Macros?

Bruja924

I am 5'8 and 261 lbs. I work out 5 days a week for an hour.

I am trying to set my Macros so that I am allowed 1400 cals per day. MFP is asking me what % should be carbs, fat, and protein. What is recommend?

kommodevaran

Recommendations vary. (This is probably the reason you ask?) Calories are not affected by macro split. You can go with MFP's macro default. Or you can set fat to 0.4 and protein to 0.8 grams per pound of lean body mass or your weight at a healthy weight, regard those as minimums and fill up with carbs.

Bruja924

So my ideal weight is 170 lbs

So fat would be 0.4 x 170=68g
Protein would be 0.8 x 170=136g
Carb=??

That seems like it would bring my cals way above 1400

kommodevaran

Bruja924 wrote: »

So my ideal weight is 170 lbs

So fat would be 0.4 x 170=68g
Protein would be 0.8 x 170=136g
Carb=??

That seems like it would bring my cals way above 1400

Protein and fat will add up to 1156 calories with this calculation. Seems alright. You can eat more when you eat back exercise calories. And if you think the protein goal is excessive (I personally think it's a little excessive), you can chop off, say, 36 of those grams and spend those calories on carbs.

KkimRn

I found this post helpful
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1

Aaron_K123

Calorie intake will affect how much weight you lose or gain. Macro intake will affect how you feel while you are doing that.

Fats are high calorie (9 per gram) but tend to satisfy hunger really well. Protein is a decent middle-ground, satiating while being lower calorie (4 per gram). Carbs don't satiate very much but they are what will provide you a feeling of energy and give you the power needed for a workout. If you for example ate only protein and fat and very little carbs you would probably feel very full for even a low calorie amount but you'd also feel lethargic and workouts would be very difficult. On the other hand if you ate almost only carbs you would find yourself feeling famished at your calorie goal.

So its a balance and often personal taste. 30/30/40 P/F/C is not a bad thing to aim for but don't sweat it too much if you are off.

Really its personal experience. Pick a macro split and eat at your goal calories. If you feel hungry all the time, eat more fat or protein and less carbs. If you feel tired all the time, eat more carbs and less protein/fat. If you feel both hungry and tired all the time...then eat more period, raise your goal.

Bruja924

@Aaron_K123
My goal is too lose 2lbs/wk. So I should be more worried about my actual calorie intake than macros?

Aaron_K123

Macros have nothing to do with weight loss, they have to do with nutrition and how you feel. Calories are all that matters in terms of how much weight you will lose per week, paying attention to macros might allow you to meet that calorie goal more comfortably by eating foods that are more satiating.

If you want to lose 2 pounds per week (very aggressive by the way) then that is a 1000 calorie deficit PER DAY.

Foods that are low in carbs and high in protein tend to be more satiating for the amount of calories, that said if you don't get enough carbs you are going to feel tired all the time and it will become very difficult to sustain your workouts.

You might find that your goal is too aggressive, in otherwords it is to difficult to get the amount of food necessary to do your workouts AND feel not hungry all the time. If that is the case I strongly recommend you go with a less aggressive weight loss and just take more time to do it, don't react by stopping your workouts and cutting calories even more.

rebel_26

as Aaron said you would need to be at a 7200 calorie deficit weekly to hit 2lbs a week. That's fairly aggressive and not a healthy approach . I wouldn't do that for very long if you go that route.

this link speaks to macros in easy terms. Give it a read and see if it really matters to you. Im thinking its not anything to worry about right now.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/content/to-macro-or-not-should-you-track-your-macro-intake.html

Bruja924

I know my goal is aggressive wanting to lose 2 pounds per week.....But every day I have calories left over, I think my diary settings are open to the public if you want to take a look. So it's not so much that I can't handle the deficit, it's more like I need to learn how to adjust them in the right ratio so that at the end of the day I'm not negative carbs but have 200 calories left over. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

Aaron_K123

Bruja924 wrote: »

I know my goal is aggressive wanting to lose 2 pounds per week.....But every day I have calories left over, I think my diary settings are open to the public if you want to take a look. So it's not so much that I can't handle the deficit, it's more like I need to learn how to adjust them in the right ratio so that at the end of the day I'm not negative carbs but have 200 calories left over. Do you get what I'm trying to say?

You can handle the deficit now. Depleting the energy stored for your muscles takes time but it will happen if you undereat by a lot at which point everything will become tiring and it will be hard to think let alone workout.

If that never happens then fine, but if it does its a good sign you need to eat more.

Bottom line time and time again for the experience of tens of thousands of people the time where they finally lost all the weight it was a slow loss over a long period of time, times they tried to lose it all in a matter of months they ended up quitting or rebounding right after. Just saying, you might want to consider taking it easier than you are.