Weight Loss Wednesday: Pizza Rolls, Puzzles, & Puns

Welcome back to the Daily Dumbbell, your trusted source for nutrition news, cringy dad jokes, and tips on how to turn your lackluster long back into a demonstrable dumpy.

Today we’re talking about a common trap we fall into with health and fitness. Confusing inputs with outputs. Too often we get obsessed with a very specific part of the process and trick ourselves into thinking this thing is actually the goal.

Think obsessing over restriction. Restriction is part of weight loss, sure. But it isn’t the end goal and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Confused? Don’t be, we’ll explain using pizza rolls and puzzles.

Let’s dive in!

Weight Loss Wednesday

Over the weekend one of our favorite accounts shared a new recipe for macro friendly pizza rolls. Do they look delicious? We wouldn’t go that far. But they don’t look terrible.

A quick scan of the comments indicated unrest among the masses. Bewilderment was brewing. Outrage swirled. But we can’t let confusion prevail.

Luckily, we’re here to help.

This is a nuanced thing to talk about, especially for the fitness newbies and even the die hards among us who have a very black and white view of health. Most people don’t always understand the point of recipes like this. Here’s a framework we think helps:

These recipes are a tool in your toolbox.

They are NOT the end-all, be-all of healthiness. Nor are they intrinsically better or healthier. They simply happen to be macro-friendly versions of your beloved comfort foods—think low-calorie renditions of your faves, protein-fortified pastas, or fiber-rich tortillas.

In contrast to the junk foods designed to override your satiety signals and keep you eating them, these foods are designed to help you reach your goals. BUT. They are not the goal themselves.

This is where many people stumble. They see "healthy" foods as the ultimate prize, and then feel crestfallen when they don't achieve what they wanted. They optimized for the wrong thing.

To explain how pizza rolls fit into all of this, we’ll take a step back.

Fitting individual foods into your macros is a bit like completing a puzzle. Imagine your diet as a 2500 calorie piece puzzle.

Step 1: Put the Edge Pieces in Place

The first step when completing a puzzle is to get the outer pieces in place. Once you have the border complete, it’s much easier to see where everything else should go and to build off of that.

The border is your protein. When you know where your protein is coming from for the day, the rest of it simply falls into place.

We’ll use example macros here of:

2,500 Calories
185g Protein
300g Carbs
62g Fat

Say you have a craving for the pepperoni rolls from Old Chicago so you look up the macros on those bad boys. An order comes with 6 and each roll has the following:

We listed out two rolls as well because lets be real; you’re not stopping with one.

A caveat: This is in no way to scare you or to guilt you away from eating Old Chicago Pepperoni Rolls. Lord knows they’re delicious. But it’s something you have to be aware of if you want to hit your macros and in turn, your goals.

Unless you’re a triathlete or marathoner or some shit and you can eat whatever the fuck you want because your metabolism is a blast furnace.

At this point, it’s of course still possible to hit your Calories and Protein for the day, but you’ve already gone over your fat goal and you still have 1,750 calories left to get 150g of protein.

You’ve made the puzzle a bit more difficult to complete.

This is where macro friendly recipes come in. Lets compare the macro friendly pizza rolls to the Old Chicago ones

The macros on the right aren’t really all that different from a chicken & rice bowl with some veg and avocado that most people would call healthy.

Now, you have a snack that you can eat really anytime you’d like, instead of an occasional splurge.

“But this isn’t actually healthy is it?”

Honestly? That’s the wrong question.

Nobody is saying you can’t eat these with a side of broccoli and an apple. This isn’t the only thing you’re going to eat today. Or the only food you’re ever going to eat again.

These rolls are merely tools in your toolbox—pieces of your puzzle, if you will. They're simply one part of the grander picture of your health and fitness journey.

The more you enjoy the process, the more likely you’ll be to make it to your destination.

If you’re devastated to reach the end of today’s newsletter without any puns, then you’re our kind of people. We’ll make up for it later in the week.

We’ll see you back here on Friday for our favorite finds from the past week!