Help setting macros

kindrabbit

Hi.

I've been with MFP for a couple of months now and the weigh loss and exercise are going well. I would like to change my macros to help me keep track of my protein intake. I currently weigh 151 lbs and am aiming for between 130 - 140 lbs. I have been told I should aim to eat around 1g per lb of body weight in order to maintain lean muscle.

I am having trouble getting my dairy settings to reflect the goal of 150g protein per day. I have changed it in my settings (40% protein = 162g, 35% = 141g) but when I look in the nutrition page it says 69g goal for all future dates. All previous dates say differing amounts so I'm assuming I am misunderstanding some maths somewhere!

Can anyone help me out so that my protein goal is around 150g in my settings?

livingleanlivingclean

I don't bother setting my goals. I just know what I'm supposed to eat.... My macros change frequently and sometimes daily if I'm carb cycling so I just remember what to do.

There is a link to change macros from % to g's if you want to be specific.

kindrabbit

Can you point me in the right directing to find the link please. I do know what to do, I just love a good chart! I like to see it all written down in black and white

sijomial

Karen_libert wrote: »

Hi.
I am having trouble getting my dairy settings to reflect the goal of 150g protein per day. I have changed it in my settings (40% protein = 162g, 35% = 141g) but when I look in the nutrition page it says 69g goal for all future dates.

That's strange - did you change your settings from phone or PC?
My diary shows my custom goals the same into the future.

kindrabbit

I thought the same so I have done it on both. When I look in goals in says protein 162g 40% but when I look in the nutrition page it says 69g. I wonder if that 40% isnt 40% of the total macros but 40% of 'something else' !?

sijomial

Odd - my goal page / nutritional goal and diary both have same 150g target.
Your calorie goal is 1610 so 40% is 644.
4 cals per gram of protein so 161g.

By the way your protein is on the high side of common recommendations.
1g/1lb of lean mass (not body weight) is common.
An alternative is 1g/1b of target body weight.

Not really a problem being on the high side unless it squeezes out other aspects of your diet.

kindrabbit

Thanks, I'm not sure how I would calculate my lean body mass. I'll change my goal to 130 which is the low end of where I'd like to be. Thanks for putting me right there.
I think I'll just have to keep it in my head that I'm aiming for 130g protein per day and ignore the daily nutrition page.
Thanks

IvanOcampo

Don't worry about lean body mass unless you're over 40% body fat.
Similarly, protein consumption is not necessarily related to lean muscle retention.
You need to work out and lift heavy weights for that.

With that in mind, the simplest way of working out your macros:
.75-1 gram of protein per pound
20% fat
Rest of your calories from carbs

Check out Michael Kory on YouTube - he breaks it down into further detail (sorry am on my phone and don't have access atm)..

kindrabbit

Thanks. I do lift, which is why I want to keep a track of my protein consumption whilst I'm cutting. I was hoping to be able to set 130g per day as my goal in my diary settings but for some reason it insists I should be having 69g a day and no matter what I change in my settings I can't get my goal to read 130g. Everyone else I've spoken to is able to change their settings so the goal on the nutrition page is the same as the goal in the food diary settings page, but not me! It must be something I am missing but I can't figure it out.

Eta the protein goals for days in the past varies. The protein goal for future days is 69g. My goal in the diary setting is 120 something (that's as close to 130 as I can get whilst fiddling with the percentages) I must be doing something wrong and I'm usually a relatively intelligent person!!

IvanOcampo

Karen_libert wrote: »

Thanks. I do lift, which is why I want to keep a track of my protein consumption whilst I'm cutting. I was hoping to be able to set 130g per day as my goal in my diary settings but for some reason it insists I should be having 69g a day and no matter what I change in my settings I can't get my goal to read 130g. Everyone else I've spoken to is able to change their settings so the goal on the nutrition page is the same as the goal in the food diary settings page, but not me! It must be something I am missing but I can't figure it out.

Eta the protein goals for days in the past varies. The protein goal for future days is 69g. My goal in the diary setting is 120 something (that's as close to 130 as I can get whilst fiddling with the percentages) I must be doing something wrong and I'm usually a relatively intelligent person!!

while MFP is a great tool for keeping track of your calories/macros, it's fairly limiting in terms of how much you can customise it.
Personally, I set my calorie goals to 0 and forget about the percentages MFP suggests.
I KNOW i have to hit 450 carbs, 65 fats and 190 proteins.. It doesn't matter what % that is of my ~3150 calories per day..

kindrabbit

everyone else seems to be able to do exactly what I want it to do. It's not the end of the world, its just annoying when I'm trying to track my protein and it doesn't seem to be doing it to anyone else. MFP is designed for you to be able to set your goals so you can see if you are meeting or exceeding them and it's not doing that for me. I'm going to ask tech support

Susieq_1994

Karen_libert wrote: »

everyone else seems to be able to do exactly what I want it to do. It's not the end of the world, its just annoying when I'm trying to track my protein and it doesn't seem to be doing it to anyone else. MFP is designed for you to be able to set your goals so you can see if you are meeting or exceeding them and it's not doing that for me. I'm going to ask tech support

Maybe you've got some kind of glitch going on--It does sound really weird that your macro goals aren't stretching into future dates. That's never happened to me before!

aztec707

If you have the app, you can manually enter your exact goal Protein or other macros.

kindrabbit

aztec707 wrote: »

If you have the app, you can manually enter your exact goal Protein or other macros.

I've done that by amending the percentages in the goals page to get the protein as close to 130g as possible. when I look at the daily summary that amount has changed to 69g. I heard there was a way to change the percentages to g but I can find it. The website is fine, it's the phone app that does it.

kindrabbit

I have taken screen shots of the relevant pages but I'm not sure how to insert them so you can see them.

kindrabbit

OK, so there is one shot showing my protein goal of 40% = 161g, there is a shot of tomorrows summary saying 69g and a shot of today so far saying my goal is 72g.

wolfsbayne

Karen_libert wrote: »

I have taken screen shots of the relevant pages but I'm not sure how to insert them so you can see them.

kindrabbit

wolfsbayne wrote: »

Karen_libert wrote: »

I have taken screen shots of the relevant pages but I'm not sure how to insert them so you can see them.

Can you see them?