Carbs or Fats for Lifting?

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breefoshee
breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
Last week, I started Stronglifts and I felt like I was starving and kind of weak/tired the whole week. I ended up eating not so great this weekend and not logging AND I pretty much over ate the whole week. I'm attempting to lose 2lbs per week, as I am 100lbs overweight. I eat about 1500 calories a day, (I save some calories for the weekends) I use a Fitbit and based on my losses it seems to be accurate.

I've set up my Macros from the "How to Set up Your Macros Thread" and my suggested Macros=
145g protein
82g fat (that's .35 x 235)
38g carbs (that's just what I have left over after protein and fat)

After lifting last week, I could tell that I really needed more carbs, I even ended up eating about 200 calories over with more carbs. All I wanted to do is sleep... but I'm unsure what my carb intake should look like-- or if it's just like this because its my first week lifting and I should just suck it up.

When you're at such a high body fat, do you still have to eat so much fat? Or can you eat high carbs/protein and low fat and still get good results??

Replies

  • Crowhorse
    Crowhorse Posts: 394 Member
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    Fat is essential to your health. As long as you hit your daily in protein and at least the minimum of required fat, you can fill the rest in with carbs.
  • breefoshee
    breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
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    Fat is essential to your health. As long as you hit your daily in protein and at least the minimum of required fat, you can fill the rest in with carbs.

    What's the minimum? The .35gxtotalbodyweight? Again, that leaves me with 38 grams of carbs a day...
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    For Protien it shoudl be 0.8 grams per pound of bodyweight. 145g doesn't seem unreasonable.

    For fat I was told to use Lean Body Mass...that can be hard to get but it should read LBM x 0.35

    That should leave you lots for carbs or at least a lot more than 38grams.

    For your LBM even if you got an estimate from a site it would be better than using body weight.
  • breefoshee
    breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
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    For Protien it shoudl be 0.8 grams per pound of bodyweight. 145g doesn't seem unreasonable.

    For fat I was told to use Lean Body Mass...that can be hard to get but it should read LBM x 0.35

    That should leave you lots for carbs or at least a lot more than 38grams.

    For your LBM even if you got an estimate from a site it would be better than using body weight.

    Oh, maybe I got that backwards... I thought it was .8 (or 1lb) per LBM for protien and .35x Total Body weight for fats?

    I posted in the main forum and got some really great responses and estimates. I'm gonna try what they suggested for a few week and make adjustments as I go along. They bumped up my carbs and overall calories and lowered my fats.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1412812-carbs-or-fat-for-lifting?page=1#posts-21288768
  • TravelsWithHuckleberry
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    I'm also trying to lose a significant amount of weight / body fat while starting StrongLifts. Everything I've read says ~0.8 grams of protein for pound of bodyweight. I'm trying to get to that, and will let the fats and carbs figure themselves out, at least for now. Also aiming for 1650 calories, knowing that it might actually have to go UP as the weights get heavier. (The idea of increasing calories to lose weight sure does take some getting used to!)

    Are you doing anything other than StrongLifts? Cardio or additional ST exercises? Trying to do too much may explain why you felt so exhausted your first week.

    And welcome! I'm loving the SL5x5 program - hope you do too.

    :) Courtney
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    For Protien it shoudl be 0.8 grams per pound of bodyweight. 145g doesn't seem unreasonable.

    For fat I was told to use Lean Body Mass...that can be hard to get but it should read LBM x 0.35

    That should leave you lots for carbs or at least a lot more than 38grams.

    For your LBM even if you got an estimate from a site it would be better than using body weight.

    Oh, maybe I got that backwards... I thought it was .8 (or 1lb) per LBM for protien and .35x Total Body weight for fats?

    I posted in the main forum and got some really great responses and estimates. I'm gonna try what they suggested for a few week and make adjustments as I go along. They bumped up my carbs and overall calories and lowered my fats.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1412812-carbs-or-fat-for-lifting?page=1#posts-21288768

    Yup you had Sara in there so nuff said on that...
  • jstout365
    jstout365 Posts: 1,686 Member
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    Yep, you had some pros give you good advice in the other thread. Nothing much to add to the discussion except for the idea that this isn't a "one size fits all" process so you may have to play with macros a bit to find what works best for you. They gave you some great starting points to try out for a month and then adjust if necessary.
  • breefoshee
    breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
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    I'm also trying to lose a significant amount of weight / body fat while starting StrongLifts. Everything I've read says ~0.8 grams of protein for pound of bodyweight. I'm trying to get to that, and will let the fats and carbs figure themselves out, at least for now. Also aiming for 1650 calories, knowing that it might actually have to go UP as the weights get heavier. (The idea of increasing calories to lose weight sure does take some getting used to!)

    Are you doing anything other than StrongLifts? Cardio or additional ST exercises? Trying to do too much may explain why you felt so exhausted your first week.

    And welcome! I'm loving the SL5x5 program - hope you do too.

    :) Courtney

    Yea, I think that the macro advice varies... because someone in the main forum mentioned the same thing about LBM and Total Body weight and how I should calculate my fats .35gx LBM ... I got my info from this thread:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

    1g of protein per lb of LBM as a minimum target
    0.35g of fat per lb of total body weight as a minimum target

    Who knows? lol I just see what happens, keep my protein high and adjust my carbs/fats based on how I feel in the next few weeks.

    I'm not doing anything other than Stronglifts right now, though I do plan on doing cardio 2x a week after a week or two. Based on the advice, I'll be bumping my calories from 1500 to around 1900... and seeing where that goes. I would probably burn more if I ate more, because I'm a lazy bum when eating 1500 calories.
  • Crowhorse
    Crowhorse Posts: 394 Member
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    Alan Aragon has a formula that is: Goal Body Weight * (9.5 + Hrs/week exercise). Then he recommends 1g protein per goal weight, .5 grams of fat per goal weight, and the rest you can fill in with carbs.

    So, since I want to reach 130, mine would be 130 * (9.5 + 3 hours) = 1625 calories a day. 130g p = 520 calories 65g fat = 585 which is 1105 calories. That leaves 520 calories for carbs, or 130g of carbs.

    Now, I'm not the best at sticking exactly to my macros. I try to get them close, but as long as I don't go over my calories, I consider myself good.
  • nikkohli
    nikkohli Posts: 311 Member
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    Bumping to read when I have time.