Need some advice on maintaining

k1mbunny

I am currently 5"5, weight 126 pounds and it says I need to eat 1660 calories.

I do a 40ish minute run once a week and I have recently starting going to the gym to do weightlifting (3x times a week - 5x5 stronglifts squats, deadlifts etc) and 1x cardio session.

I want to gain muscle and lower my body fat % with weightlifting. I have looked into having these macros: Carbs 30% (125g), Fat 35% (65g) and Protein 35% (145g)

I have started getting serious and I'm taking 2 protein shakes a day which up my calories a bit and i'm wanting to get in more fats such as nuts and seeds.
The hardest bit is keeping the carbs down. It feels like this might be too drastic with lowering the carbs that much? And with wanting to gain muscle should I not be worrying about my calories?

Any advice would be helpful, thanks

sijomial

Protein is excessive! Why do you want to lower carbs?

Worth a read - community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1

tbfincher

As sijomial said, your protein is excessive. You only need about 1 gram per pound of lean muscle mass. There isn't really a downside to having excessive protein in your diet, other than you might be wasting a scoop of protein every day that your body won't utilize. Also, you have to remember that these daily goal targets are before you exercise, it would be unwise to lower your carbs, especially if you are doing a 40 minute run every week on top of weight training with cardio. Carbs are what fuel your body for workouts, they are essential to keeping your energy levels up.

For instance, I'm 5' 9" and 175 lbs. If I want to gain a pound a week at 4 workouts a week then my goals are

Calories: 3,280
Carbs: 410g
Fat: 109g
Protein: 164g

So my daily carb intake is almost 4 times as high as my fat intake, and 3 times as high as my protein intake.

Edit: I should note that I'm not telling you to go 4 times as high as our fat or anything like that, that's just what mine equates to. Your carbs should be 50% of your daily calories, so in your case, 1660/2 = 830. 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories, so 830/4 = 208g of carbs per day.

k1mbunny

I read about a having a rough 40 30 30 macros for lowering body fat and gaining in lean muscle. I did feel that the carbs were a bit low and wanted some guidance.

I just assumed as i'm working out more I'd need more protein for this.

Thanks for the advice!