Is my formula right, as it seems wrong

huggiesbear78

Hello all,
I am new to macro and when I think I understand it, I seen to get lost again.

I have read a very good post in this group and it was very informative, so thank you. I want to understand macros first so can you help point me in the right direction?

a bit about me

I am 39 years old
Male
183cm
130kg / 287lbs (goal weight 105kg)
Do an office job and attend the gym 4-5 days a week
Loss weight

So from the initial post it runs a formula to work out your protein and fats, which leave you your carbs. I have done this and it looks a bit wrong

Protein: 1 x 287 x 0.8 (LBM) = 229.6g x 4 calories = 918.4 calories divided by 2,164 (calorie target) = 42%

Fat: 0.35 x 287 = 100.45g x 9 calories = 904.05 calories divided by 2,164 = 41%

Carbs: balance of 17%

1. Are these right? Fat side looks off the charts lol
2. How do I find my LBM?
3. Should I base this on the goal weight I want to reach or my current weight?
4. For my weight and to lose, do the calories look like a good starting point?

Sorry for the questions and any help will be appreciated

Rhys

taco_inspector

Well @huggiesbear78 , this has been sitting a while, and while I'm certainly no @SideSteel , @Sarauk2sf , or other expert, let me offer a little insight to your maths as well as a little of my own experiential knowledge... (for reference, I began this mess at 188cm & 130kg ; 6'2" @ 287-lbs == very similar to your numbers except I'm older, which robs me of a few calories each day ...).

• 2164 calories per day seems about right for a fully sedentary guy with your stats including a calorie deficit for about one pound per week.
• Daily protein intake of 0.8g per pound of LBM is a good value
• Protein calculation should be based (as you've mentioned and noted) on your Lean Body Mass (LBM), so every constituent piece of your body that is NOT fat.
• Measuring or calculating LBM will likely be pretty imprecise at this point, but allow me to offer my personal insight; you just need some value to begin with... While it may be nice (and fun) to invest in a DEXA scan or some other reasonably accurate testing, arriving at a "good" value can be done by estimation and comparison. Have a look at THIS IMAGE from Scoobysworkshop.com (I'll also embed this image below all of my text for convenience), and or browse through the bodyfat-estimation-thread here in this group. You'll be able to find about what your body looks like in one of these, and you can calculate your LBM based on your "good enough" value for body fat easily enough ...(time for another bullet-point)
• A good-enough LBM can be had based on a body fat percentage... My guess is that you'll look to be something along 30% to 35% body fat (by comparisons to others), but let's use 35% body fat for our math here. If your body is 35% fat, then it would follow that your body is 65% "NOT-fat", which given your 287 pound current weight would give you a LBM (not-fat) value of about 187 pounds ( 287 * 65% = 186.55 ). So you could use 187 pounds as your LBM for all of your calculating.
• To mark-up your original your daily protein calculations:Protein: 1 x 287 187 x 0.8 (LBM) = 229.6 149.6g x 4 calories = 918.4 598.4 calories divided by 2,164 (calorie target) = 42% 28% ... your math is all good, just the basis (LBM) was an unknown (and now it's a closer guess).
• Your daily fat intake is based on your current body weight (all of it!), so you're all good for the calculated grams and percentage. Your 41% is dead-on for your fat macro; so, ~100 grams of fat per day, perfect.
• Since we've buggered the protein number, you macro percentage for Carbs will need to be updated to match. This is a good thing, as you'll find a bit more quick energy in your daily intake for all the lifting and other exercise that you'll be doing, right? Your carbs should fill in the balance of your feed at 31%

The short version / summary for your macros based on an assumed 35% body fat:
- 28% Proteins
- 41% Fats
- 31% Carbohydrates

One of the salient points here, beyond setting your macros, will be to be aware of your caloric needs. Your 2,164 daily calorie figure seems to include a 500 calorie daily deficit for someone of your age/gender/size with zero activity. By "zero activity", I'm saying lying motionless in bed all day.

You mention going to the gym (let's hope to religiously follow a well-designed progressive resistance program), any calories you burn getting to the gym and/or doing anything at the gym would NOT be accounted for in your 2,164 calorie figure and should be addressed so that you're not under-feeding yourself too badly. If you log your work MyFitnessPal will try to help you here by adding calories to your daily intake -- sometimes the added values are a bit over estimated, sometimes not; pay attention to your body and the scales as you move forward and adjust as necessary.

Of course, all of this is only a starting point, and with your dedication all of this math will change. Your body weight, and lean body mass will change along the way. Carefully recording what you feed your body and how you work your body will help to guide you into your next set of recalculations (Try to have a good look at things ever 10-pounds of body change, and or anytime that you see your body losing or gaining more quickly than you would expect over several week's time.)

While I'm certainly no expert (as previously disclaimed), I hope that this was of some help.

Perhaps too @heybales or someone will step in to offer some better insight?

The Macro Calculation thread that you must be working from is here:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

The body fat estimation image I referenced above from http://scoobysworkshop.com is included as a reference as well:

huggiesbear78

Wow, that was very helpful so thank you. You said you were about the same as me, so what are you now?
I have been told to add my workouts to MFP and to consume half of what the exercise total is? From what you have said, this should cover the extra calories that might be added.

What are you doing meal wise at the mo, 3 or 4 meals a day? What is a rough meal plan for a few days?

huggiesbear78

Wow and thank you for the reply. I have to say it was very helpful. I am happy with the rough body fat but will look into this more. I have looked at the LBM post and it’s been closed now, do they mind being PM?

Can I ask how you have progressed, as you said you started roughly the same. With regards to the exercise, I have been advised to add my workouts to MFP. Then with the extra calories only use half of them to start of with and adjust. My Fitbit is linked to my MFP as well, will this impact it? Should I remove the link to my Fitbit?

Just wondering if you can post a few days worth of meal plans to get a rough idea of what people are eating? Is it 3 or 4 meals a day?

Cheers

taco_inspector

huggiesbear78 wrote: »

Wow, that was very helpful so thank you. You said you were about the same as me, so what are you now?
I have been told to add my workouts to MFP and to consume half of what the exercise total is? From what you have said, this should cover the extra calories that might be added.

What are you doing meal wise at the mo, 3 or 4 meals a day? What is a rough meal plan for a few days?

Glad that was of some help... lemme see about these other queries, @huggiesbear78

Now, I'm a bit over 240 lbs; leaner too (I feel). For reference, my profile pic is at about 230. My beginning 287 lbs felt & looked like somewhere above 35% fat, but not quite to the 40% picture (probably my vanity saving that few percent, eh?). At 230 in my profile image, I believe that I was closer to 20%, but still more; perhaps 25% fat. Now, with these additional 10 pounds of Christmas, lazy, and no-good-excuses, I'm slipping ever upwards (if ya know what I mean...).

I think that your strategy there for eating back about half the calories that MFP adds for exercise is pretty solid. Again, you'll be able to see the scale and feel your body tell you that it needs more (or less) fuel from your feedings as you go along, but eating back 50% of your MFP exercise calories is a great place to begin!

Well, "meal plan" is a bit presumptive... I'm a hack at best, and I've a few decades practice at being a slovenly fat-A5S as well; "plan" is a bit more optimistic than my poor diet deserves... Please keep that in mind as I go forward with some of my personal approach.

I do tend to eat 3 meals, but each of those can be surrounded with snacking or other "pseudo meals" as well (I did mention that I'm quite skilled at being fat, right?).

To help me along the way I try to:

1. Keep my home and work environments relatively free of low-quality calories (eat something that means something -- after all, there is nothing but sadness at the bottom of a sack of crisps). For me, this usually means that I'll just keep my environment empty except for meal-food, since I don't really "need" to be snacking. My being single seems to help with better managing my environment to meet only my needs -- I imagine that spouse and additional family would make this an area where you could show your greater self-control.
2. Pre-make (prep) and pre-portion full meals that are suited to my needs and intended use. I will prep portions of 'Beans with Ham', 'Lean Turkey Chili', 'Chicken with Rice', and such for use as the center-point for feedings to which I'll add some flavoring and salads and such (e.g.: My lunch today was warmed from frozen Chicken with Rice, baseline at ~250 calories 28g-Prot/20g-Carb/2g-fat - added in some wing-sauce and a small salad, so <400cals for lunch, which I normally keep light) This evening will prolly be based around beans & ham if they thaw (~200 cals to begin with)...
3. I completely suck at cooking, so a lot of my journey has been a compromise of what I would like to eat, and what I can prep, portion, and keep on hand.
4. I have several obligations through the week and on weekends that have me eating-out. I try to make good choices and I no longer feel obligated to "clean my plate", but I generally organize my "planned" weekday feedings to be a under on calories, so that these meals out (typically higher fat and higher calorie) won't toss my entire week (rather than eating 30% of my calories on weekends, I'll do 40% or more, so I try to keep my weekdays to 60% of my weekly needs:: evenly distributed, 71% of your feeds come Monday through Friday) <-- yeah, that's weird, but I thought I'd include it as a strategy
5. Breakfasts for me are most often 'fresh' at home and go with the usual staples of oats and eggs (lots of egg-whites from the carton) -- I eat after workouts only because my stomach doesn't play well with exertion when loaded with undigested food (not a lesson I need to learn twice).

Again, a bit more of a feeding strategy than a meal plan, but it has worked. I will be the first to admit that it worked better when I was first starting since my over-all accounting could be a bit more sloppy. As mentioned, I'm up several pounds now exactly because I have been sloppy.

I'm certainly not taking all of this as an exact process or religious belief -- more of keeping score over the length of the game. As a younger man, each week that I took in more than 500 excess and un-burned calories, my fat and body size 'scored' 500 calories (points) that I now need to not only recover for my lean body, but also overcome to assure that I'll come out on top at the end. Let's hope it's a long match; I've done a lot of over-eating to recover from.

Oh, yeah, and if you're reading my meal examples above and think that I'm waaaay under calories, consider that this is a weekday (so that 10% lowered intake I do on weekdays) and I had about 1900 carb & fat calories from doughnuts with my ~200 calorie "planned" breakfast (this fat man is NOT starving at all) I wouldn't recommend the doughnuts as a matter of course, but anything that fits into your caloric goals and within your macro targets is fair-game, right?

heybales

Just from the main Macro thread, the realization that you are not sedentary by a decent amount really.

Desk job =/= sedentary life style (even outside of exercise). You do much more than desk job, and even then walk more than mere desk job.

I think I got a much better TDEE 3378 for you, and your goal eating number is about 200 too low for even a 1000 cal deficit.

And that's assuming that's reasonable diet.

Do you have over 50-60 lbs to lose to healthy weight?
Then 1000 deficit is reasonable until then.

That will increase your carbs, especially if you round down the fat and protein to nearest 5% that MFP allows setting.

Otherwise - principles nicely explained above still apply.