You say Macros Macros Macros. I hear Marsha Marsha Marsha.

Well now I'm too ashamed to eat my steak and pop-tart sandwich.

Well now I'm too ashamed to eat my steak and pop-tart sandwich.

hmmmm....

is that a pop tart sandwiched between two steaks?

or a steak sandwiched between two poptarts?

:huh:

experiments shall be performed!

]Here's PURINA cat chow:
Ingredients:
Poultry By-Product Meal, Corn Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Ground Whole Wheat, Brewers Rice, Soy Flour, Animal Fat Preserved With Mixed-Tocopherols (Form Of Vitamin E), Fish Meal, Brewers Dried Yeast, Phosphoric Acid, Animal Digest, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Taurine, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Ferrous Sulfate, Added Color (Red 40), Niacin, Manganese Sulfate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Sulfate, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Biotin, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source Of Vitamin K Activity), Sodium

Looks like a lot of carbs to me.

'Micros aren't worth tracking because being deficient in important micros isn't as common as people seem to think' OR 'Meeting ones macros usually involves meeting ones micros by default so there's no reason to be hung up on them' or something like that?

Meeting one's micros isn't as easy as meeting macros.

Providing that I eat a few servings of veggies per day, I easily hit most of my micros.

Iron can be tough though.

Generic Multi - vitamin?

Why in the world would you take? Sooo bad.

'Micros aren't worth tracking because being deficient in important micros isn't as common as people seem to think' OR 'Meeting ones macros usually involves meeting ones micros by default so there's no reason to be hung up on them' or something like that?

Meeting one's micros isn't as easy as meeting macros.

Providing that I eat a few servings of veggies per day, I easily hit most of my micros.

Iron can be tough though.

'Micros aren't worth tracking because being deficient in important micros isn't as common as people seem to think' OR 'Meeting ones macros usually involves meeting ones micros by default so there's no reason to be hung up on them' or something like that?

Meeting one's micros isn't as easy as meeting macros.

Providing that I eat a few servings of veggies per day, I easily hit most of my micros.

Iron can be tough though.

Generic Multi - vitamin?

Keep reading.

Keep reading...

Keep reading.

Keep reading.

I'm going to reset my macro goals to the uber popular 40/30/30 ratio and try to eat more meat. I'm not talking about a "steak and pop tarts" version of IIFYM that disregards micros. I'm still pro-vegetables. My hope is that the emphasis on protein and fat will help to further reduce my carb cravings. Beans in quantity have ghastly gaseous results, and I eat nuts already, but I find calorie for calorie meat keeps me fuller longer. So more meat. A goal of 50-55% carbs seems fine for me, except that I'm still exceeding it too frequently. When my carbs creep up I find myself fighting "the munchies" and the urge to go wild. Hopefully a 40/30/30 will help. I'd be happy with a range between those numbers.

Jump in. Tell me why you think I am right, wrong or somewhat confused, or what your experience has been. And yes, a cat was mentioned, so gifs are appropriate.

I think your only confusion is that IIFYM means you can forgo planning your micronutrients. Most people I see on here promoting IIFYM also pay attention to their micronutrients. The reason you keep hearing so much about eating "junk" food is because you can. It is typically fats and carbs and can easily be fit into somebody's macros for the day. This doesn't mean that the person eating a poptart everyday for breakfast isn't loading up on veggies with dinner or even eating a lot of fruits and veggies throughout the week. The biggest confusion I see on these boards about IIFYM is people thinking that you can literally eat whatever you want WHENEVER you want and as much as you want. The thing about IIFYM is that you can PLAN any food you want into your day and fit it into the macros for that day. Maybe you can't fit a whole chocolate cake into today, but you can most certainly fit some amount of chocolate cake into today.

The reason meat keeps you fuller longer is because protein and fat have satiating effects on the body. They are intended to make you feel satisfied. Carbs are intended for energy and if there isn't a lot of fiber with them, they tend not to keep you feeling full.

And as for your kitty, look into Wysong Epigen 90. Cats are carnivores and most commercial cat foods are mostly corn filler or some other carb filler. Cats should have a diet that is at least 90% actual meat.

I'm still here reading! I appreciate the information or entertainment.

To the cat topic first, thanks to you and others who have provided information. We had been feeding him Fancy Feast and at first glance the veterinarian prescribed canned food has a lower % protein! I'm going to have to spend some time looking at all of this. I cooked steak and chicken for him last night and this morning but I read that I either need to do it right by grinding up bones too or stick to the vet's cat food.

Back to the IIFYM debate. On second thought, I'll post my thoughts separately on that topic shortly.

it boils down to this... lots of people try to adhere to dietary intakes based on food phobias.

the clean eaters say... OMG, you can't eat anything processed!
the paleo eaters say... OMG, you can't eat anything our ancient ancestors couldn't have eaten!
the sugar shamers say... OMG, you can't eat high fructose corn syrup!
the vegans say... OMG, you can't eat anything with a face! (although some vegans are that way for ethical reasons, which is a different matter)
the raw food nutters say... OMG, you can't eat anything that needs to be cooked!
etc.
etc..
etc...

they all believe (mistakenly) that so long as they choose foods based on whichever dietary phobias they subscribe to, they'll magically meet their body's nutritional needs and they don't even have to think about macros and micros.

IIFYM is different. instead of focusing on what you eat and ignoring what's in it... IIFYM'ers instead say that what you eat really doesn't matter so long as you pay attention to what's in it and make sure you meet your macro- and micro-nutritional needs each day.

to the unsophisticated person, this may sound like a diet of steak and poptarts, but it's really not. because you can't meet your micronutrients needs with a diet of steak and poptarts (and especially not primarily steak and poptarts!), you have to eat lots of the foods that are allowable on those other diets as well. such as carrots and apples and rice and beans and etc. however, once you've had enough of those foods to meet your macro- and micro-nutrients needs for the day, then there's nothing wrong with eating a poptart if you have 200 calories left and you want a poptart.

now you can do IIFYM as well as one of those other dietary schemes, such being a vegetarian, but that just means you're doing IIFYM with some voluntary food restrictions of your own personal preference. that just means you have to be a little more careful in how you choose your foods to meet all of your macro- and micro-nutritional needs. you can do IIFYM in conjunction with almost every other dietary scheme so long as it allows you enough leeway with your food choices to get the nutrition you must get.

that's the difference. you are focusing on the nutrition with IIFYM and not so much on which foods are "good" or "bad" (hint, there is no such thing as "bad" food so long as it doesn't make you sick... your body derives nutritional benefit from anything it can digest). it's also a much better mindset because you don't end up browbeating yourself for eating any forbidden foods, because there are no forbidden foods.

now, getting back to the steak and poptart cliche... there are some IIFYM'ers whose diets may appear to be mostly that. however, those folks most likely are very active and/or power lifters and/or bodybuilders and when you eat 4000 or more calories per day, it's easy to meet your macro- and micro-nutritional goals in the first couple thousand calories and the rest of their calories are entirely discretionary. so they can eat quite a bit of food solely based on how much they like the taste of it.

Awesome, simply put an awesome post ^^^