IIFYM time consuming

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bluefire301175
bluefire301175 Posts: 24 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi, I recently decided to start IIFYM and I have a question. Does anyone have any tips for making finding food to help hit your macros less time consuming? It's literally taking me hours to find the right food combinations to successfully hit my macros( on top of having to cook everything that I'm inputting.) I have no idea what I'm doing honestly so I might be wrong in how I'm going about this but... :P Thank you in advance!

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  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
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    Pre-plan. I'll usually map out a rough outline of my day night before or train ride into work. From there, I'll just make adjustments to the serving sizes in grams if need be.
  • 365andstillalive
    365andstillalive Posts: 663 Member
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    I've never found it particularly time consuming, but I guess I've been at this for four years, so maybe I just don't remember?

    For me, I just aim for my protein, and everything else tends to fall in place. I tend to only eat meat once a day, so eggs and cheese are typically involved in my breakfast; I have snacks like greek yogurt, cheese string and nature valley protein granola bars. I'll admit that I eat a bit more repetitively than I used to before switching to IIFYM, but it also gives me flexibility to make just about anything I want fit; I'll admit to planning my entire day around a giant bowl of ice cream from time to time haha.

    Feel free to send me a FR (or just check out my diary, I think it's open to the public) and hopefully that helps!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    IMO, it's great to be aware of your macros and use them to help you balance out your diet, etc...but way too many people fuss about hitting them bang on like you are now, and there's very little benefit to doing so. If you're not a competitive athlete, I really wouldn't stress about it too much...it's not going to make a *kitten* bit of difference.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    IIFYM is not about hitting your macros exactly, but getting enough protein and fat. When those two are met, you are "free" to eat whatever you want.

    Before the shitstorm comes, no, you are not supposed to eat only icecream and donuts. A varied diet with fruit, vegetables, fish, dairy and meat, is important for health and satiety.
  • SyStEmPhReAk
    SyStEmPhReAk Posts: 330 Member
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    Be patient! When I first started IIFYM 3 years ago, I had the same problem. It's new to you so you're still figuring stuff out. Soon you'll get into a routine and you'll have certain "go to" foods that will make the process much easier. I also agree with pre-planning, that helped me a lot in the beginning. I would plan out the entire week and that took a lot of pressure off me and made it less time consuming. Now I'm much more comfortable with it all and I don't even think about it. But again, just be patient with it.
  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
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    I agree, hit your protein and fats and everything else will fall right along. Takes me 2 mins. to fill out my diary.
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
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    Serah87 wrote: »
    I agree, hit your protein and fats and everything else will fall right along. Takes me 2 mins. to fill out my diary.

    Pretty much this.

    I focus on protein first and then the rest tends to fall into place.


  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Don't try to be perfect, and maybe pick one (protein is usually a good choice) to concentrate on first.

    Like just track for a day and then in the evening look it over, see where you were high and low, see what foods contributed, and then the next day try to adjust.

    For example, say you are aiming for 100 g protein, 60 g fat, and 200 g carbs. You finish your day and are at 70 grams protein, 58 grams fat, 250 grams carbs. So from that you know you want to increase protein (as you are focusing first on protein) and that your fat is basically in the ballpark and your carbs are high. It thus makes sense to reduce carbs a bit and increase protein. If you look, you see you got lots of carbs and not much protein at breakfast and are pretty balanced in lunch and dinner, and add some protein and take away some carbs from breakfast.

    That's one way to do it--when you look at your own log the answers will come to you.

    As you do it for a while it will be easy, as you will develop a sense of what foods contribute what macros, just like you have likely done that with calories.

    I tend to focus on balanced meals and getting a good mix of the macros in all of them (unless I was high on something earlier in the day in which case I might eat less of it later). Others don't worry about that so much.
  • LiveLoveLift48
    LiveLoveLift48 Posts: 379 Member
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    I have a question regarding IIFYM......how do you KNOW exactly what those macros should be?
  • bluefire301175
    bluefire301175 Posts: 24 Member
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    Caitwn wrote: »
    Serah87 wrote: »
    I agree, hit your protein and fats and everything else will fall right along. Takes me 2 mins. to fill out my diary.

    This. Don't overthink it. If you find yourself falling far short on protein, then ask here for some good snack/protein addition suggestions. But often it's nothing that some Greek yogurt or a Quest bar can't address.

    Thank you so much for the help everyone. Im now wondering what I can do to add
    more protein. I tried a quest bar and hated it after the first bite because of the intense aftertaste and the only way I can stomach yogurt is if its mixed with other things(usually carbs). I'm a college student with no job so experimenting and finding a yogurt or bar that I like just isn't in the budget right now so I'm trying to work with what I have. I also hate eggs unless its in something(usually carbs)
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    LiveLoveLift48 wrote: »
    I have a question regarding IIFYM......how do you KNOW exactly what those macros should be?

    0.8 grams of protein for every pound of weight or 1gram for every lb of lbm
    0.35 grams of fat for every pound

    rest carbs.

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