new @ MFP and have several questions

idamcnemar

Today is day 12 for me. When I signed up the suggested fitness and nutrition goals were 1370 calories, 188 g carbs, 46 g fat and 51 g of protein daily. I've been pretty successful at those target levels, but when I'm recording my meals sodium, sugars and fiber is also calculated. How important is it t keep under those target levels?
When I exercise I notice that these target levels are increased, however I still use the original goals. Will this hurt or help my weight loss efforts? Thanks for your input!

ritchiedrama

Today is day 12 for me. When I signed up the suggested fitness and nutrition goals were 1370 calories, 188 g carbs, 46 g fat and 51 g of protein daily. I've been pretty successful at those target levels, but when I'm recording my meals sodium, sugars and fiber is also calculated. How important is it t keep under those target levels?
When I exercise I notice that these target levels are increased, however I still use the original goals. Will this hurt or help my weight loss efforts? Thanks for your input!

Focus on the protein, carbs and fat levels, don't worry about sugar and sodium levels, MFP sets them poorly.

I personally don't like the way MFP adds exercise calories as its inaccurate, BUT... what a lot of the regulars do here is eat back HALF their exercise calories incase of miscalculations.

mockchoc

If you have more sodium than you should you might just weight more till you pee it out.

Just worry about your calories unless you have high blood pressure or diabetes I think. Fibre is good to track because it keeps you fuller longer.

FP4HSharon

Start focusing on getting your diet balanced first, so mostly getting the right amounts of proteins, carbs, & fats (usually there's no problem getting the last two in). Once you get that under control, then you can focus on whatever other factors you want to add to get even healthier. So you could try to increase your fiber, decrease your sugar or salt, but I'd just focus on one thing at a time. You can also change what you monitor. For example, osteoporosis runs in my family, so I keep track of calcium, to make sure I get enough every day. But previous poster is correct, many believe the recommended levels of sugar & sodium are ridiculously low on MFP, & recent studies indicate that sodium especially is not as serious as issue as was once though.

On the exercise, everyone is different, but the estimates are on the high side. I found that *I* get the best results when I only eat back my cardio calories (but I record the number on my machines), not the strength training ones. If I eat them all back, or none of them back, then I don't really lose. If I just eat back cardio, then I lose about 1 1/2 lbs/week.

See what works & you can always adjust.

idamcnemar

Thanks so much for all your suggestions - I thought I was doing something dreadfully wrong in my eating. Thanks again.

idamcnemar

Thanks mockchok, I'll keep your suggestion in mind.

idamcnemar

Thanks SharonFP4H, I will keep your suggestions in mind. Thanks for responding. Great to have someone to lean on when I have questions.