Calculating calories & macros

megankelemen7434

Hello!
What is the best way to calculate calories and macros for my weight loss goals? I have tried a couple different websites and they are all slightly different. ;-/

yirara

Use this website. Just use the guided setup, chose a realistic weightloss goal, set your daily activity without exercise (you log exercise here and gain calories back) and go with what the website gives you. Use the macros as starting point. If you get 1200 calories per day then chose a slower weightloss goal because you won't reach what you've chosen anyway as 1200 is the lowest MFP will give any woman. Use calories for weightloss, macros for satiety and wellbeing. Some people prefer to eat one macro more over others, and what you prefer is something you'll find out. If you for example have a breakfast high in carbs and you're very hungry again quickly, then experiment, try something different. Same if you have a lunch high in fat and you feel it's not working.

MacLowCarbing

They're all different because there is no one way.

• There are people who are on low fat diets with moderate protein & high carbs (mostly fruits & veggies).
• There are people who are on high protein diets with moderate fat & moderate carbs.
• Then there are people on high fat/low carb diet with moderate protein.
• And then there's a bunch of people somewhere in the middle.

And everyone has data to back up what they think is right, though since the vast majority of the data comes from epidemiological self-reported studies instead of actual controlled studies, they data is extremely unreliable. Some people will actually swear it's not the case with their data, because maybe big organizations are backing certain diets and not others, but it is the case nonetheless.

What really seems to count is calorie deficit, staying away from most of the processed junk and eating mostly real food, getting your nutrients in one way or another, physical fitness, and sticking to it.

I'm personally on a high fat/low carb because carbs trigger cravings & binging for me, I get blood sugar spikes even from veggies, and too many carbs cause inflammation that flares up my autoimmune disease and arthritis.

But I only found this way of eating because I stopped thinking that what the dr. or the dietitian or the American Diabetes Foundation told me about what percentage my macros should be was the be-all end-all of advice and I had to follow it.

My advice: Try it different ways. Start with what you're comfortable with and tweak your macros as you go along until you find your sweet spot.

You'll know your sweet spot when you find it; you'll be losing weight fairly steadily, you'll feel satiated, you'll feel better, and your labs will be looking better when you go to the doctor.

AnnPT77

* Use the MFP estimate.
* Don't try to lose more than 0.5%-1% of your current weight per week, preferably toward the lower end of that.
* Set your activity level based on your life excluding intentional exercise.
* When you exercise, log the exercise and eat those calories, too . . . or sync a good brand/model of fitness tracker to MFP (with negative adjustments enabled) and eat the adjustment calories.
*You don't have to eat the exercise/adjustment calories the same day; you can look at weekly numbers. (Those are easy to find in the phone/tablet app.)
* Follow that routine for 4-6 weeks to see what your average weight change per week is. (If you're a woman who has menstrual cycles, compare your weight on the same relative day in two different cycles.)
* Even if you think you're not losing fast enough at first, stick with that routine. If you think you're losing substantially faster than expected, and you feel weak or fatigued with no other explanation, eat more because that's a danger sign. Otherwise, stick with it.
* At the end of the 4-6 weeks, look at the week-to-week. If the first week or two are wildly different from what follows, ignore those and add more weeks to get a solid 4-6 (or whole cycle).
* Finally, after all of that, compare your actual average weekly loss to the loss rate you were shooting for. If you're close, MFP's estimates are solid for you. Keep going. If you're not close, adjust based on the idea that 500 calories per day is about a pound a week. (Multiply if you need to adjust by fractions of pounds). Use that number going forward.

You may want to re-think/re-estimate after every 10-15 pounds lost, same way as above. Generally, we need fewer calories as we get lighter . . . though some people get more lively/mobile as they lose weight, so need more calories than they'd otherwise expect.

If you don't want to log exercise separately, use a TDEE calculator to get your starting estimate, and average in your exercise plans . . . but then be sure to actually do that planned exercise. Knock 500 calories off the TDEE estimate for each pound per week you can sensibly lose.

I like this TDEE calculator:

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

I like it because it has more activity levels, and better descriptions of them, than most other such calculators. I also like that it lets you compare several research-based estimating methods. All of that information does make the user interface look complicated at first, but if you take a patient look at it, you'll figure it out.

Best wishes!