Looking for someone who’s understand macros

Jamison48073

Hi. Looking to see if I can make friends with someone who understand how to loose weight when not being able to work out. Ppl have said keep carbs at 50 grams a day but then you have to eat more fat and protein which usually go together making impossible to stick to a certain appropriate amount of calories.

Lietchi

Weight loss is about the right amount of calories (=burning more calories than you consume). How you split your calories over the different macros has an effect on health and satiation, but is (largely) irrelevant for loss itself.

You don't need to eat only 50gr of carbs to lose weight (doesn't matter if you exercise or not).

So you need to find the right calorie intake level. Have you set up your goals on MFP yet? It's a good starting point.

PAV8888

Some people, including people with certain medical conditions find it easier to control their total calories if they also control the amount and type of carbohydrates they eat. This is not universal. And people with pre-diabetes and diabetes are also able to lose weight while eating carbs, and even while eating sugars and added sugars.

There's nothing wrong with aiming to eat wholesome good quality food and to make choices that you believe will promote your health.

But your weight loss will come down to the balance of calories in versus calories out.

Please also note that the requirement to work out until you're dripping and sweating and you're out of breath.... It's not a requirement.

Even moderately paced walking can serve as exercise and if even that is not possible, you can still control your weight solely by concentrating on calories in versus out

Without the ability to increase your burn above sedentary the maximum size of deficit you can reliably sustain over the longer term will be slightly smaller as generally speaking a deficit of about 20% (25% while obese) of your total daily energy expenditure would be verging to being aggressive. 1000 Cal a day deficit for an active obese person who may be hitting a tdee of 4000 Cal with a couple of one hour walks is one thing. The same deficit for a short sedentary older barely overweight woman with a 1500Cal TDEE would be impossible and a more proportionate deficit should be attempted!

cmriverside

The Rubiks Cube of food. Tetris.

Just eat the foods you like to eat, log them and learn to tweak portioning. If you're going to cut carbs, you'll need to understand which foods have which macros in what proportions.

Pre-logging helps. Then if your meal you've pre-logged has too much of one macro and not enough of another, you can tweak it or the next meal. It really just takes learning. Nothing comes for free.

I pretty intuitively eat at my 50%C 30%F 20%P split now, but in the beginning of weight loss I realized I had a big knowledge gap about nutrition and macros.

You'll get it. Takes time.

rileysowner

Weight loss is about calories. Yes, macros can help with feeling full (satiety), but for losing weigh it is about calories. I lost about 25 pounds just counting calories with no thought about macros. I only started to focus on carbs when I found I had health issues that developed (likely over years) that required me to.

As for cutting carbs, yes that means more protein and fat. First, fat doesn't make you fat. Second, there are lean options like fish and chicken that don't have a lot of fat. I currently eat around 20 grams of Carbs a day and staying within my calorie goal has not been an issue, but I focus on that calorie goal and incorporate a lot of low carb veggies.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

Lots of great information here. I particularly like @rileysowner 's mention of losing weight without monitoring macros. I've done that, too.

I don't agree with the advice to focus solely on protein. If you are restricting to a fixed number of calories, you need adequate protein AND carbohydrate AND fat to power your day and allow for muscle growth, etc. If you over-do the protein, then you have to sacrifice fats and carbs, which are your main power source. Between fats and carbs, I aim to eat enough carbs to get going in the morning and other times. Fat is the better long-term energy source. You can split those up however it works for you.

Best of luck!

Corina1143

Don't make it hard. Eat. Log it. Check your diary. What made you feel good with low calories? Eat more of that. What did you eat that had high calories and you were hungry 20 minutes to an hour after you ate it?
Eat less of that. Keep logging. Keep learning.

kshama2001

Years back, I was in Costa Rica for 6 weeks and dropped a size without even trying, while eating high carb tropical fruit all day long plus rice & beans twice per day.

Like others said, while your macro balance can help with satiety, making it easier to adhere to a calorie deficit, losing weight comes down to calories, not macros directly.