Understanding the Metrics

happyatsea9999

Hello All,

I am a newbie here and have been on the site for about 2 weeks. I have been "dieting" and exercising for months now (maybe 4 months) Anyway I haven't made too much headway until recently. I have added Sugar and Fiber to my diary tracking page.

So here is my question, everyone seems to understand trying to maintain or go under the calorie column, but how important is it to stay under the other columns, ie. carbs, fats, protein, sugar and fiber? I can easily stay under the calorie and carb target, but often go over on protein and sugar, sometimes over on fat and fiber.

How significant is this? I have actually dropped a few pound lately because I have been trying to stay under the sugar target. This is all very difficult as I usually have a pretty large calorie deficeit, usually 600-800 calories. If I add fruit, then my sugar target gets crushed, if I add nuts then my fat target gets crushed.

How do I eat to use up all my calories headroom but not go over on the other metrics?

BTW....This has been very helpful to actually log ALL of my food intake.

summerblunden

Eat as much fiber as you want, you WANT to hit that limit, and go over it. Fiber is the pipe cleaner of our system. I would say the same for protien. As long as it isn't excessive (100+g a day) I would say you are ok. I understand where you're coming from with sugar, eating fruit is a surefire way to hit that target, but you should mostly be worried about your refined sugars, so those NOT from fruits. If, after deducting those, you're still way over, you need to evaluate where your processed sugars are coming from. And fot the fat colums, kind of the same thing, if all fo your fat is coming from nuts, you're fine. If it is all coming from animal product or procesed foods, not so fine. Mostly, I think, make sure you're keeping under your calorie limits, and that your levels are pretty equal...that you're not 20 grams deficient in one and 20 grams over in another. And remember, good carbs are your friend, in moderation.

happyatsea9999

Thanks so much for your response. Yes most of my sugar and fat I try to get from natural sources but there is SO MUCH sugar in even common foods (ie non fat milk, cherry tomatoes, Low sodium V8 juice has 8 gram, even some nuts have sugar tied to them) it is hard to eat 2 fruits a day and stay inside the sugar target. For me that target is 35 grams. An apple has 15, peach around 11 or so. Anyway I am starting to limit my fruit to only one serving, yet I really want more to help fill in my calorie target. I am usually over the 35 gram mark and that is still with only 1 fruit for the day.

So if I hit 50 grams and have 2 fruits for the day, should I be concerned? BTW, I am borderline diabetic with a fasting glucose of 114 and an A1C of 6.7 %. Thanks for the advice.