Questions about macros

dramaqueen45

I am on my last 10 pounds to lose and am having trouble. So instead of just counting calories very carefully I have decided to count macros as well for the first time. I'm just going to go by the MFP recommendations of 150 carbs, 60 protein and 40 fat. My question is, if I do (and I will) eat back a portion of my exercise calories, how do I do that without going way over macros? I usually will burn 200-300 calories at the gym or even more if I ride my bike for a couple of hours outside. If I have already eaten my calories for the day and eat some back that's not difficult, but if I've already eaten and counted all my macros and need to eat back some calories, how do I do that? Just do it by percentage like MFP does (e.g., if I eat back 150 calories just divide that out by 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein?)

deluxmary2000

I don't typically log or eat back exercise so I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that if you log your exercise, MFP will automatically adjust your macros by the percentages selected in your set-up. Have you tried it to see?

dramaqueen45

Well I don't pay for the premium version in order to use this for tracking so I was just going to track them on my own. Also I often weigh things and use a calorie calculator and just enter using the quick add feature- just easier for me.

yarwell

MFP allocates you extra grams of macros to match the calorie expenditure of exercise.

CyberTone

Yes, if you log cardio exercise calories, MFP will distribute the extra Calories per your percentage distribution. However, it uses the 4 Calories per gram of carbohydrate and protein versus 9 Calories per gram of fat to calculate the number of grams so you don't have to do the math.
So for your example 150 Calories earned in a 50:30:20 Carb : Fat : Protein percent ratio, the extra Calories are distributed as 75 Cals Carb : 45 Cals Fat : 30 Cals Protein.
However, doing the math to convert those Calories to grams, MFP will display the number of extra grams as 19g Carb : 5g Fat : 8g Protein, rounding up.

dramaqueen45

I got it- that makes sense now. Now I have to decide if I want to do the math or if I want to start logging everything. I don't pay for the premium in order to do it just as quick add, and often I use recipes or make up my own salads, sandwiches or wraps, weighing all ingredients by grams separately, or it's easier for me to just do quick add calories if I am using my own recipes. Oh well we'll see. But that helps a lot- I forgot about converting calories to grams.

deluxmary2000

dramaqueen45 wrote: »

I got it- that makes sense now. Now I have to decide if I want to do the math or if I want to start logging everything. I don't pay for the premium in order to do it just as quick add, and often I use recipes or make up my own salads, sandwiches or wraps, weighing all ingredients by grams separately, or it's easier for me to just do quick add calories if I am using my own recipes. Oh well we'll see. But that helps a lot- I forgot about converting calories to grams.

I'm confused... you can do quick adds and make/enter your own recipes with the free version.

Rammer123

Not to completely diverge from your original question, but depending on how long you have been eating 1200 calories a day, you may want to increase your calories to maintenance for a couple weeks during which you may put on a couple pounds due to extra water and physical food in your body, and the return to your deficit in order to shock your body into breaking through your plateau

dramaqueen45

Yep tried the whole eating at maintenance thing- worked the first time I had a two month plateau but not this time so much. And yes you can do recipes with the free version, but if I use a recipe that I got out of a book then I tend to just use those calories and not go to the trouble to enter it into MFP as well. But no I can't do the quick add grams of carbs, fat or protein- I can only quick add calories.

yarwell

~I would forget the quick add calories thing and put stuff in the database to benefit everyone.