Anyone willing to adopt a semi-noob??

tracieangeletti

I have been at this life style change for two years now. I have made great progress and have over-hauled almost every aspect of my life. It has been at times extremely hard but also wonderfully rewarding. I have learned a lot but I also have learned that there is still so much to know. I have been reading as much as I can on diet and exercise but I'm finding out that I'm just not grasping or understanding some concepts and I think it may be interfering with my progress.

Thanks to a fellow mfp member I think I have my strength training program tweaked enough to work for awhile for me which leaves me to tweak my diet. UGH. I have had a history of eating disorders. It was much worse when I was younger and I really am doing pretty well now although I still have some epic binges but they are fewer and farther between now. I still have a tendency to restrict certain foods too much. I am working very hard on being able to eat a cookie maybe even two without freaking out over it. I am a work in progress, and the only reason why I mention this is to help explain to you why I am having such a hard time with my diet. I know I may have to tweak my diet but I don't want to become too restrictive and risk bringing on disordered thinking and eating.

I am doing pretty well sticking to my daily calories. Well not during Christmas, lol, but most of the time pretty good. I still am not sure if I'm eating at the optimal calorie level but it's pretty close and I've recently tried dropping about 100 to 150 calories to see if it makes a difference. I was eating around 1800 a day.

Anyway, my issue now is I'm trying to pay more attention to macros to see if maybe that will help with getting rid of these last lbs. I thought that I understood macros but after reading today and using a bodybuilding.com website calculator I apparently have been doing this wrong. :-/

I have been trying to eat around 90 grams of protein a day as I am somewhere around 93 lbs of lbm. I weigh around 123-125 lbs. I have been averaging around 150 grams of carbs a day and fats are usually around 60-80 grams day. Bodybuilding.com gave me 131-153 grams of protein, 169-197 grams of carbs, and 33-39 grams of fat. If this is correct I've been doing this wrong. Very wrong.

Up until this morning I was under the impression that higher carbs would stall weight loss and it was better to restrict those and eat more fat and protein in place of them. I even cut back to one piece of my beloved toast with breakfast to help. Now I'm not sure what the answer is. Worried that I've been eating too many fats. I do eat two eggs and two pieces bacon on non workout days and occasionally I'll have red meat, but most of my fats come from nuts and low fat dairy.

Am I wrong to think about cutting back on carbs?? Is the fat intake the problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated!! :-)

geebusuk

Far from an expert, but...

Remember bodybuilding.com will be targetted towards, well, bodybuilding .
However, from what I've seen it can't really hurt (unless you have problems that means it can, of course..) having at 1g/1lb of protein. At the moment I've set my target for 1g/1lb at ideal bodyweight, but happy to go over that.

I haven't seen any decent proof that carbs will stall weight loss. If you are lifting, then carbs are important as they are the fuel your body will use to repair muscles. (While you can consider protein to be the building blocks.)

If the goal is weight loss, then the studies I have seen, while they do show a bit of a difference with protein, still don't have a massive difference when compared to the difference eating more or less calories makes.

Martin Berkhan who writes the lean gains guide recommends something like 60g of fat on days where you are in a deficit (which is typically around half of them in his guide.)

For me, (Ok, I have issues with patience in such things and want results NOW ) - I'd think if you find you're stalling a bit, it can't hurt to change it up and see what happens.
In the end, no two bodies are the same (unless you have an identical twin maybe... in which case ideal way to experiment to see which works best ) - so it can be worth doing your own experiments to see what works for YOU.

tracieangeletti

60 grams of fat... makes me feel somewhat better about what I've been doing. The extra fat and protein keeps me satiated for hours which in turn helps me from eating like fool. I do lift so I guess dropping carbs too low wouldn't be smart. I may be worrying about something that may or may not even be a problem. I will continue on and try to keep reading and understanding. What I really don't get is how do you get all that protein 131-153 grams while staying at 33-39 grams of fat. :-/ Thanks so much for your reply!!

allen_ac

The recommendations are

1g of protein per pound of lean body mass
- 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight is far more than you need
- Many people / research may consider 1g of protein per lean body mass to be more than enough too
- If you're on a diet, then you can increase to maybe 1.2g per pound of lean body mass

0.4-0.5g of fat per pound of lean body mass
- Wouldn't want to drop fats too low for an extended period of time (whether bulking or cutting) as it can have long term negative affects on hormone levels

The rest of the calories make up the carbs, whatever that may be

On a diet, especially if you are strength training
Protein and fats stay fairly same through the whole cut
The one thing that is expendable is the carbs. That being said, don't go crazy with cutting out carbs, it is still your source of energy and you'll need it for the strength training. If your weight does not change, just try cutting out 25g of carbs instead of 50g, it's a small change but can go a long way

As for replacing fats with carbs, you don't need to, you only need optimal/efficient amount of fat, if you use up your calories with fats, you will just find yourself eating much less and may struggle to do so. Satiation is your own preference but this is the general ways most people go about cutting. Of course everyone is different, so some people may work better of high carbs lower fats and visa versa, but you should try this way to start out all the time.

Don't believe in the calculators, the only thing calculators are good are giving you a range of TOTAL calories to intake, forget about the MFP or bodybuilding recommendations of macro intake. Finding your maintenance is experimental process which takes 1-2 weeks of tracking calories and your weight. If you eat say 1800 calories for 2 weeks and your weight has barely changed, then obviously that's your maintenance, then you have a number to work off. Remember maintenance is not a static number, it's forever changing every single day due to lifestyle, activity level etc. ...so clearly it would change once you drop weight

If you want any more help, I'm happy to help, you can PM me or add me

Good luck!

geebusuk

Because even on my workoutdays where I eat 1000 calories more, I'm still at least just in a deficit, I don't worry so much about the fat and often do eat too much, but it's not that hard if you go for leaner meat and so on.

If you have a look at my diary for today (which is a rest day), I actually only had 30 grams of fat, but had 196g of protein!

Most protein came from a) - 400g of roast chicken slices (I tear them up and stick them in my "air-fryer" without any fat - they turn in to a semi-jerky state, so eat them by hand as I would a big bowl of jerky.) 81g protein/6g fat
Bacon medallions (I think they call this 'Canadian bacon' in the US) trimmed - 56 protein, 5 fat.
Low fat yogurt - 38 protein, 3 fat.

Protein shakes are another good choice for high protein and low fat.
Chicken breast can be pretty good - looking back, some cheap (not the cheapest, but supermarket own brand bulk frozen pack) chicken breasts give 76 protein for 9 fat.

tracieangeletti

Thanks again for all the info!! I will stick to what I've been doing and just cut back a bit on carbs when I can and see if that helps some. :-)