balancing meals

fitinyoga14

I've been on mfp for a while now and i've been working hard to eat as healthy as i possibly can. i have my counter set so that it monitors calories, carbs, fat, protein, sugar, and fiber. For about a month i've been experimenting with different meals, trying to get my numbers just right. I've also been posting questions very similar to these hoping for someone to enlighten me.

There's one pattern that always shows up. i go over on my protein, sugar, and fiber almost everyday. i don't understand this!! it doesn't seem to make sense to me. After logging in just 2 peices of fruit, my sugar is spent! so what gives? I eat pretty balanced meals. So why can't i get my numbers to even out?

gottagetitoff

Remember thosse are natural sugars...keep a closer eye on "added" sugars.

abr25

I also go over every single day in sugar, protein and most of the time fiber.

In my opinion sugar from fruit is fine...sugar from things like cookies and chocolate should def be watched.

And I think the protein is set to low on the site cause i know a lot of people who are always over.

As long as your meals are balanced (a quarter protein a quarter carbs and half veggies or fruit) I wouldn't worry to much about the levels.

emsmith4

Using instinct above numbers when it comes to balancing what you're eating is a better bet. There are different types of fats, sugars, and carbohydrates and they have different effects on your metabolism, weight, and energy level because of the ways they are broken down and stored. 100 calories of sweet potato, for example is probably better in the long run than 100 calories of white potato even though the sweet potato will probably send your carbohydrate intake through the roof since sweet potato has more (natural) sugar than the white. It also has more fiber, vitamin C and iron and is sooooo much tastier, so I would consider it the better choice.

The type of exercise you do will also affect your body's needs. If you lift weights, a little more protein will give your muscles the building blocks (amino acids, which make up all proteins be they animal, vegetable, or something stranger...) to get larger and more efficient--this means they can burn more calories because you can lift heavier weights. Cardio will burn carbohydrate stores in your liver for the first 45ish minutes and then switch to fat stores, so eating an apple before you run will give you more energy to get through your workout, which means you'll end up burning more calories overall (and we're fitness pal-ing because we believe that more calorie burn will lead to weight loss). So more of the good type of carbohydrate led to fewer net calories. Win-win!

Hope this helps.