How important are macros?

Many people will tell you they don't matter that much, but I've personally found that where I set my macros and how I combine them has a huge effect on weight loss. For instance, if I set my carb intake at 60% as recommended, I don't lose much weight. If I drop my carb intake to 35% and raise my fat and protein intake, I lose rapidly. And 35% carbs is still well above "low carb" levels, you just have to be careful which carbs you chose to eat every day. I also find I'm always hungry on a high carb diet, because carbs do not sustain you the way protein and healthy fats will. I eat a whole foods diet, so all my carbs come from fruits and veggies. I eat around 1300 calories a day, and I am NEVER HUNGRY. It's kind of awesome. However, If you love bread, pasta, etc., you will really have to look at macro content or foods you eat to live this way. That being said, staying at o under your calorie goal is still the most important thing. Best of luck!!!

In general, I always aim to go over my protein macro, meet fat & fiber, & stay under with carbs and sodium (though carbs & sodium isn't tooooo terribly important to me either).

Weight loss is all about calories in, calories out. If you're not losing weight there's an error in the calculations somewhere.

Are you weighing your food? How are you calculating your exercise calories?

You could be over estimating your calorie burns and underestimating your food intake, which is quite common.

Have you done any measurements? Maybe you've lost inches instead of pounds?

I pay a lot of attention to the macros because I have PCOS so I know I have to be careful with sugar and fast carbs as I'm insulin resistant. Even if you're not though I think most people try to go over on protein because the MFP goal is really low. I would also say to keep an eye on the sodium one.

I had another disappointing weigh-in this morning. I didn't lose anything. Not even half a pound. I upped my calorie intake to 1480 a week ago after reading a LOT of threads about smaller calorie deficits being better. I don't exercise every day, but when I do, I eat back most of those burned cals. Since I'm eating at a deficit, exercising 3-4 times a week, I'm pretty sure I should have lost something within the last couple weeks. But I haven't. So I'm just wondering, how important are the macronutrients? Has anyone found that they didn't drop weight without the proper ratio? I really haven't paid that much attention to them so far, but if it will give me results, it'll be worth the extra effort.

Couple of things....

1) The size of your deficit should be based upon how much you have to lose...the more over-fat you are, the bigger the deficit can be without ill effects. The less BF you have the slower you have to go because you risk burning up a lot of muscle mass with big calorie deficits. Eat more to lose really has nothing to do with the rate of loss...it's more about dietary adherence...it is easier to adhere to a less strict calorie deficit and thus over the course of a longer period of time, individuals with smaller calorie deficits tend to adhere longer and thus experience a great deal of success long term.

2) Since you upped your calories you have a smaller deficit from maintenance...and less room for error. Usually when it's not working it is because there is estimation error of intake and burn. Calorie counting is a game of precision...you can never be dead on accurate, but you can be close...but to be as precise as possible means you need to weigh and measure pretty much everything out. If you eat out a lot or eat a lot of pre-packaged meals, etc you need to understand that they are allowed to have some margin of error in their calorie count...this can be as much as 20%.

You need to weigh out pretty much anything that has a weight given as an option for "serving". Then make sure you're actually eating and logging whatever serving is accurate...it is amazing how many people I've seen eat, for example, a chicken breast and log it as 4 oz...when in reality they at a whole chicken breast which is on average around 8 Oz. They think they've consumed 1/2 of the calories that they have actually consumed. If you're just eyeballing I can guarantee you that you're underestimating your intake by as much as 20-30%...that's pretty much what most studies indicate.

3) I've found macro goals to be highly beneficial in controlling my blood glucose as well as reducing my LDL cholesterol and triglycerides as well as helping me achieve certain fitness goals. As far as weight loss goes though, it's really about the energy (calories) you are consuming and burning.

I would suggest setting your goals to how much ever weight you want to lose per week...remember that the less you have to lose, the slower you have to go. Then make sure you're actually weighing and measuring and being as precise as possible with your intake.

Thanks for all the helpful advice. I only acquired a food scale last week, so I've just started weighing my food. A HRM is next on my list. I have my goal set at losing 1 pound per week. My weight loss goal is 25lbs.

I think that is a good goal for where you are right now, but you'll want to dial that back to about 1/2 Lb per week when you get to your last 10 Lbs or so...25 Lbs isn't as much as it sounds in the grand scheme of things so you'll ultimately have to go pretty slow. I would advice focusing largely on your health and nutrition...also, if you're just doing cardio I would advice getting in some resistance training. This will help preserve your lean mass and you will ultimately look better at goal and generally look better throughout the entire process.

I think that you'll find your food scale to be a very beneficial tool in adding greater precision to your logging...the HRM is good to, though it is still an estimate. I usually only ate back about 80% of the calories my HRM told me I burned, and that only for an aerobic event. The further away from a steady state aerobic event that you get, the less accurate a HRM is for calorie burn.

Once I started using a food scale and measuring anything else out that I couldn't weigh...and accurately logging the portions I was actually eating, I started to easily lose about 1 - 1.5 Lbs per week. I've lost 40 Lbs altogether using the MFP method and have been maintaining for 7 months

Both Fitbit & UP sync w/ MFP:
UP http://www.myfitnesspal.com/apps/show/97
Fitbit http://www.myfitnesspal.com/apps/show/30

UP is a band; Fitbit also makes activity trackers you can clip to your bra. I synced my accounts and log all my food & drink in MFP. MFP sends the aggregate food data for each meal to the trackers. The trackers send my TDEE to MFP, and MFP adjusts my calories accordingly: http://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1084230-total-daily-calorie-partners-what-information-is-synced-with-myfitnesspal-

I just want to clarify - Macros are extremely important for eating a balanced, healthy diet - as are vitamins and minerals. However, in terms of weight loss the calorie deficit is the most important part to achieve. That being said, you can eat foods with more carbs/protein than you can fat as they only have 4cal per gram while fat has 9cal per gram.

I'm losing slowly but surely and am also going to be getting a food scale for Christmas. I know that by using this I will be a LOT more accurate with my intake amounts. I also use a Bodymedia band to track my calories as another recommended teh Fitbit.

Good luck