Advice please?! Macro vs content confusion!

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lucylinc
lucylinc Posts: 18 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was told recently I should have 35% carbs, 45% protein and 20% fat.
I am struggling to match my foods to this.
A normal day looks like this:
Breakfast burrito - wholewheat tortilla, 1Oz of cheese, 2 slice of ham, 1 scrambled egg, 1/4 avocado and 2 tomatoes.
Lunch - quorn/sweet potato mash and onion mix with fajita seasoning
Dinner - steak, sweet potato chips, roasted veg.
This comes to roughly 1200 calories.
And 40% fat, 25% protein and 35% Carbs.
I thought that days food was quite good! But not according to the macro counter.
I exercise 4-5 days a week and hit at least 14,000 steps a day on my rest days. But I am not losing any weight. Any helpful ideas on my diet?!

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    To lose weight, the calories are the important thing. Macros can influence your health, satiety, and advanced body composition, but I think it's always better to get a handle on the calories and THEN focus on the macros.

    How long have you been eating 1,200 and not losing weight?
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    To lose weight, the calories are the important thing. Macros can influence your health, satiety, and advanced body composition, but I think it's always better to get a handle on the calories and THEN focus on the macros.

    How long have you been eating 1,200 and not losing weight?

    I agree

    Also, I would question who or what told you that you 'should' eat those percentages?
  • lucylinc
    lucylinc Posts: 18 Member
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    A personal trainer sent me a plan to follow (totally unsustainable so didn't even try!) but it got me looking at my macro content, and wondering if that was why I wasn't losing weight.
    I've lost a lot of weight, but haven't lost a thing in almost a year. At first I thought I was over training, then I thought I was under eating or over eating, then I thought I wasn't doing enough cardio or enough strength so I decided to eat what I wanted! And guess what, my weight stayed exactly the same!
    I try to aim for 1400 calories a day, but eating clean I struggle to get there. On a bad day obviously it's easily manageable!!!
    I've been clean the last 5 weeks and not lost a thing. I've had a bad 4 days and bar a bit of bloating, I haven't gained anything!
    It's got frustrating.
    Luckily I really enjoy exercising, so I carry on with that!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    lucylinc wrote: »
    A personal trainer sent me a plan to follow (totally unsustainable so didn't even try!) but it got me looking at my macro content, and wondering if that was why I wasn't losing weight.
    I've lost a lot of weight, but haven't lost a thing in almost a year. At first I thought I was over training, then I thought I was under eating or over eating, then I thought I wasn't doing enough cardio or enough strength so I decided to eat what I wanted! And guess what, my weight stayed exactly the same!
    I try to aim for 1400 calories a day, but eating clean I struggle to get there. On a bad day obviously it's easily manageable!!!
    I've been clean the last 5 weeks and not lost a thing. I've had a bad 4 days and bar a bit of bloating, I haven't gained anything!
    It's got frustrating.
    Luckily I really enjoy exercising, so I carry on with that!

    Are you logging everything you eat? I see some blank days and some days with very low calorie counts. Are you using a food scale to weigh all solid food? I see some things logged as slices or cups.

  • lucylinc
    lucylinc Posts: 18 Member
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    I am trying to log every day, but yes, I do miss some and only part fill others. When I'm on it, every day is complete.
    I weigh everything out, add it to my recipes and then break it in to portion sizes. I think it's accurate.
    The blank days may be when I have decided to have a bad day?
    And the extremely low calorie days, and I know this is shocking, but sometimes if I exercise in the evening I have no appetite so won't eat. I know it's bad, and I know it's not helpful!
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    edited November 2015
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    lucylinc wrote: »
    I am trying to log every day, but yes, I do miss some and only part fill others. When I'm on it, every day is complete.
    I weigh everything out, add it to my recipes and then break it in to portion sizes. I think it's accurate.
    The blank days may be when I have decided to have a bad day?
    And the extremely low calorie days, and I know this is shocking, but sometimes if I exercise in the evening I have no appetite so won't eat. I know it's bad, and I know it's not helpful!

    Based on this, I would say your problem lies more into your inconsistency, regularly deciding to have 'bad days', etc than it does to a specific macro breakdown.

    Get your caloric intake and logging habits in order first. Then move on to the less important details.

    (ETA: Not that macros aren't important...you should, of course, strive to eat a variety of foods each day such that you're getting a variety of macro and micro nutrients. Just that I wouldn't gnash your teeth over whether you're at 25 or 30% fats until you get the bigger issues in order).
  • lucylinc
    lucylinc Posts: 18 Member
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    OK, thanks for the input.
    I have done my food plan for the week ahead and food prep is done, so I will log accurately this week and try to keep focus!
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
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    If you're not logging your "bad days" you are doing yourself a huge injustice. It helps immensely to log those days and refer back upon them to see where you went wrong :wink:
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    lucylinc wrote: »
    OK, thanks for the input.
    I have done my food plan for the week ahead and food prep is done, so I will log accurately this week and try to keep focus!

    Yeah, as Juggernaut wisely points out, getting a solid handle on your logging will be way more beneficial than focusing on a specific macro distribution. Make sure you're not missing days or doing partial days. If you do decide to go over, log it so that you'll still know how much you could be setting your progress back. As your diary begins to reflect what you're truly eating, it will be much more helpful. And it will also help you determine how certain macro distributions make you feel and help you plan for the future.

    You can't really know that you are stuck and aren't losing weight at a certain calorie goal if you don't know how often you aren't meeting that goal.
  • lucylinc
    lucylinc Posts: 18 Member
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    Thanks both! I'll make the commitment to logging everything and take it from there!

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