Under calories

vestappen

Hi all,

My PT set up Marcos for me based on weight and height and all of the other stuff.

Tonight, I've finished my meals and it's almost bedtime but I have about 500 calories to consume. I have hit my protein goal, have gone over slightly, this was the main focus.

However, I have 141g of Carbs left, 12g of fat left with 523 cals to go.

How do I get these down without going over fat and protein? My concern is not consuming those calories will lead to my diet and workouts being a waste of time.

I weighed 130KG last yeah and I'm now at. 124KG.

My meals today have been good, oats milk with peanut butter. Wholemeal sandwich with chicken and salad with a bit of spicy mayo. Protein bar, I had a banana after a workout at the gym and then I had chicken, peppers, mushrooms with a sauce, and rice tonight with yogurt, with some cashew nuts. I've also drank 2000ml of water today and Americano coffee.

Any advice/tips of the macros and my concerns would be great.

Thank you.

AnnPT77

It's perfectly reasonable to treat calories as an upper limit (that you should come close to!), protein and fats as minimums (that it's good to hit, and fine to go over, unless you have certain unusual health conditions that require you to limit those - you'd know), and carbs as relatively flexible.

Even then, a day here and there that's a little low on protein or fats is not a big deal, as long as you're not regularly under by a significant amount. If you're a little low one day, a little high another, so that it averages out about at/over your target across a few days, you're fine.

Humans are adaptive omnivores, a healthy person won't suddenly become malnourished if one day is 5 grams low on protein or something. Also, our bodies don't reset at midnight, so averaging things over a few days to a week, being in the ballpark on individual days, is OK. Daily precision is optional.

It's the calories that have a direct effect on weight loss, period.

The macronutrients (protein, fats, carbs) can have an indirect effect: If we don't get overall good nutrition, maybe we get tired, drag through the day, burn fewer calories when that happens, so lose weight a little slower. If we're short on some nutrient, persistently, maybe our body acts that out as cravings (which aren't always cravings for the needed nutrient, weirdly!), making it hard to stick to calorie goal. But those are indirect effects: They affect calorie intake or expenditure, and the calorie balance affects body weight.

If I were you, maybe I'd top up my fat goal with some of those calories, such as eat some nuts or peanut butter or avocado or something like that if you're making it a point to stick with "good" foods. If that puts you over protein, that's not a problem.

I don't really buy into the idea of good or bad individual foods, personally: I think there's better or worse overall nutrition, and it doesn't really matter what foods are combined to get that, as long as we like eating them, they add up close to the right total nutrition, and they're not things that are actually poisonous, allergens for us, or contraindicated by some disease we have or medication we take. But that's just me: Everyone makes food choices according to their own personal criteria.

Best wishes!

HoneyBadger302

Honestly, if I'm full, I don't stress being under calories for a day - if nothing else, that gives me some wiggle room another day that week if the hangries hit hard (which tends to happen sometimes) or if something special like a meal out comes up.

Yesterday I was technically under by 700 - but I was full, and most days I come much closer or a few over my daily goal, so really not going to worry about it. Just some extra potential weight loss or some extra banked calories for the weekend or to make up for errors or omissions that may have happened.

If this is a regular occurrence, AND I'm not liking how my energy/weight/workouts are going, I just start adding a little more butter, avocado, maybe an extra square of chocolate, peanut butter, etc in to my planned diet...not hard to make up those calories, generally much harder to cut them out!

cwolfman13

Plan better going forward as to how to meet your calorie targets. Also, you're just going to make yourself crazy if you're trying to micro manage your macros to the extent of right on and never being over or under on this or that...it's really not so important as to be doing a bunch of hand wringing over.