Looking for macronutrtiant advice from vegetarians

The macros set automatically are just a general guideline. It's good for vegetarians especially to try to hit or exceed the protein macro, since sometimes we have trouble getting enough protein, but being over or under by a little on them isn't going to make any real difference.

I'm over on carbs pretty much every day. Yum yum yum carby crispy goodness.

My carbs hit around 60% most of the time. % of Macros are not a good guide in reality concentrate more on grams. 20% of 1200 calories is totally different to 20 % of 2000 calories. Unless your aiming for certain levels due to a specific activity just get your Protein set at a reasonable level and everything else will be fine as long as you aim for a balanced diet.

I set my macros to 50% carb, 20% protein, and 30% fat because, with the RDA of protein at 0.8 g/1 kg of weight, 20% came the closest to the 76 grams per day I'm supposed to get. Because I don't want to exacerbate my insulin resistance, I went with 50% carb and 30% fat. I'm at a 15% calorie reduction and I'm consistently losing a pound a week. I can usually keep my eating at or under the 50% carb level without any deprivation because I will willingly go over on fats and this hasn't hampered my weight reduction. Fats for me are usually avocado, nuts, a little bit of butter (my weakness). The important thing is to play with it until you find what works best for you.

EWJLang wrote: »

The only reason that monitoring your carbs would come in to play would be if you are diabetic or insulin resistant. And, I believe that even for those folks, the wonderful fiber in sources like beans/legumes/pulses make them less of a concern. Anyone with these medical conditions who knows differently, please correct me.

I can't correct you on this, because I'm only knowledgeable about myself but I would add my own thoughts. My experience on this is, when I was heavier and ate meat protein and kept my carbs under 150 per day, my blood sugars were 10 points lower than they are now, having lost 23 pounds and increasing my carbs to 200-250 per day and increasing my exercise. So, I think my body doesn't discriminate between good and bad carbs as much as I would like it to. Ten points higher puts me at the very edge of pre-diabetes/diabetes numbers, but, my trade-off is the higher fiber I'm getting from the vegetarian sources of protein, I hope will lower my cholesterol a bit. I think when you reach my age the body may not respond as it would if I were younger.

I wanted to edit this to add that removing meat from my diet has overwhelmingly helped with my arthritis pain, which is why I've kept with it. When I eat meat, I can barely walk from the pain in my knees, hips, and thighs.