Carb intake.
Options
sassy1fp
Posts: 24 Member
Okay, so naturally now that im taking my change of lifestyle serious w clean eating and excercise, my body is craving carbs. This morning I was fening for a bagel, which i happily did not deprive my self of. My question how much carbs should i be eating on 1, 500 Cal goal 1lb week, 120mim excercise a week?
1
Replies
-
you can eat as many or few carbs that you want as long as they fit your daily calorie goals. Personally, my carbs is in the 300-400g range (on a 2500cal a day intake, weight stable)5
-
What did you get when you input your info for you goals on MFP? It defaults to 50% carb calories, but you can change that in 5% increments as long as you keep the total from Carb-Fat-Protein at 100%2
-
Do you track macros? Have you tried MFP's default setup?
Btw, clean eating is such a vague term it's practically nonsense; worse still, is that it's restrictive for no good reason and thus supports an unhealthy relationship with food, it doesn't just set you up for an unhealthy diet with subsequent rebound overeating.
Btw2, your body doesn't really crave carbs, it's perfectly able to produce its own sugar from protein and fat. Carby foods are usually delicious, though, so it's only natural to crave them.11 -
Okay, so naturally now that im taking my change of lifestyle serious w clean eating and excercise, my body is craving carbs. This morning I was fening for a bagel, which i happily did not deprive my self of. My question how much carbs should i be eating on 1, 500 Cal goal 1lb week, 120mim excercise a week?
What's wrong with a bagel?
You don't need to eat 'clean' (whatever that means) just eat food you like in a deficit.
And some fruit and veg11 -
As long as you wash your hands before preparing and eating your food and you don't drop it on the ground or something, it is clean. Hopefully you have been eating clean your whole life!
14 -
Normally u have take 1-2g of protein per # weight, add 30 g of fats, the rest of cal may be your carbs intake. Let calculate: 1g x your weight# x by 4 cal + 9 x 30, assuming your weight 150#, so it all comes to 870 cal. After subtracting 870 from 1500 u get 630 cal of carbs, equals to 157.5 g of carbs24
-
Okay, so naturally now that im taking my change of lifestyle serious w clean eating and excercise, my body is craving carbs. This morning I was fening for a bagel, which i happily did not deprive my self of. My question how much carbs should i be eating on 1, 500 Cal goal 1lb week, 120mim excercise a week?
You can have as many carb-containing foods as you want, as long as that doesn't prevent you getting enough of essential nutrients like proteins, fats, fiber, micronutrients.
Strictly speaking, carbs aren't an essential nutrient, but some people definitely do better if they include carbs in their eating.4 -
gogetemrogue wrote: »As long as you wash your hands before preparing and eating your food and you don't drop it on the ground or something, it is clean. Hopefully you have been eating clean your whole life!
And even if you do drop it on the ground...the 5 second rule!8 -
You can track carbs in your food diary and it gives you a goal daily.1
-
There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example). The other is if you have a metabolic condition that can be helped by reducing carb consumption, like diabetes or hypoglycemia. Having type 2 diabetes myself, I find that my blood sugar is moving the right direction with my net carbs (fiber doesn't raise blood sugar) set at 20% or less of total calories... but that's an individual assessment to make. Not everyone is going to respond the same at the same levels. Even my own blood sugar is coming down more slowly at this percentage than it has in the past.13
-
MarkusDarwath wrote: »There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example).
Potato chips are mostly fat, they aren’t a high carb food. Baked potatoes would be a high carb food.20 -
crabbybrianna wrote: »MarkusDarwath wrote: »There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example).
Potato chips are mostly fat, they aren’t a high carb food. Baked potatoes would be a high carb food.
You have a point. I consider them high carb because carbohydrates do make up over a third of the calories (36% for Wavy Lay's). They are an empty calorie food. Perhaps snack crackers and Hostess cakes would have been a better example.10 -
MarkusDarwath wrote: »crabbybrianna wrote: »MarkusDarwath wrote: »There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example).
Potato chips are mostly fat, they aren’t a high carb food. Baked potatoes would be a high carb food.
You have a point. I consider them high carb because carbohydrates do make up over a third of the calories (36% for Wavy Lay's). They are an empty calorie food. Perhaps snack crackers and Hostess cakes would have been a better example.
Potato chips are a pretty good source of potassium, actually.4 -
MarkusDarwath wrote: »There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example).
Not really. Potato chips are half fat -- they are high cal per volume because of all the fat.
Plain carbs like potatoes, sweet potatoes, lots of fruit, vegetables, whole grains are pretty high in nutrients and for many of us really filling.7 -
MarkusDarwath wrote: »crabbybrianna wrote: »MarkusDarwath wrote: »There are really only two reasons to limit carb intake. One is to avoid filling up your calorie target with low nutrition food, since many high carbohydrate foods contain little else but calories (potato chips, for example).
Potato chips are mostly fat, they aren’t a high carb food. Baked potatoes would be a high carb food.
You have a point. I consider them high carb because carbohydrates do make up over a third of the calories (36% for Wavy Lay's). They are an empty calorie food. Perhaps snack crackers and Hostess cakes would have been a better example.
Okay, but the word “carbs” does not mean empty calorie food or junk food. Fruits are high carb foods. Vegetables are high carb foods. Grains and beans and lentils are high carb foods. You don’t need to limit carbs just so you don’t fill your entire day with snack cakes. Some high carb foods may have little nutrients, but not most.
How many carbs you eat is up to you. Some people feel more satisfied eating lower carb, and some feel more satisfied eating higher carb.11 -
You all have good points. However, most people when they think 'high carb' their mind goes immediately to all the grain-based packaged foods, breads, pastas, dry cereals and cereal bars, that sort of thing. If someone is limiting their total carb grams, they are often more likely to make those grams count with things that are more nutritious, such as the vegetables and fruits.
I'm certainly not trying to say carbs are bad. What I am saying is that limiting carbs -can- help steer someone away from a lot of the high calorie, low nutrition convenience foods if they are having an issue with hitting their calorie goals but still being hungry or not getting enough other nutrients. When you get down to it, for the most part the high-carb nutritious foods we've talked about are relatively low in calorie density, which means that even if most or all of their calories come from carbohydrates, they still offer fewer grams of carbohydrates than a similar quantity of "junk" food.
This kind of veers into the whole "clean eating" thing. Generally speaking I consider the philosophy to be a bunch of woo, but to give credit where it is due, avoiding the packaged/convenience foods does tend to steer a person toward a diet with a higher nutritional density but lower caloric density. Limiting carbohydrate intake can have the same effect.
Also to note, when I say limiting, I'm not talking about extremes like keto diets with 20 grams or less per day. For myself, setting my carbs at 20% gives 124 grams per day (not counting fiber) at 2500 calories. I can eat all kinds of vegetables (if I cared to) and a fair amount of most fruits without threatening that limit. I cannot, however, eat a bunch of things like white bread and mac-n-cheese. I have to be much more careful about quantity with those.7 -
Non processed starchy carbs can be calorie dense. And nutritious. Packaged calorie dense foods like Mac and cheese, ice cream, cupcakes, or potato chips get a large portion of their calories from fat, often even more than from carbs.
Most "junk" processed foods are a highly palatable combo of fat and carbs. Perpetuating the myth that carbs are bad in an effort to steer people away from junk food isn't necessary. They just need to read labels and log accurately. It's really not that complicated, yet people post here every day confused about carbs instead of just logging and learning.
I eat around 200g of carbs a day on 1700 cals. Typically 25-50% of my diet is convenience foods. I usually hit my protein and fiber goals, and have been maintaining my weight loss for 2 years now. I do not struggle with hunger or cravings, in fact I often need to remind myself to have an extra snack to hit my maintenance calories.8 -
MarkusDarwath wrote: »You all have good points. However, most people when they think 'high carb' their mind goes immediately to all the grain-based packaged foods, breads, pastas, dry cereals and cereal bars, that sort of thing. If someone is limiting their total carb grams, they are often more likely to make those grams count with things that are more nutritious, such as the vegetables and fruits.
I'm certainly not trying to say carbs are bad. What I am saying is that limiting carbs -can- help steer someone away from a lot of the high calorie, low nutrition convenience foods if they are having an issue with hitting their calorie goals but still being hungry or not getting enough other nutrients. When you get down to it, for the most part the high-carb nutritious foods we've talked about are relatively low in calorie density, which means that even if most or all of their calories come from carbohydrates, they still offer fewer grams of carbohydrates than a similar quantity of "junk" food.
This kind of veers into the whole "clean eating" thing. Generally speaking I consider the philosophy to be a bunch of woo, but to give credit where it is due, avoiding the packaged/convenience foods does tend to steer a person toward a diet with a higher nutritional density but lower caloric density. Limiting carbohydrate intake can have the same effect.
Also to note, when I say limiting, I'm not talking about extremes like keto diets with 20 grams or less per day. For myself, setting my carbs at 20% gives 124 grams per day (not counting fiber) at 2500 calories. I can eat all kinds of vegetables (if I cared to) and a fair amount of most fruits without threatening that limit. I cannot, however, eat a bunch of things like white bread and mac-n-cheese. I have to be much more careful about quantity with those.
30 grams of dry cereal (Quaker Corn Squares or Life) gives me 30% of my iron RDA. I crumble a granola bar into my Greek yogurt every day for breakfast. Another 4% of my iron, as well as some fat and protein. Just had a quinoa-edamame-veggie pilaf for supper tonight. Besides the 76 grams of carbs, I got 21 grams of protein and 37% of my iron RDA. Not sure where the idea that grains and cereals aren't nutritious is coming from. Are they easy to overdo if you don't know what a portion should look like? Sure. But I don't get why they're being lumped in with "low nutrition convenience foods".10 -
That depends on what your long and short term goals are. Low carb, high fat diets like Paleo, Atkins, and Keto have helped many people shed weight. I am doing keto right now, and limit my carbs to under 25 net grams per day, and keep within my calorie deficit. I eat vegetables, meats, a bit of dairy, and healthy fats like butter and coconut oil. In the first three weeks I lost 14 pounds. Carbs do not need to make up a large portion of our diets unless we choose to consume them.1
-
True enough. I'm vegetarian; most of my protein has carbs in it. (And I don't find fat especially satiating, so there's that.) I just take issue with grains, pastas, etc. being conflated with 'junk' foods.7
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 394 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.3K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 941 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions