calories/protein?

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TrudyJoy2313
TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So when choosing foods I am trying to decide what is more important...higher in protein which in turn is higher in calories.....or lower in calories but you sacrifice a few grams of protein.

Is it better to sacrifice calories or protein?
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Replies

  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    If your goal is weight loss, calories are far and away more important. Macros (fats, carbs, and protein) are second.

    Can you keep the protein but reduce your fat and/or carbs? That way both your total cals and your protein stay where you want them.
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    My goal is weight loss, I ask because there are so many different varieties of foods. Some say low cal, or low fat or high fiber or high protein. Its very confusing sometimes. Thanks for the reply!
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
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    TrudyJoy2313 wrote: »
    My goal is weight loss, I ask because there are so many different varieties of foods. Some say low cal, or low fat or high fiber or high protein. Its very confusing sometimes. Thanks for the reply!

    If the box/packaging/label claims it to be high or low in something, it's probably just a marketing ploy, especially considering the terms "high" and "low" are very relative. High compared to what? Low compared to what? Also, serving size can matter. Eating very little of something inherently makes it low cal. Eating a ton of it inherently makes it high cal. So one product may claim to be low cal compared to another simply because the serving size is smaller. Make sense?

    Stick to the basics, which it sounds like you're trying to do. I think pre-logging foods is a great way to plan your day as you can easily swap foods in and out based on your needs and preferences. Plus, you end up with your day all planned out ahead of time.
  • RodaRose
    RodaRose Posts: 9,562 Member
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    These are the two things you need to be watching:
    1 total calories for the day
    2 total protein for the day.
    Everything else is only about how you get there (to 1 and 2).
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    I've been doing the pre-logging and it has really helped me to know where I stand, it also prevents me from impulse snacking. That really helps me out, thank you so much!
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    I've also heard conflicting stories about using things like sour cream or chicken broth. When they are full fat or fat free. Some blogs say to use the smallest serving size of the fat free because....duh....fat free but others warn that you should be using the smallest serving sixe of the full fat because of the additives in the fat free that make it fat free. What is your take on that @jacksonpt ?
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    I don't use them often, but some of my reciepes call for them and I'd like to know which is better from a weight loss perspective.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    edited May 2015
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    TrudyJoy2313 wrote: »
    I've also heard conflicting stories about using things like sour cream or chicken broth. When they are full fat or fat free. Some blogs say to use the smallest serving size of the fat free because....duh....fat free but others warn that you should be using the smallest serving sixe of the full fat because of the additives in the fat free that make it fat free. What is your take on that @jacksonpt ?

    IMO, that's really about personal preference. Some people are very anti-additive/artificial/etc. Personally, I don't care about that stuff... it's everything I can do to keep my cals where they need to be. Worrying about organic vs non or nitrates or artificial whatever... that's too much for me.

    But that's me.


    Also, that kind of thing is much more about health than it is weight loss. Weight loss is pretty straight forward (number of cals, not type of cals), health is a MUCH more complicated topic (number of cals, type of cals, souce of cals, etc). IMO, people should decide for themselves how important those things are.

    Sorry, that probably doesn't help much.
  • greco16
    greco16 Posts: 465 Member
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    Was reading earlier that only .36 grams of protein are needed per pound of body mass. It didn't say if this was lean body mass or just body mass.
  • chivalryder
    chivalryder Posts: 4,391 Member
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    Aim to hit your macros.

    The magic of macros is when you hit your macros spot-on, your calories will be spot on as well, barring nutritional information labels being accurate, which they usually aren't.
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    edited May 2015
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    greco16 wrote: »
    Was reading earlier that only .36 grams of protein are needed per pound of body mass. It didn't say if this was lean body mass or just body mass.

    I've seen similar... however most responsible authors will say that "minimum required" is not the same as "most ideal". IMO, most people should fall somewhere between those 2 depending on their goals/preferences.
  • juleszephyr
    juleszephyr Posts: 442 Member
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    I think you are maybe over-complicating things. I would plug in your goals to MFP work out your calories and learn to stick to them. This will start to shift your weight. As you get more comfortable with hitting you calorie goals and weight loss goals then you can look at optimising your nutrition. I would stick to non-processed foods an cook from scratch, that way you know what you are eating and can log accurately. Low calorie proteins are easy to find, chicken, venison, steak, fish, quorn, tofu, egg whites so go ahead and spoil yourself within your calories...
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    I mistrust products marketed to be "low" or "free" of this or that. All foods can be eaten if the portions are controlled.

    I'll give a few examples of deceptive marketing ploys.
    • "I can't believe it's not butter", which halves the calories by replacing fat with water. Spread this gunk on your toast and you end up with soggy toast. Yuck. Instead, spread your butter thinly; a scant teaspoon. Tasty toast with a fraction of the calorie load.
    • "Fat free" jell-o. Jell-o has always been fat free. It's gelatin, flavouring, and sugar. It's the sugar in gelatin you have to watch out for!

    Fats are the most calorie dense foods so it makes sense to watch how much you use of them. But also all the fat-soluble vitamins are in the fat. Fats also provide long-term energy and satiety. The solution? Use fats in your diet every day, in moderation. You might cook with a tablespoon of EVOO for instance, instead of 1/4 cup.

    Proteins also provide longer-term energy and it is important to get enough to prevent unintended side effects of extreme weight loss like hair loss or brittle nails. I try and include a little protein in every meal.

    The least calorie dense foods are helpful when dieting because they provide volume with not as much nutrition. This would include common "diet" foods like salads (without the dressing), air-popped popcorn, and rice cakes.

    So don't rate foods on their reduction of so-called undesirable elements or plumping of helpful ones. Learn the appropriate portion sizes and enjoy a variety of foods daily.

    Snack foods like crackers or cookies I typically portion half the recommended value. Breads, pastas and grains measure carefully as they add up quickly. Watch butter, cheese, nuts and peanut butter as the fat grams add up faster than you might think.
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    jacksonpt wrote: »
    TrudyJoy2313 wrote: »
    I've also heard conflicting stories about using things like sour cream or chicken broth. When they are full fat or fat free. Some blogs say to use the smallest serving size of the fat free because....duh....fat free but others warn that you should be using the smallest serving sixe of the full fat because of the additives in the fat free that make it fat free. What is your take on that @jacksonpt ?

    IMO, that's really about personal preference. Some people are very anti-additive/artificial/etc. Personally, I don't care about that stuff... it's everything I can do to keep my cals where they need to be. Worrying about organic vs non or nitrates or artificial whatever... that's too much for me.


    Also, that kind of thing is much more about health than it is weight loss. Weight loss is pretty straight forward (number of cals, not type of cals), health is a MUCH more complicated topic (number of cals, type of cals, souce of cals, etc). IMO, people should decide for themselves how important those things are.

    Sorry, that probably doesn't help much.

    No that was helpful. That's where u was leaning. Just wanted to hear other opinions.
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    juleszephyr wrote: »
    I think you are maybe over-complicating things. I would plug in your goals to MFP work out your calories and learn to stick to them. This will start to shift your weight. As you get more comfortable with hitting you calorie goals and weight loss goals then you can look at optimising your nutrition. I would stick to non-processed foods an cook from scratch, that way you know what you are eating and can log accurately. Low calorie proteins are easy to find, chicken, venison, steak, fish, quorn, tofu, egg whites so go ahead and spoil yourself within your calories...

    Thank you. I'm just starting out so I've been sticking to my MFP. And I'm also doing 45 min of intense workouts 4 times a week. I get those cals back but strive to only let myself eat half that amount.
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
    Options
    jgnatca wrote: »
    I mistrust products marketed to be "low" or "free" of this or that. All foods can be eaten if the portions are controlled.

    I'll give a few examples of deceptive marketing ploys.
    • "I can't believe it's not butter", which halves the calories by replacing fat with water. Spread this gunk on your toast and you end up with soggy toast. Yuck. Instead, spread your butter thinly; a scant teaspoon. Tasty toast with a fraction of the calorie load.
    • "Fat free" jell-o. Jell-o has always been fat free. It's gelatin, flavouring, and sugar. It's the sugar in gelatin you have to watch out for!

    Fats are the most calorie dense foods so it makes sense to watch how much you use of them. But also all the fat-soluble vitamins are in the fat. Fats also provide long-term energy and satiety. The solution? Use fats in your diet every day, in moderation. You might cook with a tablespoon of EVOO for instance, instead of 1/4 cup.

    Proteins also provide longer-term energy and it is important to get enough to prevent unintended side effects of extreme weight loss like hair loss or brittle nails. I try and include a little protein in every meal.

    The least calorie dense foods are helpful when dieting because they provide volume with not as much nutrition. This would include common "diet" foods like salads (without the dressing), air-popped popcorn, and rice cakes.

    So don't rate foods on their reduction of so-called undesirable elements or plumping of helpful ones. Learn the appropriate portion sizes and enjoy a variety of foods daily.

    Snack foods like crackers or cookies I typically portion half the recommended value. Breads, pastas and grains measure carefully as they add up quickly. Watch butter, cheese, nuts and peanut butter as the fat grams add up faster than you might think.

    Great tips! Thank you!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,871 Member
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    Calories are a unit of energy. Weight control is about energy (calorie) balance. You consume a balance of energy and you will maintain; you consume more energy than your body requires you will store that surplus energy for later use as body fat (energy reserves). You consume less energy than you require you have to make up the difference by burning body fat (stored energy). Kind of like your bank account. If your paycheck is $1,000 but your bills are $1,500 then you have to dip into savings to make up the difference...eventually, if you keep that up, you will deplete your savings.

    So calories should be first priority. Once you get that worked out you can focus on balancing out nutrition and whatnot. To that end, most lean sources of protein are also low calorie so there really needn't be a trade off.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    One exception to jgnatca's points, however, is dairy (which I mention since you mentioned sour cream in particular).

    Low fat/skim dairy doesn't have additives, it simply skims off the fat. People vary in their preferences--some find full fat dairy to taste a lot better or to be more filling. If that is you, eat smaller portions of the full fat. However, if you experiment and find--like me--that low fat (1 or 2%) dairy or even skim tastes just as good or better to you and doesn't matter to how full you feel after eating it, there's no need to eat less of the higher calorie stuff.

    I find that low fat Fage and cottage cheese taste just as good to me (or better) than full fat, and although I don't drink a lot of milk I grew up on 2% and still tend to prefer it (although sometimes I do like farm fresh whole milk as kind of a special treat), so I don't usually waste additional calories or fat on full fat yogurt or cottage cheese. I save the fat for cheese or butter or ice cream! (Or plenty of other things--I never really have to worry about meeting my fat macro.)

    Personally I find that Fage 2% greek yogurt substitutes for sour cream pretty well anyway.

    I don't think chicken broth should be an issue, as I don't think it should have fat anyway. If it says low fat or the like it's just a marketing ploy.
  • TrudyJoy2313
    TrudyJoy2313 Posts: 152 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    One exception to jgnatca's points, however, is dairy (which I mention since you mentioned sour cream in particular).

    Low fat/skim dairy doesn't have additives, it simply skims off the fat. People vary in their preferences--some find full fat dairy to taste a lot better or to be more filling. If that is you, eat smaller portions of the full fat. However, if you experiment and find--like me--that low fat (1 or 2%) dairy or even skim tastes just as good or better to you and doesn't matter to how full you feel after eating it, there's no need to eat less of the higher calorie stuff.

    I find that low fat Fage and cottage cheese taste just as good to me (or better) than full fat, and although I don't drink a lot of milk I grew up on 2% and still tend to prefer it (although sometimes I do like farm fresh whole milk as kind of a special treat), so I don't usually waste additional calories or fat on full fat yogurt or cottage cheese. I save the fat for cheese or butter or ice cream! (Or plenty of other things--I never really have to worry about meeting my fat macro.)

    Personally I find that Fage 2% greek yogurt substitutes for sour cream pretty well anyway.

    I don't think chicken broth should be an issue, as I don't think it should have fat anyway. If it says low fat or the like it's just a marketing ploy.

    I am a skim milk drinker, grew up on 2% but switched years ago. And I have started to use Fage 0% greek yogurt as a substitute in most of my meals. Dairy I try to limit because of the natural sugar content anyway, I had gestational diabetes and dairy was my #1 sugar trigger so I try to keep it to a minimum. Thanks for the tips!
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
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    Things like shrimp and turkey have really high protein amount for small calories amounts. Things like this you will learn as you go. First thing is to learn to stay in your calorie limit. The rest of the stuff causes huge debates and everyone has their own opinions. Learning what works for your body and peace of mind is best done by trial and error. Lots of great info here on MFP though, so keep asking questions (ignore any hating or crazy debates it might bring). Also, a lot of people have My Fitness Pal Nutrition Degrees...so don't necessarily believe everything they tell you ;) Use your best judgement and keep going.

    As long as the scale is going down at a healthy rate, you feel good and are getting enough/balanced nutrients to your body - you are doing it right!

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