Too much fat/protein

CarmenS76

I am having trouble after getting my allotted calories for the day that I have too much fat and protein(negative # in daily totals). Is it better to get all your daily calories and go over on other things you are tracking or get less calories than you are allotted and meet the other daily goals in carbs, fat and protein? Does anyone else experience this when tracking your foods, even with doing exercise and having those "points" translate to extra calories for the day? Even with doing exercise, I still go over on my calories on some days as well. Any pointers would be appreciated as to how I can lower my #? Should I be tracking something different other than calories, carbs, fat and protein? Any pointers on weight loss would be helpful.

ValerieMartini2Olives

Your diary isn't open. We don't know what you're eating. Can't help if we can't see.

diannethegeek

If you're using MFP's default settings, their protein goal is actually set pretty low. A lot of us prefer to manually set it to something like 30% of our daily intake. I wouldn't worry about going over on protein.

CarmenS76

Food diary has been set to public

CarmenS76

All my goals are set to the default values that were chosen when I created the goal. I did not know you could manually change those figures while creating a goal. Can this be changed for all values?

ValerieMartini2Olives

Can we get some more info on you? Age, height, weight?

CarmenS76

I'm 36 years old 5 foot 6 female ; 176lbs

davemunger

I have a similar issue with getting more fat than the recommendations -- hard to resist sometimes! I would suggest getting some fruit / vegetables in for your snacks instead of so many nuts. That is where you are getting a lot of fat. I'm still not quite there either but getting closer.

BarackMeLikeAHurricane

As long as you eat enough protein (ideally 1g per pound of lean body mass but 1g per kg of body weight is acceptable) being over on fat is fine. Fats and protein should be viewed as minimum values so it's fine to go over. Carbs are unnecessary so you don't have to worry about eating enough. Some people do low carb, some people find their exercise suffers if they keep carbs too low, do what works for you.

What's important about fats is the ratio of saturated vs. monounsaturated vs. polyunsaturated fats. Saturated fat has been demonized in the past but some is necessary. Half of your cells membranes are made up of by saturated fats. Saturated fats are easy to get in your diet so try to focus on incorporating more essential fatty acids into your diet. Oily fish and flax seeds are a great source of omega 3 EFA's. You can take a fish oil or flax oil supplement if you have trouble getting it from your diet. Omega 6's are very easy to get into your diet so there's not need to supplement it. Most people eat too many omega 6's and too little omega 3's so to maintain a good ratio you shouldn't supplement your omega 6 intake.

MFP sets protein too low. To set your macros, check out this link: 

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/911011-calculating-calorie-macronutrient-needs?page=1#posts-13821336

Also, it's hard to have too much protein. 

"It has been observed that the human liver cannot safely metabolise much more than 285-365 g of protein per day (for an 80 kg person), and human kidneys are similarly limited in their capability to remove urea (a byproduct of protein catabolism) from the bloodstream. Exceeding that amount results in excess levels of amino acids, ammonia (hyperammonemia), and/or urea in the bloodstream, with potentially fatal consequences,[1] especially if the person switches to a high-protein diet without giving time for the levels of his or her hepatic enzymes to upregulate. Since protein only contains 4 kcal/gram, and a typical adult human requires in excess of 1900 kcal to maintain the energy balance, it is possible to exceed the safe intake of protein if one is subjected to a high-protein diet with little or no fat or carbohydrates. However, given the lack of scientific data on the effects of high-protein diets, and the observed ability of the liver to compensate over a few days for a shift in protein intake, the US Food and Nutrition Board does not set a Tolerable Upper Limit nor upper Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range for protein.[2] Furthermore, medical sources such as UpToDate[3] do not include listings on this topic." 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

Akimajuktuq

MFP defaults are far too low for fat (and too high for carbs). Keep eating the fat and protein! If the red numbers are an issue, change your goals. I did. The "fat is bad" mentality is alive and well on MFP and it should not be. Depending on your lifestyle, moderate protein is adequate.

(Yes one can have too much protein-likely hard to do- and it can be stored as fat. But you can go over MFP macro defaults, and I encourage to go well over with healthy fats.)

CarmenS76

If I manually change my goals, what should I set them for for each of the different values all the way down the page for the customization section? I have always just used the guided section when creating my goals. Should I be worried if there is too much fat in my diet?