Macro Nutrients: What combo is best?

stephanie_becker

Hi all!! I'm a 20 year old college student trying to lose 40 pounds. I just started using this app and I'm not sure what the best combination of macro nutrients is best for my diet. Does anyone have any advice? I noticed most of my diet is (good) fat - avocado, olive oil (with lemon juice) as salad dressing, almond butter, milk, etc. Should I cut down or is this good fat? My goal is 1200 calories a day but I'm starting to think that's pretty un-doable, but I want to lose weight quickly. Any advice?

juggernaut1974

What's your current height & weight? 1200 may be too aggressive...or it may be right.

Unless you plan on following a particular eating plan (low-carb, etc) a good general rule of thumb is to at a minimum get:

0.6-0.8g of protein per lb of body weight
0.3 - 0.4g of fat per lb of body weight

And fill in the rest of your calories with whatever you want.

stephanie_becker

Thanks for responding! My current height and weight is 5'4" and 187 pounds. Is 1200 good?

juggernaut1974

stephanie_becker wrote: »

Thanks for responding! My current height and weight is 5'4" and 187 pounds. Is 1200 good?

That's probably mathematically correct for a 2 lb/week loss...though whether you can sustain on that few calories per day would be the bigger question. If you find that is too difficult, maybe adjust to focusing on 1 lb/week loss which would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500-1600 calories.

stephanie_becker

I will look into that. Thank you!!

DedHed57

It's probably not a good idea (for weight loss) to have most of your calories coming from fat - even good fat. And losing weight quickly isn't healthy.

Protein & carbs are 4 calories per gram, fat is 9 calories per gram.
So, if you wanted to use a daily 1,200 calorie goal (maybe a bit aggressive) you could use a split of 50% protein, 25% carbs and 25% fat. That would translate to 600 calories from protein sources (150 grams), 300 calories from carbohydrates (75 grams) and 300 fat calories (33 grams). Adjust percentages as desired.
Get a decent scale and weigh your foods (~ $20 gets a decent one with a useful tare feature). You'll be surprised how far off your estimations can be.

Good luck!

terbusha

What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1400 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

As for macros, I've had great success with this.
Protein: 0.7-1 g/lb of body weight
Fat: 20-30% of your calories
Carbs: the rest of your calories

nosebag1212

protein 1 gram per lb lean bodymass, fat 0.4 grams per lb bodyweight, fill remaining cals with carbs