Nutritional question

Also - you can manually adjust the percentages in your goal settings to increase/decrease as needed. I adjust mine to set the protein and fat where I want them, and let the carbs fill the rest. (As it is, if I exercise and the goal goes higher than I need, I'll just stop the protein where I want it. As long as I stay under on calories, which I am so not doing today because I am an idiot at 1am, and approach where I want on protein and fat, I'm good.)

You need only monitor the sugar and salt if you have a medical condition that requires it, otherwise you can watch if you want, but you can also go into the settings and pick different micro-nutrients to monitor instead (I go for fiber and calcium personally.)

Finally, when it comes to logging, you want to be accurate. The less accurate you are, the less likely you will to meet your specific food goals, especially if you are close to goal and don't have much margin for error. Get a digital scale, they are awesome. Most will let you tare (reset) the scale to zero after you put a plate (or full jar of peanut butter) on it, so you can add food (or take away - negative numbers on scales are awesome) and get a good measurement without guessing. Use the scale to teach you what a portion really looks like. Use it a lot. Eventually you may be able to eyeball it, (but if you ever do get there, keep the scale in reserve, it's amazing how it can creep up over time) but for now, you are teaching yourself how it should be.

Good luck.

If you are not sure you are getting an accurate count, then start out by only eating about 50% of your exercise calories. If you lose too fast, you can up the amount you eat back, if you are losing too slowly, then you can reduce it some, but chances are that something might be off with your food if it is that far off. Also, don't make changes every few days, wait 3-4 weeks before you change things up. Your body's needs will fluctuate (even men have hormonal cycles) so one week you may lose less than another. Also, when you initiate new exercises, your body may retain fluids for muscle repair, so don't be too discouraged if the scale doesn't change much when you add or change an exercise. Use body measurements if you can, and of course you can always go by the fit of your clothes.

Every ten pounds or so, you'll want to adjust your goal settings. As you lose, your body requires fewer calories to run, if you continue eating at the same rate, your weight loss will slow down. When I do a reset, I go in, tell MFP to reset the goal based on my current weight, then I adjust the percentages again to get them where I want them. I do wish they would let us set hard goals in grams for up to 2 of the 3 macros, and let the third adjust based on activity, but I don't know that they'll ever (be able to) do that.

Edited to add: I recommend 10 pounds for the adjustments, because then it is only adjusting by a few calories at a time, if you wait until the weight loss has stalled, then you'll be getting a drastic drop, which may make adherence harder at first.)

I personally adjust it to be highest in fat(70%), moderate in protein(25%) and very low carb(5%). I also hit the gym very heavily with both cardio and heavy weights. I actually do crossfit. On days I workout, I add maybe 20g or so more of carbs. This has been working very well for me to drop the pounds I need and sustain me in my workouts.