will going over in certain things ruin my progress?

like i mean fat, sodium and sugar.

i've slowly gotten way better at controlling my sodium but some days i'm over. i know sodium will affect the number on the scale negatively- that's why my main priority was to keep sodium down.

but i'm wondering if lets say i went over in protein every day but stayed under my calorie limit, would it affect my weightloss?

or how about going over in fat(or sugar) but staying under my cals, would it affect me?

because sugar and fat seem to be a hard one to control.

i NEVER drink soda. i've never even liked it. but simple things like bread, or my morning shake or fruit has lots of sugar.

Your weight loss is determined solely by calorie deficit. Macros don't matter for weight loss. They matter for body composition, how you feel, etc, but not for body mass.

I don't know what your macro targets are since your diary is closed. Assuming you are losing weight, and wish to retain lean mass and get rid of fat, you want to shoot for about 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body mass a day; 0.3 times your body weight in pounds as grams of fat; the remainder of your calories as carbs.

5'6
196 lbs
22 years old

OK let's assume your body fat is 40%. Unless you're an extreme lifter or something, that's probably pretty accurate give or take 5%.

This makes your lean mass somewhere between 110 and 125 lbs.

So if you're losing weight, exercising, and want to get rid of fat and preserve lean mass you should be getting 100-120 grams of protein per day. You should also be getting about 55 grams of fat per day (0.3 times your total mass).

140 grams of protein is 440 calories. 55 grams of fat is 500 calories.

Your BMR is about 1715 calories per day. So your sedentary TDEE is about 2058 calories per day. I suggest you make your calorie target 1650 calories per day. 440 calories from protein means that you should get 25% of calories from protein; 500 calories from fat means that you should get 30% of calories from fat. The rest - 55% - should be from carbs.

Add exercise calories on top of this. So if you burn 300 calories on the treadmill, you should add that to MFP and that day's calorie goal will go from 1650 to 1950 calories.

Since you have a fair amount of weight to lose, you can safely increase this calorie deficit and go for say 1500 calories per day (still adding exercise). If you do this, you will want to increase your protein target to 30% and fat to 35%.

like i mean fat, sodium and sugar.

i've slowly gotten way better at controlling my sodium but some days i'm over. i know sodium will affect the number on the scale negatively- that's why my main priority was to keep sodium down.

but i'm wondering if lets say i went over in protein every day but stayed under my calorie limit, would it affect my weightloss?

or how about going over in fat(or sugar) but staying under my cals, would it affect me?

because sugar and fat seem to be a hard one to control.

i NEVER drink soda. i've never even liked it. but simple things like bread, or my morning shake or fruit has lots of sugar.

Your weight loss is determined solely by calorie deficit. Macros don't matter for weight loss. They matter for body composition, how you feel, etc, but not for body mass.

I don't know what your macro targets are since your diary is closed. Assuming you are losing weight, and wish to retain lean mass and get rid of fat, you want to shoot for about 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body mass a day; 0.3 times your body weight in pounds as grams of fat; the remainder of your calories as carbs.

Ok, so I'm totally interested in this too... I'm ready to start maintaining, but what you're saying is I need to double my protein?? Eeek.

You don't "need" to, no. But mountains of research indicate that you will retain the greatest percentage of lean mass while losing weight and exercising if you get at least 1 gram per lb of lean body mass of protein per day.

Keeping lean mass and shedding the fat on top of it is how you get that toned look. Muscle gives structure and definition to the body; it's what creates a perky butt, toned arms, shapely thighs, etc. Fat takes up more volume and looks soft and dumpy.

LOL... 'soft & dumpy' ...well.. that' s not really the look I'm going for... ;-)

5'6
196 lbs
22 years old

OK let's assume your body fat is 40%. Unless you're an extreme lifter or something, that's probably pretty accurate give or take 5%.

This makes your lean mass somewhere between 110 and 125 lbs.

So if you're losing weight, exercising, and want to get rid of fat and preserve lean mass you should be getting 100-120 grams of protein per day. You should also be getting about 55 grams of fat per day (0.3 times your total mass).

140 grams of protein is 440 calories. 55 grams of fat is 500 calories.

Your BMR is about 1715 calories per day. So your sedentary TDEE is about 2058 calories per day. I suggest you make your calorie target 1650 calories per day. 440 calories from protein means that you should get 25% of calories from protein; 500 calories from fat means that you should get 30% of calories from fat. The rest - 55% - should be from carbs.

Add exercise calories on top of this. So if you burn 300 calories on the treadmill, you should add that to MFP and that day's calorie goal will go from 1650 to 1950 calories.

Since you have a fair amount of weight to lose, you can safely increase this calorie deficit and go for say 1500 calories per day (still adding exercise). If you do this, you will want to increase your protein target to 30% and fat to 35%.

thank you very much, you have helped me more than anyone here
i think i'm on the right track. i eat 1500-1550 calories per day. and i have up'd my exercise to almost every day (considering i'm so busy i only manage anywhere from 15-30 minutes per day, depends on my schedule)
and my pie chart today said 49% carbs, 12% protein and 39% fat.
so i'll make sure to work on that.

Great. If you go to your My Home tab, then click Goals on the top you can manually edit your calorie and macro goals. Sounds like you're doing well for fat, but you definitely want to try to get more protein and fewer carbs for the best results.

like i mean fat, sodium and sugar.

i've slowly gotten way better at controlling my sodium but some days i'm over. i know sodium will affect the number on the scale negatively- that's why my main priority was to keep sodium down.

but i'm wondering if lets say i went over in protein every day but stayed under my calorie limit, would it affect my weightloss?

or how about going over in fat(or sugar) but staying under my cals, would it affect me?

because sugar and fat seem to be a hard one to control.

i NEVER drink soda. i've never even liked it. but simple things like bread, or my morning shake or fruit has lots of sugar.

Your weight loss is determined solely by calorie deficit. Macros don't matter for weight loss. They matter for body composition, how you feel, etc, but not for body mass.

I don't know what your macro targets are since your diary is closed. Assuming you are losing weight, and wish to retain lean mass and get rid of fat, you want to shoot for about 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body mass a day; 0.3 times your body weight in pounds as grams of fat; the remainder of your calories as carbs.

Ok, so I'm totally interested in this too... I'm ready to start maintaining, but what you're saying is I need to double my protein?? Eeek.

You don't "need" to, no. But mountains of research indicate that you will retain the greatest percentage of lean mass while losing weight and exercising if you get at least 1 gram per lb of lean body mass of protein per day.

Keeping lean mass and shedding the fat on top of it is how you get that toned look. Muscle gives structure and definition to the body; it's what creates a perky butt, toned arms, shapely thighs, etc. Fat takes up more volume and looks soft and dumpy.

LOL... 'soft & dumpy' ...well.. that' s not really the look I'm going for... ;-)

:laugh: Exactly. There are those on MFP who will deride the "protein nazis" or whatever, but the reality is that virtually everyone who is here to lose weight wants to end up looking toned and firm, not soft and dumpy. To do that, you need to weight train in some fashion and eat plenty of protein, end of story.

That was a pretty comprehensive answer about fat and protein.

I will say that I am over on sugar every single day. I rarely eat foods with added sugars but I do eat a lot of fruit. I don't even track my sugar because it doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to stop eating fruits because it puts me over on sugars. I make it a general rule to stay away from too much added sugar though I'll put 4g of brown sugar in my oatmeal sometimes. I'm also usually over on fiber too. None of this has affected my weight loss at all.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention sugar and sodium.

OP: you should forget about sugar and sodium too. You don't want 5000 grams of sodium every day, but that's tough to do anyway, unless you eat fast food 3 times a day like I sometimes do

Nope. Just eat enough protein and fat. Nothing else matters. Sodium and carbs can affect water weight but that's about it.