Nutrients intake to decrease fat by 5% in 6 weeks?

dwamena01727

Hi family,

What proportions of food nutrients must be consumed provided you have a a 6 week target of losing 5% of body fat especially when the food choices you have is under the category “If It Fits Your Macros”?

Thank you

ddsb1111

What do the goals say when you set up MFP with your stats?

AnnPT77

Losing body fat is about the calories, not the nutrients, in a direct sense.

I'm not saying nutrition is unimportant, just that its direct importance is for health, body composition, energy level, and that sort of thing. Nutrition can have an indirect effect on weight loss, in that sub-par nutrition may lower energy level (so we move less, burn fewer calories than expected) or spike appetites (so we can't stick to a reasonable calorie goal).

So, to lose 5% of body fat in 6 weeks, eat the right number of calories on average daily.

That sounds simple, but it's nuanced: MFP, calorie calculators, and fitness trackers only give us estimates of calorie needs, not measurements, so we may need 6 weeks just to figure out the right number of calories. Also, depending on a person's current size, losing 5% of body fat might not even be a realistically achievable goal, let alone a health-promoting one.

I'm not even sure what you mean when you say "lose 5% of body fat". Do you mean that if you have (say) 50 pounds of body fat, you want to lose 5% of that (2.5 pounds) in 6 weeks, or do you mean that if you have (say) 40% body fat you want to be at 35% body fat in 6 weeks?

I sort of know what IIFYM implies, but there are maybe kind of two ways to go about it: If you start with required macros in grams, you may not be able to reach a calorie level that triggers the hoped-for fat loss rate. On the flip side, if you look at the macros in percents, but eat way too few calories trying to lose weight aggressively fast, it's impossible to get good nutrition.

neanderthin

Protein is basically crucial for maintaining our physical structure and we want to maintain that regardless of the amount of calories we consume but carbs and fat are fuel and can be manipulate up and down. Which one is up to you. Keep in mind that fat is essential for life (the omega's) and carbohydrates are not. Personally I lowered by carbs to around the 5% mark, lost 65 lbs without counting calories and have maintained for a decade, but it's more of a therapeutic dietary strategy and very difficult mentally for most people to adhere to, so keep that in mind. 😊