My endocrinologist had me modify my numbers. He told me a flat 25% carbs. (We didn't talk about net carbs or anything, but I think I will next visit). Then he said between 30-50% protein (more protein for more aggressive weight loss). Balance in fat. So, I think right now, I'm at 25% carbs, 40% Protein, and 35% fat. I think. He verified that the number MFP has on here for sedentary calories is good for me, and since I'm using my FitBit and trying to get in my 10,000 steps at least five days a week, that my numbers were good. So if I walk more, I can eat more. I'm doing okay with this mostly, but I'm only on week 2. The hardest thing for me is that the more carbs I eat, the more I want and I mean WANT! Plus if I have done pretty well all day, and I have a little something sweet later, I've gotten sugar rushes.... I never remember sugar rushes before!! Crazy. Good luck, though. I wouldn't modify too drastically without medical supervision. There are so many potential consequences from too much or too little of anything!

My endocrinologist had me modify my numbers. He told me a flat 25% carbs. (We didn't talk about net carbs or anything, but I think I will next visit). Then he said between 30-50% protein (more protein for more aggressive weight loss). Balance in fat. So, I think right now, I'm at 25% carbs, 40% Protein, and 35% fat. I think. He verified that the number MFP has on here for sedentary calories is good for me, and since I'm using my FitBit and trying to get in my 10,000 steps at least five days a week, that my numbers were good. So if I walk more, I can eat more. I'm doing okay with this mostly, but I'm only on week 2. The hardest thing for me is that the more carbs I eat, the more I want and I mean WANT! Plus if I have done pretty well all day, and I have a little something sweet later, I've gotten sugar rushes.... I never remember sugar rushes before!! Crazy. Good luck, though. I wouldn't modify too drastically without medical supervision. There are so many potential consequences from too much or too little of anything!

Great Read!! Thanks so much for posting!

I'm cautious about nutrition advice from anyone in the medical industry other than a registered dietitian or someone who actually specializes and has a vested interest in keeping up with nutrition science. Medical schools only teach something like 25 hours' worth of nutrition, and it's regurgitating the same old, outdated, disproven "conventional wisdom" things, like the lipid/diet-heart hypothesis, and most doctors barely keep up with the things that directly pertain to their practice, let alone with things that are only tangential to it.

Increasing protein beyond what's needed for muscle and tissue maintenance and repair nearly always raises a red flag for me, because protein should not be relied on for fuel. Carbs and fat are, and should be, fuel. Generally, when people start recommending high protein diets, it's because they're conflating low carb ideas with the diet-heart hypothesis. That can get dangerous long before a correctly-done ketogenic diet, but because conventional wisdom has doctors so paranoid that fat is the Heart Attack Express, you'll be hard-pressed to find one that recommends doing anything other than minimizing them, which is a large part in how we got to where we are (especially anyone with an acquired insulin disorder, since the low fat craze is burning us out).

That's why I always recommend the 1g/lb LBM formula for protein, regardless of what one's goals are. If you're working out and trying to lose weight, that's about how much you need in order to maintain your lean mass (some people do only need less, while others may need more, but 1g/lb is easy to remember and you don't generally have to sweat it if you come up a little short or go a little over).

Protein is like carbs in that the body at first attempts to store it, but instead of glycogen, the body stores the amino acids. Like glycogen, though, the amino acid storage is finite, and in times of shortage (including calorie-restricted dieting), when the usual fuel is used up, the body goes after protein. The liver breaks protein down to sugar and sends the waste byproducts to the kidneys to be filtered out. This is a common occurrence for any protein intake above and beyond what the body needs, and it can handle it on a part time basis. However, the more you increase your protein intake beyond what you need for building blocks, the more you're eating into your actual fuel supply (carbs and fats), and the more the body has to work to make usable fuel. This puts more and more pressure on your liver and kidneys, and why so-called "low carb" diets (which are generally really low carb, low fat, high protein diets) have a perceived reputation of causing/exacerbating kidney issues.

Additionally, there is no actual need to specifically seek out carbohydrates, and a low carb, high fat diet will not, in fact, cause any harm, as long as you're obtaining proper nutrients. The Inuit are the prime example of this -- their traditional diet is almost entirely animals (with a few berries or what little vegetation they happen to find in the short Arctic summers). They've thrived off this diet for generations upon generations. Any carbohydrates they got were either mostly fiber (from the vegetation) or incidental carbs from the meat and organs of the animals they ate. We're talking 50% (conservative) to 90% of their calories obtained from fat, and most of the remainder from protein. Most ketogenic diets allow for upwards of 50g of carbohydrates more because most of us don't eat much in the way of livers, brains, hearts, and bones/marrow, and therefore need to get certain vitamins from plants, which are carby by nature.

It's a common misconception that our body's preferred fuel is glucose. That's not really true. The body uses glucose because it's a fast fuel. It's a street racer's NOS system. It's also toxic if the body doesn't do something with it when we consume it in excess, so it always does something with it first and foremost. It's kind of like the responders to an accident -- the responders tend to the people in the cars first (the sugar), before anything else, so they can get medical treatment, taken to the hospital, etc. Only after the people are taken care of, do the responders do things like find out what happened, move the vehicles off the road and onto a tow truck, file paperwork, etc (the fat and protein).

At first, the sugar goes to the glycogen stores. When those are full, it turns it into triglycerides and stores them as fat. Eventually, the body starts becoming insulin resistant, because it doesn't really want to store more as fat (after fat levels have gotten beyond "healthy"), but the liver tells the pancreas to keep producing more insulin and force the sugar to be stored, until finally, the pancreas gives out altogether (Diabetes). Rather, the vast majority of the body runs on fat. The things that can't run on fat directly can run on ketones (a byproduct of burning fat), and for the one thing that can't run entirely on ketones -- the brain -- the ketogenic body saves any ingested glucose and makes the remainder. That's right, the body can make nearly all the sugar it needs.


http://eatingacademy.com/
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/85/1/238.full

Hey guys, great posts!
I have a pretty noob question to do with DragonWolfs calculations.
I weigh 180lbs and my fat% is 41.2 equalling 72lb of my weight..

So that leaves me with 106lb of lbm so basically 106g of protein... Is that right? I'm aiming for 50-60g of carbs per day and my nutritionist suggested around 1800 calories per day for weight loss though I'm going to see a dietician soon for another opinion.

Does this sound correct to you guys? And do you gave some examples of good fats that I should consume to fill in that big void of calories? the only ones I can think of are nuts and avocado.. Are vegetables high in good fat? So confused

Thanks in advance