Portions of food groups to meet calorie goals???
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ladymeldrum82
Posts: 51 Member
I have my calorie goal set at 1280 but burn a bunch of calories via activity... MFP adjusts my calorie goal to say that I need closer to 2000 calories a day due to level of activity... I don't know how to figure out how many portions or proper portion sizes of each food group I should be eating... I would very much appreciate some help & guidance... I'm trying to build lean muscle mass, burn fat, & get healthier in general...
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Are you trying to lose weight? Or by burn fat do you mean more of recomp where you maintain weight and slowly burn off fat and build muscle?
If you go down the bulking path to build muscle which is more efficient you will end up gaining fat too depending on how intensely you bulk, which is why there are cutting cycles after you bulk.
For either bulking or recomp, it is good to eat lots of protein. The body building board will have lots of recommendations on ranges of number.
For the amount of food groups you should be eating, depends on what makes you full. For me If I ate pasta all day long I would be hungry even though I hit my calorie goal, so I create meals that are high protein and fiber. I start with the myfitnesspal recommendations of protein/fiber and tweak them to suit my needs. So that means I eat ~30g more of protein each day and between 5-10g of fiber and under carbs and fat because that works for me.
Unless you are worried about being deficient in vitamins and minerals I don't think there is a set proper portions that is universal.
I'm confused on your calorie goals. Myfitnesspal has settings for activity based on your day to day movement, settings for how much weight you would like to lose/gain/ or maintain which gives you a base number. Then you can log calories burned by exercise after that. Many people find eating back 50-80% works for them. I have also seen people opt to eat back none or all of their exercise calories. The percentage is determined by how their progress is after a couple of weeks, if they want to lose and they aren't they might reduce the number they eat back.0 -
Sounds like I want recomp- I bulk up like crazy with fat & muscle...0
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I've had poor eating habits pretty much all my life & I'm trying to learn how to have proper eating habits, but it's a challenge... I was severely underfed as a child, & have been overcoming anorexia for about 3 years- was severely anorexic for 15 years prior not including childhooh... My metabolism slowed waayyy down & I was super sick all the time & I gained 30lbs in 1 winter... I have trained myself over the last 3 or so years to eat an average of 1500 calories depending on activity by going up 50-100 calories a day per week... Lost some weight after I got to about 1000 calories a day- then started gaining again- figured was eating more & not active enough so started being much more active... Lost a little weight again... Now I've gained weight rapidly again since February, inspite of everything I've been doing to try to drop weight... That's why I am trying to figure out if I'm eating wrong portions of the food groups that is causing me to bulk with fat & muscle...1
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How accurate is your food tracking and calories burned estimate for activity. Also do you have days that are treat cheat days?
Food scales are life changers especially for calorie dense foods. There are quite a few videos showing how measuring cups can lead to quite a difference in food consumed.
Also depending on where you are in your bmi range for your height, being off by a couple hundred calories can make quite a difference.2 -
I just ordered food scales yesterday so that should help me with accurate calorie tracking...2
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Are you talking about macros? Protein fat carbs?
If your goal is to build muscle/lose fat, you are looking at recomp so maintaining your weight.
I like to follow these recommendations for macros by grams per lean body mass (or per goal weight).
Protein: 0.8 to 1g
Fats: 0.35 to 0.6g
Carbs: The rest
Keep in mind these are minimums and can be adjusted to personal preference.
The best thing I do is pre-plan my day and adjust based on what I am eating that day. So make sure you hit protein, add your vegetables/fruit, then fat, then fill the rest with starchy carbs.
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