Saying hi, i'm on day one and have a question...

All food is made up of carbs and/or fat and/or protein. These are macronutrients. Each macronutrient has a certain number of calories/kj per gram, so no, there is no food that is made of none of these.

Whilst calories are important and what you should focus on most (especially when starting out) it sounds like you're missing your protein target. Try pre planning your meals and make sure you're hitting the protein and fat goals as minimums. These are important for health. You can use the rest of your calories for whatever you like (more protein, more fat, or carbs) .

AilsaWill wrote: »

Ok; I'm on day one of a 'before and ? after' program at my local gym.

We are being encouraged to do everything properly and sensibly, and stick as closely to our targets as possible.

Being day one it's a bit trial and error when planning/tracking my day's food. Feel like overall I did well but I have hit one snag.

My food diary says I must eat 1500 more kj's but i've used up my fat/carb quota. A bit stumped as to whether I can find some magical food that supplies only kj's without any carb/protein/fat etc???

Am I sticking TOO close to the "rules"..?

Advice welcome

It's not clear whether you've hit your protein goal as well as your fat/carb goals, since first you only say fat/carb then you ask for a "magical food that supplies only kj's without any carb/protein/fat:." *

If you're actually hitting all three macros without hitting your kjs, you're using bad database entries, most likely user-created, that don't have accurate information, unless we're talking about very small differences that could be accounted for by rounding (I don't think in kjs, but from the definition of a joule in Wikipedia and an in-my-head round-everything calculation/estimate, I think we're talking about something roughly a bit under 400 kcals** so that's well beyond a rounding error).

The other possibility, if you weren't actually using MFP to track your kjs and macros, would be that your macro goals just don't line up with you kj goals, but MFP won't let you set it up that way -- at least the non-premium version won't, since macro goals are based on obtaining x% of your energy goal from that particular macro. Are you using premium MFP? I've heard it lets you enter more specific macro goals -- does anybody know if it lets users enter a combination of macros and energy goals that are inconsistent with each other?

In any case, if you're confident the kj tracking is correct, feel free to eat more. You don't say what your gym program defines as "sensible and proper," but cutting an extra 1500 kjs from a goal that's already presumably a deficit (since it's a "before and after" program) wouldn't fit my definition of "sensible and proper." Most people, unless they're trying to stay in ketosis, consider their protein goal a minimum, so you should be able to have more protein without worrying (especially since your OP isn't clear on whether you're over protein already or not). After that, if your "sensible and proper" program is low carb, eat and/or drink something that's mainly protein and fat. If your "sensible and proper" program is low fat, eat and/or drink something that's mainly protein and carbs.


*BTW, the "magical food that supplies only kjs without any carb/protein/fat" is distilled alcohol (spirits/hard liquor, such as gin, vodka, whisk(e)y).

**OK, I googled a converter, and it's 358.5 kcal.

Well done! Congratulations on being under kjs day one.

I am also new to this. Yesterday was my day 1.

I found it useful to plan my meals in advance. It is also the first day in a long time that I haven't found myself eating a packet of biscuits throughout the day. I have a problem with snacking, I start with a couple & find that a couple of biscuits turns into a couple of boxes Hopefully that is about to change.

alcohol is sugar....over consumption will make you overweight. If all you want is empty calories it will give you as many empty calories as drinking sugar water, it won't help you lose weight. I drink in moderation and include it my caloric intake. Also there may be heart-health benefits to drinking red wine but those same health benefits can come from drinking non-alcoholic red grape juice just as well.

The macros on the MFP default here aren't necessarily the macros you may want to follow. People adjust their macros depending on if they are looking to go low carb or keto (which I personally don't recommend) or if they are looking to go wholefood plant-based which is complex carb rich and low fat and highly avoids saturated fats. If you focus on eating a diet rich in a variety of wholefoods and avoid and/or greatly reduce processed foods and foods containing lots of saturated fat (i.e. meat and dairy) you will get good overall weight-loss results with greatly added health benefits. JMO (not to mention sound nutritional science)

I personally don't like or completely follow the MFP macro default settings. According to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health...
Keep your total fat intake at or below 30% of your total calories and limit your intake of saturated fats to no more than 10% of total calories. (The MFP macro calculator does not distinguish what types of fat you consume)
Limit intake of dietary cholesterol to no more than 300 milligrams per day.
Get at least 55% of your total daily calories from carbohydrates, preferably complex carbohydrates - the starches in grains, legumes, vegetables and some fruits. These foods can also provide you the 20-30grams of dietary fiber experts recommend you consume each day.
Protein should make up 12-15% of your daily calories and the protein should come from low-fat sources. (grains and beans are low fat sources of protein, meat including fish is high in saturated fat)
Avoid too much sugar. (MFP does not distinguish between sugars found in fiber rich fruits and vegetables and processed sugars)
Limit your intake of sodium to 2400mg per day, a little over a teaspoon of salt .
If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation, no more than 1oz pure alcohol per day.

These macronutrient guideline are quoted from The Wellness Encyclopedia of Food and Nutrition by the University of California at Berkeley

NIH Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56068/table/summarytables.t5/?report=objectonly

Not all dieticians agree with the general schools of nutritional sciences but for me, I focus on eating a variety of healthy plant-based wholefoods. I try to avoid eating a lot of processed sugars and fat and treat myself to meat and dairy just a few times a month. It took a year a half for me to lose over 75lbs and meet my weight goal. I know this is your day one, and looking for "before and after" results to a program is great, but if you want long lasting healthy results perseverance and making solid lifestyle changes is the biggest key to success. MFP is just a tool for helping you learn how gauge and improve your eating and exercise habits. I found after a few months I didn't need to keep a diary because I learned to eat better and portion properly. Now I'm focused on firming up and exercising regularly.

Wishing you much success.