Macro help..new again!

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Smileyone2019
Smileyone2019 Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
So after getting fed up of tracking calorie and carbohydrates on paper I decided to come back to MFP. I'm pretty active and was having 1400 calories and 120g carbs per day. MFP recommend 1500 cals per day to lose a stone as goal weight. Really need to focus on saturated fat as well as carbs and calories hence me coming back here following a blood cholesterol test that was marginally high. Does anyone think the premium service on MFP is worth it? I really need to get focused but want to lose weight the right way? Does a 1500 cal, 120 carb and 13g saturated fat per day seem ok? I have a quite active job, at the gym 3 times a week and walk in between. However, I'm only five foot and weigh 10stone 2. I'm more athletic built than fat but still need to get the diet in shape and sort out my macros!!

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,985 Member
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    I do not think the Premium is worth it. You can set your macros within 5% increments in the free version and that is close enough for anyone's use.

    120g of carbs is really low, so how are you going to fill those other calories?...why not just use the default macros and just keep an eye on your sat fats?

    The defaults are 50C 30F 20P
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,679 Member
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    Controlling your calories by controlling your carbohydrates is a caloric control method that seems to work for a lot of people.

    It shows extra impressive weight loss results when starting to lose weight (due to a phenomenon called glycogen depletion), allows people to control their food intake since fats and proteins tend to be satiating for many people, and when increasing carbohydrates during a planned or unplanned diet break or change, the initial borrowed weight loss comes back when glycogen resumes normal levels.

    It is not necessary, though, in order to control your calories. You can chose to use any method that creates a REASONABLE deficit in terms of your current weight and your total daily energy expenditure and the amount of weight you have available to lose.

    As a person who is marginally overweight (BMI of 27.7), you are probably looking for a deficit in the order of 500 Cal a day (i.e. "to lose 1lb a week") and probably ought to be satisfied with results yielding anything above 1/2lb a week=26lbs a year!

    Your work is active and you sound as if you're not planning on eating back any of your exercise calories. On top you mention walking everywhere.

    Walking may not leave you breathless; but active work and walking DO burn calories!

    To me it sounds as if you're planning to create an excessive deficit.

    Why don't you start MFP on active or very active and log only your workouts? Alternatively, you may want to set MFP any which way; but use a connected and synchronized external health tracker/band to determine your caloric output (any unit that synchronizes reliably with MFP will do the trick!)

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