My fat macro is always slightly higher. Can I still lose weight?

Tashlovesfood

Hi everyone. Most days I have more grams of fat than my macro says I should. Normally I have between 50-60g instead of 40g. Most of the fat tends to be from olive oil and a little bit of chocolate in the evening. Is this a problem for weight loss?

ninerbuff

Fat DOESN'T make you fat. Over consumption of calories does. Don't worry about it as long as your in calorie goal.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

InkAndApples

You can lose weight without ever knowing or caring about your macro split.

279270

ninerbuff can you help ? i am aiming for the magic 200 lb mark I'm 202 now after going down over three months from 223 weighed last night only to find I went up a pound my weigh day is Saturday !! I am eating sometimes 200 calls under my 1730 number and on Saturdays this can go red as it is a chilled out treat day but not crazy !!!
Find the whole macro thing unhelpful ???

cs2thecox

I was told by my trainer that carbs and fats are basically interchangeable.

The most important macro is protein, which your body needs as the "building blocks" of cells and basically everything, let along for building new muscle.
So as long as you're doing ok on protein and are within your calories, then don't stress too much about the carb/fats split.

ghudson92

So glad to have seen this post and the replies! I've been freaking out about fat too. Good to know that as long as the calorie restriction is maintained there is no need to worry

JeromeBarry1

@279270 you don't need a trainer's help. You need to keep Saturday's number green.

Muscleflex79

cs2thecox wrote: »

I was told by my trainer that carbs and fats are basically interchangeable.

The most important macro is protein, which your body needs as the "building blocks" of cells and basically everything, let along for building new muscle.
So as long as you're doing ok on protein and are within your calories, then don't stress too much about the carb/fats split.

you should get a new trainer if that's what he really said!! carbs are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram - not interchangeable at all!! plus they do entirely different things for your body.

beaglady

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

carbs are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram - not interchangeable at all!! plus they do entirely different things for your body.

True in a literal sense, but a lot of us are successful by working keeping our protein intake on target, but allowing more flexibility in hitting our calorie targets with some variation in daily percentages of fat vs carbs. Unless a person is completely avoiding fat based on bad info, or has to keep carbs at a certain level due to other health issues, there's some wiggle room between the two macros. I'd bet that was what the trainer meant.

ninerbuff

279270 wrote: »

ninerbuff can you help ? i am aiming for the magic 200 lb mark I'm 202 now after going down over three months from 223 weighed last night only to find I went up a pound my weigh day is Saturday !! I am eating sometimes 200 calls under my 1730 number and on Saturdays this can go red as it is a chilled out treat day but not crazy !!!
Find the whole macro thing unhelpful ???

It can to a point if just the number on the scale matters. Dropping carbs for a few days will easily lower it a couple of pounds because they'll just be less glycogen and water in your system. But personally I don't count glycogen and water loss as "real" weight loss because it's not doing anything to change my body composition (with the exception of prepping for a contest).

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

cs2thecox

Muscleflex79 wrote: »

cs2thecox wrote: »

I was told by my trainer that carbs and fats are basically interchangeable.

The most important macro is protein, which your body needs as the "building blocks" of cells and basically everything, let along for building new muscle.
So as long as you're doing ok on protein and are within your calories, then don't stress too much about the carb/fats split.

you should get a new trainer if that's what he really said!! carbs are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram - not interchangeable at all!! plus they do entirely different things for your body.

If I'd quoted the whole discussion then I would have been warned for advertising
@beaglady is spot on - I was just paraphrasing in this thread in I way I may not have done in some of the more techy macro threads.

And no, I know it's not a gramme-for-gramme trade off, and MFP makes it clear it isn't.

Obviously you don't want to be zero or crazy low on either macro, but at the end of the day if any of us are a few grammes over on one and few under (but obviously not exactly the same amount) on the other, as long we're within our calorie targets, then it's not going to have any impact.

I have a relatively high fat allowance, but often don't make it all the way to it.
Because of the foods I prefer to eat, I frequently go a bit over on my carbs.
I last measured at 15.8% body fat... it certainly doesn't seem to be doing me any harm!

Tashlovesfood

Thanks for your replies everyone! I won't worry about it too much then xx

HeidiCooksSupper

I have my macros set to 35% fat and I'm still frequently over but I've lost 14 pounds in the last six weeks.