Recommended Nutritional numbers

cinaminonly

I'm having the hardest time meeting certain nutritional recommendations in my profile. Not meeting the calorie, carb which im fine with. If I had more it knocks me out my daily sodium, fat, protein numbers. This is frustrating

AnnPT77

You don't have to be exactly exact on all the numbers. Close, when averaged over a few days, is fine.

For weight management, the only one that directly matters is calories. (Nutrition can affect weight indirectly, through cravings/appetite or fatigue, but the direct issue is still calories.)

However, most of us want to be healthy overall, not just a reasonable weight. That's where nutrition comes in.

Protein and fats are "essential nutrients" in the sense that we need to eat some, because our bodies can't manufacture those out of any other nutrients. So, I'd suggest you treat protein and fats as minimums to hit, or at least come close . . . and it's fine to exceed them, if other nutrition is in an OK range.

Unless you have a health condition that requires limiting them (such as diabetes or insulin resistance), carbs are discretionary, not "essential" in the above sense. Our bodies can manufacture carb-equivalents out of other nutrients, loosely speaking. Some people find that higher carbs spark their appetite, so they find it useful to limit carb intake. Other people find that low carb torpedoes their energy level, so they find it useful to eat higher carbs. That's individual, so maybe experiment.

Sodium can be important if you have high blood pressure or some other health condition that requires limiting it. If you don't, I don't think that's a big priority.

If there are specific problems you see in your eating patterns, take a look at a few days of your diary, and see where you could tweak your eating - still eating foods you enjoy - and improve the situation. Just keep doing that, and improvement can happen. If you have specific challenges with a particular nutrient, ask a specific question . . . your post doesn't include enough details to suggest anything like that, IMO.

Best wishes for success!

cwolfman13

There's nothing particularly special about hitting your macros...they're just defaults...there isn't anything special about them. Hit your calories...that's what matters for weight. You can play around with macros later if you want to, but they don't really have anything to do with your weight. There is no universally optimal macro ratio.