Eating a lot of Calories can be difficult for a highly active vegan athlete.

Including processed snacks and beverages without a whole food based diet pattern can help.

FN’why.
Due to the low Calorie, higher fibre characteristics typical of a vegan diet.

Eating a tonne of Calories can mean a tonne of food volume and fibre.

This is both very difficult and risky for triggering gut upset.

FN’how.
Many highly processed snacks and beverages possess characteristics that encourage easy and comfortable consumption of Calories.

In the case of the highly active athlete, this is helpful as the consequences of under-fuelling can be severely detrimental to health and performance.

27/02/2023

Challenging irrational beliefs.

If you struggle with consistency and being all or nothing after one small slip-up.

You might be influenced by irrational beliefs.

These irrational beliefs and the choices and behaviours that follow, maybe a much larger issue than the initial slip-up itself.

By challenging those irrational beliefs, we can replace them with new rational ones, thus avoiding all-or-nothing thinking and further goal-misaligned behaviours that follow.

FN’why
You had an extra scoop of ice cream. You feel like a failure. You then proceed to eat more ice cream in an unconscious way because ‘you’ve stuffed up, so what’s the point in bothering’.

Did the initial event of an extra scoop of ice-cream really move you away from your goal, or are the beliefs and later action of continuing to eat ice cream mindlessly, the real issue?

In nutrition, often the initial behaviour/action that seems “really bad”, is benign in the grand scheme of things.

It’s not the initial event that moves you away from your goals.

Rather, the beliefs that follow and the subsequent actions that then occur.

FN’how
So how can we avoid irrational beliefs causing further choices and decisions that move you away from your goals?

1-Identify irrational beliefs.
“I’ve just ruined my progress because I had an extra scoop of ice cream”.

2-Challenge them.
“Is that really the case, am I exaggerating the impact of an extra scoop of ice cream”.

2-Apply a new rationale belief.
1 scoop of ice cream will not ruin my ability to progress toward my long-term goal, and ice cream can be a part of a health-seeking diet.

16/02/2023

Canned fish comparison.

FN’simple.
Selecting a canned fish product to use in salads, pasta dishes, and/or sandwiches and wraps is very much a game of compromise between taste, cost, omega 3 content, salt content, and Calories.

FN’analysis
Flavoured tuna fairs rather well across most criteria (in particular taste:Calorie ratio) making it an appealing choice overall.

Flavoured options have a marked higher content of sodium (salt) which may be undesirable long term for some.

Sardines are a competitive option overall, however, an acquired taste is likely their downfall.

Interestingly, pink salmon does not contain notably more omega-3 fats than tuna. However, red salmon does.

Overall, protein was relatively similar across all products analysed.

FN’be aware
Data listed for non-flavoured tuna (in oil and spring water) are as drained. Which might be a misrepresentation of the actual Calories consumed.

Prices varied notably within fish categories between brands. This analysis focuses on the cheaper options.

07/02/2023

How much will the convenience of frozen mixed veg cost ya?

FN'simple
When it comes to convenience usually you take a trade off on price, and/or customisation.

However, frozen mixed vegetables are a viable strategy to save time and effort without too much compromise on price.

FN’why
Yep, frozen vegetables are still vegetables and from a health perspective there isn’t anything notably inferior about them.

What they do is save you time chopping, and cleaning numerous food preparation utensils.

They also save you from running around the supermarket like a headless chook trying to nail plant variety.

FN’opinion.
If you want your mixed, pre-cut vegetables fresh, that’s when you really gotta pay for it.

However, frozen mixed veg offer a fair compromise where the cost trade off ain’t bad at all.

If the effort cost of healthy eating is a barrier you’re battling with, consider adding frozen mixed veg to your list of ammunition.

Macabolic - online nutritionist