Carb Fat Protein %'s

donjtomasco
donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
edited November 14 in Health and Weight Loss
I went with what MFP gave me starting out, which is 50% Carb, 30% Fat and 20% Protein.

I am 54, 5'10" 203, down from 213 on Dec 26th, with a goal of 1,500 cal a day. I am currently lifting upper body 3 days a week, 60 minute workouts, and brisk walking 30 min to 60 minutes a day. I eat most of my calories burned and usually have some cal's left over each night.

Does that % breakdown sound about right or should I adjust for some reason I am not aware of?

Thank you.

Replies

  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
    Woah, just noticed in my goals, that grams seems to be reversed on fat and protein. Or am I reading this wrong? It reads

    Carb 188g 50%
    Fat 50g 30%
    Prot 77g 20%

    If Fat % is higher then Protein, shouldn't the number of g's also be higher?
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    You are forgetting that fat has 9 calories per gram, protein and carb has 4.
  • hazcad
    hazcad Posts: 41 Member
    If you're doing that much exercise especially weights you should up your protein, protein will help build muscle and muscle will help speed up your metabolism to burn fat more efficiently
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
    What do you think the adjusted protein amount should be? And what would?should the other two percentages be set at? I am thinking Whey Protein would be a good addition for that protein.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    Aim for 1gr per pound of lean body weight for your protein. Get .4gr of fat per lb of body weight. Fill the rest in with carbs.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    edited January 2017
    donjtomasco wrote: »
    I went with what MFP gave me starting out, which is 50% Carb, 30% Fat and 20% Protein.

    I am 54, 5'10" 203, down from 213 on Dec 26th, with a goal of 1,500 cal a day. I am currently lifting upper body 3 days a week, 60 minute workouts, and brisk walking 30 min to 60 minutes a day. I eat most of my calories burned and usually have some cal's left over each night.

    Does that % breakdown sound about right or should I adjust for some reason I am not aware of?

    Thank you.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
    That was an awesome read, but I am not this hyper anal about my logging. What I DO know is that I am logging my food pretty close, if anything I under report, and on the burn side (exercise) I tend to report fewer calories burned.

    But I only have 10 DAYS of data now, and no clear amount of weight I am losing per week to see how much I am missing by.

    In my goals I am set at "Medium Active" working out 3-5 days a week (which should be my norm but I am on a good run of being able to hit the gym daily, hence the burning more then is in my goals) but maybe this should be "Active", since while I am in my car most of the day (in sales) I am pretty active during the day when not in my car.

    So, I don't know.....

    Seems like I need to wait for more data history. I don't want to under eat, but I don't want to over eat either, so I prefer to errr on the under side till I can get a better idea of how to more accurately set my goals.
  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
    edited January 2017
    Your activity level is based on your day to day life, not your exercise.

    Edited to Add: Ten pounds in ten days?

    The macro split you posted has you at 1500 calories. As a dude, I would figure they would give you more unless you put down a really aggressive goal.
  • rks581
    rks581 Posts: 99 Member
    I use about 40% protein, 15% fat, 45% carbs. This is a LOT of protein but I need it to gain muscle.. also, whenever I crave food it's always protein. Goes without saying that most of this protein is from whey protein powder... it's impossible to get to 200-300g a day without using it. So about half my total food intake is whey protein. It gets expensive but I get big containers and look for sales.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    OP: For weight loss (and maintenance) and muscle maintenance (and gain) combined w/heavy progressive linear weight lifting 3-5 days/wk focusing on the Big 4 compound lifts, I have been using 40P/40C/20F as my macro goals on an ave of 1800-1900 cals/day.

    Calculated TDEE for light activity for me is 2000-2100 cals/day. Actual macros as logged were 35P/39C/26F equal to gross intake (b4 netting out exercise cals) of 181g P, 203g C & 61g F per day.

    35%/181g protein/day, which for me equals 1.1g/# BW or 1.3g/#LBM, is over twice the amount normally recommended, but I believe that those recommendations - - typically 0.5-0.7g/# BW/day - - are too low.

    Higher protein contributes to weight loss because it requires more energy to digest and contributes to muscle growth in combo with progressive weight lifting.

    More muscle also burns more energy and any excess protein not used for muscle growth or maintenance that is converted to glucose can be consumed to feed muscle energy needs b4 being converted to fat.

    Based on these principles, I lost 36# from 196 to 160 and reduced my BF% from +20% to 12% over 6 months, increased my lean body mass twice w/in this time period as measured by DXA and Hydrostatic testing despite being on a deficit diet, and increased my 1RM to 245 SQT, 330 DL, 210 BP & 125 OHP (over 150%, 200%, 125% & 75% of my body weight which were my lifting goals).

    If I could do this, so can you. It just requires time, patience and discipline. Good luck!
  • ktarver97
    ktarver97 Posts: 3 Member
    Try this- http://www.calculator.net/protein-calculator.html
    Use the calculator to determine your daily protein requirements based on your current age/weight/height and activity levels. That should help you find some balance. Healthy fats are good so don't go below 20% in that category.
  • jennybearlv
    jennybearlv Posts: 1,519 Member
    Hornsby wrote: »
    Aim for 1gr per pound of lean body weight for your protein. Get .4gr of fat per lb of body weight. Fill the rest in with carbs.

    This is what I use. Unfortunately, MFP is not set up well for using grams instead of percentage.
  • donjtomasco
    donjtomasco Posts: 790 Member
    I feel like the information that I entered in my goals was pretty fair and accurate. My goal is losing 2# per week, which is what gave me the 1,500 gal per day. I guess if I start losing more then the 2# per week, I might need to up the calories to 1,800. I think that is what I am hearing from the comments in this thread.

    I know the first week or so's weight is a big flush out of bad weight. I am not sure how long it takes for a weeks weight loss to be reflective of the true caloric intake.

    The last two times that I did this for 9-12 weeks, being pretty darn accurate on all my data input, when I took out the first weeks weight loss, my average weight loss per week for the rest of the weeks were 0.95 pounds per week for 2013 and 1.65 pounds per week for 2015.

    I think the main thing is that after getting over the initial discomfort of the lowering of calories and not eating all the fun food that were calorie killers, I feel like I have more energy and am not physically suffering from a 1,500 daily diet. And I am adding back in 200-350 calories for exercise that I eat back. So, I feel good.

    Does this make sense, waiting to see what the actual weight loss is? Still, not sure how many weeks this takes to get a true reading. But I don't want to lose more then 2# per week.
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