macro help.. Anyone with experience can help?

ARaeB13
ARaeB13 Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone. I'm in need of help regarding my macros. I am 5'6" 125 lbs and am really like only looking to lose 5-10lbs. I've started my health journey a few months back and have completely changed my diet and started exercising. Currently I'm doing insanity, on week 4, and I still have not lost a lb and my inches loss stalled over a month ago while doing 30day shred. I feel like I'm doing all the right things but nothing is changing. My caloric intake TOTAL is 1600. I burn between 340-475 doing insanity, but lately its been on the low end. My macros are 125 protein, 50 fat, and 160 carbs.. Is it possibly because of these numbers that I am not seeing any changes? Should I change anything up? I feel like thats a lot of carbs to ear but ive been sticking with it.. The iifym calculator gave me these macros, in case that matters too! Thanks souch everyone for any help!

Replies

  • nlcs_nickyv32
    nlcs_nickyv32 Posts: 84
    Are you trying to each back the calories burned?
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    You could try doing the lower carb and see if that helps, looks like you are set around 55% carbs now so you could try backing that off. I would adjust your carbs slowly though since it sounds like you are pretty active, otherwise it might hit you pretty hard.

    If you go to goals, change goals (green button at bottum), select to manually set them, then it brings up a page where you can adjust the percentage of your calories your macros make up.

    Before messing with your macros I would suggest making sure you are logging accurately. Weigh all solids and measure liquids. If you are having cheat days and meals that you do not log you are probably ruining your deficit and not even thinking about it. Log every single thing every single day, otherwise you can't really know if you should be losing or not.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide
  • ARaeB13
    ARaeB13 Posts: 7 Member
    No, I don't eat back my calories burned.. According to the iifym calculator, since I have it set that i work out 6 days a week, I should consume 1600 total. So, if I burn say 350 I'm still in a 1250 range. I can't imagine eating a lot more, but I did worry that perhaps I don't eat enough? It feels like I do!
  • ARaeB13
    ARaeB13 Posts: 7 Member
    You could try doing the lower carb and see if that helps, looks like you are set around 55% carbs now so you could try backing that off. I would adjust your carbs slowly though since it sounds like you are pretty active, otherwise it might hit you pretty hard.

    If you go to goals, change goals (green button at bottum), select to manually set them, then it brings up a page where you can adjust the percentage of your calories your macros make up.

    Before messing with your macros I would suggest making sure you are logging accurately. Weigh all solids and measure liquids. If you are having cheat days and meals that you do not log you are probably ruining your deficit and not even thinking about it. Log every single thing every single day, otherwise you can't really know if you should be losing or not.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

    I do have a cheat day, which is Saturday.. I never log in then because I know I didn't hit the "goal" but do you think one day would completely stop any progress? I'm very active and I measure all my foods and condiments so I know exactly what I'm getting during the week. I can try lowering my carb intake slowly. Thanks for the advice!
  • RHachicho
    RHachicho Posts: 1,115 Member
    Depends how crazy your cheat day is. And yes one day can wreck your progress if you go totally mental with it.

    I am not trying to force the last few lbs off. But I would err on the side of upping your protein and lowering your carbs and fat. But make sure you keep your fat at least 40/50g a day. Otherwise low fat coping mechanisms start coming into play and doing stupid stuff. Try to lower carb to as much as you need to remain active and no more. And eat the rest in protein. That's what has worked consistently for me. I don't believe in conventional low carb diets. I think triggering ketosis is a mistake. Carbs should always be at least 100g a day. I often hit double that. But i am a tall large man.
  • ARaeB13
    ARaeB13 Posts: 7 Member
    Depends how crazy your cheat day is. And yes one day can wreck your progress if you go totally mental with it.

    I am not trying to force the last few lbs off. But I would err on the side of upping your protein and lowering your carbs and fat. But make sure you keep your fat at least 40/50g a day. Otherwise low fat coping mechanisms start coming into play and doing stupid stuff. Try to lower carb to as much as you need to remain active and no more. And eat the rest in protein. That's what has worked consistently for me. I don't believe in conventional low carb diets. I think triggering ketosis is a mistake. Carbs should always be at least 100g a day. I often hit double that. But i am a tall large man.

    My cheat day is never anything crazy. I only have one cheat meal, which is usually something like pizza, and I don't completely gorge myself haha
    When I started out doing 30 day shred, I did do lower carbs. I also ate less. I actually upped it to the higher cals and carbs now when I started insanity because I knew I'd burn more and I read to try the iifym calculator to help determine what you need. Maybe I just upped them too much.
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    Depends how crazy your cheat day is. And yes one day can wreck your progress if you go totally mental with it.

    I am not trying to force the last few lbs off. But I would err on the side of upping your protein and lowering your carbs and fat. But make sure you keep your fat at least 40/50g a day. Otherwise low fat coping mechanisms start coming into play and doing stupid stuff. Try to lower carb to as much as you need to remain active and no more. And eat the rest in protein. That's what has worked consistently for me. I don't believe in conventional low carb diets. I think triggering ketosis is a mistake. Carbs should always be at least 100g a day. I often hit double that. But i am a tall large man.

    My cheat day is never anything crazy. I only have one cheat meal, which is usually something like pizza, and I don't completely gorge myself haha
    When I started out doing 30 day shred, I did do lower carbs. I also ate less. I actually upped it to the higher cals and carbs now when I started insanity because I knew I'd burn more and I read to try the iifym calculator to help determine what you need. Maybe I just upped them too much.

    I would start out by logging your cheat meal and see what you are really doing with that. If you have the app on your phone, under nutrition you can select weekly and see a bar graph of your weekly calorie intake and how close to your weekly goal you come. Track you cheat meal and see how it effects your weekly goal, if its not significant then look at the macros, but if it is then that is more likely the problem. With your WLG you should be working with a fairly small deficit, unfortunately those are easy to eliminate if you are not being vigilent.

Categories