Macro balance? Protein vs. Carbs

Doberdawn
Doberdawn Posts: 733 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am trying to decide what to do & how to balance things. I have recently had a major weight loss stall which lasted months till I did a full diet break for a couple weeks & ate full maintenance calories to get my system reset.

As this was going on, totally conflicting advice was suggested to me. Some have said I stalled not only because I was on a deficit for too long, but also because my carbs were too low. So, I did try to increase my carbs during the full diet break & I did even lose some weight while on maintenance level calories.

Conflicting with this advice are the folks saying while I'm working out regularly, I should be having more protein, at least .8 to 1 gram per pound of lean body mass. If I increase my protein, then what do I decrease? Carbs?

Which do you need more & why? Discussion please... And don't just say which one, please tell me WHY you think so.

Replies

  • Doberdawn
    Doberdawn Posts: 733 Member
    Anybody out there?
  • Shadowknight137
    Shadowknight137 Posts: 1,243 Member
    You need protein and fat. At least .8-1g and .5g per lb LBM respectively. This is the minimum to maintain muscle mass when losing weight.

    Carbs are not necessary as a macronutrient, so yes, by all means, decrease carbs and increase protein if it's lacking. HOWEVER, calories are also important when losing weight - if the gap between your TDEE and intake is too low, you'll experience problems. Bad ones. So you can either fill in the remainder of your calories with carbs (recommended) or fat. Your choice.
  • Doberdawn
    Doberdawn Posts: 733 Member
    You need protein and fat. At least .8-1g and .5g per lb LBM respectively. This is the minimum to maintain muscle mass when losing weight.

    If I were to eat .8g of protein per LBM and .5g of fat... then my macros would be 25% carb, 30% protein and 45% fat. That's almost HALF fat? Where do you get the .5g of fat per pound of LBM figure from? Doesn't that seem AWFULLY high? Certainly far easier to comply with... but REALLY?!?!?
  • Shadowknight137
    Shadowknight137 Posts: 1,243 Member
    Yeah, that's fine.

    I do hope you realise that fat is good for you. Seriously. You need fat. It doesn't matter what your macro percentages are; it's about macro grams and calories, not some magic arbitrary ratio.

    Don't worry about it.. Fat is tasty.
  • Cryogenetic
    Cryogenetic Posts: 5
    Determining what your macronutrient needs are based on percentages is a terrible idea. Find out how much of each you need according to what your personal goals are. Oh and by the way, if you are a sedentary person then you do not need carbohydrates.
  • monicalosesweight
    monicalosesweight Posts: 1,173 Member
    Boy, interesting topic. Bump. I've been wondering about whether to lean toward carbs or proteins.
  • LisaGirlfriend
    LisaGirlfriend Posts: 493 Member
    I'm no expert, but I do know that I generally feel very bloated and lethargic eating higher carbs (like the 55% MFP naturally defaults you to). Maybe this is because I used to be a very low carber... so for me, I manually set my own goals on MFP and currently have them set to 40% protein, 30% carbs, 30% fat.

    I've read that you need 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass, so for me that's 100 g of protein a day. It's a lot and I don't always reach it, but I lift weights, and work out every day for at least 30 minutes, so I believe I need lots of protein to maintain my muscles. I also tend to go over carbs every day, if I don't start my day with my protein filled omelette for breakfast.

    Thanks for reminding me that I need to pay more attention to targeting my macros. Good luck!
  • Larisonlj
    Larisonlj Posts: 426 Member
    You need protein and fat. At least .8-1g and .5g per lb LBM respectively. This is the minimum to maintain muscle mass when losing weight.

    If I were to eat .8g of protein per LBM and .5g of fat... then my macros would be 25% carb, 30% protein and 45% fat. That's almost HALF fat? Where do you get the .5g of fat per pound of LBM figure from? Doesn't that seem AWFULLY high? Certainly far easier to comply with... but REALLY?!?!?

    I've recently reduced my carbs and upped my fat intake and I feel great and I dropped some weight after being on a several month plateau. I did this based on reading about some people who had success with fat loss due to a ketogenic format. So I read up on it, and adjusted my macros. The idea is to get your body burning its own fat stores instead of carbs you've eaten. Now I didn't go as low on carbs as is suggested and I won't ever, but the little adjustments I made are working for me.

    Edit to say, I'm not just randomly stuff fatty foods in my mouth, but nuts etc. The info I found had good examples for fats and carbs.

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