Figuring out my Calorie Intake and Macros
Replies
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »zeemind0129 wrote: »
Why do you feel you need to limit carbs? Are you diabetic, or insulin resistant, or something like that? (I'm neither, and ate around 150g or so daily while losing 50+ pounds, and eat more like 200g+ daily while maintaining a healthy weight for about 5 years since, at 5'5", now 125 pounds.)
Carbs are not evil, but personally I don't think the specific level matters much, unless you find that eating too many spikes your appetite, or eating too few tanks your energy level. While losing and active, get around 0.8g daily per pound of goal weight, 0.35-0.45g fats per pound, and whatever level of carbs suits you, would be my opinion (though eating a boatload of varied, colorful veggies/fruits for fiber and micros is a good plan, and tends to bring some carbs along for the ride).
The percentages are sort of an estimating convenience, but IMO the actual intakes matter more than what percent of calories they are.
Agree 100% with this advice, with 'protein' added in after 0.8g (missing word).
Oops 😬, yes - thanks for the correction!1 -
zeemind0129 wrote: »
That macro split seems very unnatural to me. What’s recommended for health is plenty of fruits and vegetables a day. It would be difficult to do that on 25% and wouldn’t leave any room for healthy grains. A 50% carb, 25% protein, and 25% fat is more reasonable IMO, but others may disagree.4 -
zeemind0129 wrote: »
That macro split seems very unnatural to me. What’s recommended for health is plenty of fruits and vegetables a day. It would be difficult to do that on 25% and wouldn’t leave any room for healthy grains. A 50% carb, 25% protein, and 25% fat is more reasonable IMO, but others may disagree.
Yes, I would say that if someone finds, through observation, that lowering carbohydrates makes it easier for them to meet their calorie goals that there could be a good reason to have a goal that low. But to begin with artificially limiting fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains just because you feel like carbohydrates should be low doesn't make much sense to me. Many people who are beginning a weight management program should be focusing on getting more fruits and vegetables, not less!5 -
zeemind0129 wrote: »
That macro split seems very unnatural to me. What’s recommended for health is plenty of fruits and vegetables a day. It would be difficult to do that on 25% and wouldn’t leave any room for healthy grains. A 50% carb, 25% protein, and 25% fat is more reasonable IMO, but others may disagree.
I eat 8+ servings of fruit and vege a day, ~30g of fibre, my carb intake is lower than OP's (around 70-80g total). It's totally doable, and ~100g of carbs a day is far from restrictive for many. Grains are not a necessity, but there's room there for a small amount if OP feels so inclined. It may seem restrictive to you, but if OP is happy to eat that way, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Getting adequate protein and fats is far more important, IMHO. Carbs are a 'let them fall where they may according to preference' thing.
This is one of those very individual things. I would be chewing my damn arm off eating 50% carbs and only 25% of protein and fats. YMMV.3 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »zeemind0129 wrote: »
That macro split seems very unnatural to me. What’s recommended for health is plenty of fruits and vegetables a day. It would be difficult to do that on 25% and wouldn’t leave any room for healthy grains. A 50% carb, 25% protein, and 25% fat is more reasonable IMO, but others may disagree.
I eat 8+ servings of fruit and vege a day, ~30g of fibre, my carb intake is lower than OP's (around 70-80g total). It's totally doable, and ~100g of carbs a day is far from restrictive for many. Grains are not a necessity, but there's room there for a small amount if OP feels so inclined. It may seem restrictive to you, but if OP is happy to eat that way, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Getting adequate protein and fats is far more important, IMHO. Carbs are a 'let them fall where they may according to preference' thing.
This is one of those very individual things. I would be chewing my damn arm off eating 50% carbs and only 25% of protein and fats. YMMV.
Unless someone has a very specific reason for eating that way, I wouldn’t recommend those macros for a beginner. I’m not sure how you claim to eat 8 servings of fruits and veg a day on 80 grams of carbs. The 100g of blueberries I just ate is barely 2 servings and most of those 100g are carbs. I feel the best diet is one that allows someone to lose but also allows for health and that includes fruits, vegetables, and grains. I don’t find fats or protein to be very satiating. That’s where people differ. Also, the major Blue Zones in the world are high carb.
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »zeemind0129 wrote: »
That macro split seems very unnatural to me. What’s recommended for health is plenty of fruits and vegetables a day. It would be difficult to do that on 25% and wouldn’t leave any room for healthy grains. A 50% carb, 25% protein, and 25% fat is more reasonable IMO, but others may disagree.
I eat 8+ servings of fruit and vege a day, ~30g of fibre, my carb intake is lower than OP's (around 70-80g total). It's totally doable, and ~100g of carbs a day is far from restrictive for many. Grains are not a necessity, but there's room there for a small amount if OP feels so inclined. It may seem restrictive to you, but if OP is happy to eat that way, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Getting adequate protein and fats is far more important, IMHO. Carbs are a 'let them fall where they may according to preference' thing.
This is one of those very individual things. I would be chewing my damn arm off eating 50% carbs and only 25% of protein and fats. YMMV.
Unless someone has a very specific reason for eating that way, I wouldn’t recommend those macros for a beginner. I’m not sure how you claim to eat 8 servings of fruits and veg a day on 80 grams of carbs. The 100g of blueberries I just ate is barely 2 servings and most of those 100g are carbs. I feel the best diet is one that allows someone to lose but also allows for health and that includes fruits, vegetables, and grains. I don’t find fats or protein to be very satiating. That’s where people differ. Also, the major Blue Zones in the world are high carb.
I 'claim'? You do realise you just called me a liar, right? Your 100g of blueberries were actually mostly water, btw, only 14g of them were carbs, two of which were fibre
. Most of the calories in them come from carbohydrates. You seem to perhaps be getting confused on that? Weight of food vs grams of carbohydrate they contain? Not the same thing.
I said absolutely nothing about whether OP's 25% carbs was suitable for a beginner or not. Though again, 100g really isn't that difficult if it works for that individual. If OP is struggling with that, and/or only eating that low because she (mistakenly) believed she should, then by all means she should consider increasing. If she's happy with that level, and is getting plentiful fruit and vege, then there is no issue with her keeping her current level. I also said absolutely nothing against a higher carb intake. My post was literally just rebutting your assertion that you can't get adequate fruit and vege only eating 100g of carbs a day. Because you can. Given that I pretty much get green across the board on micronutrients logging at Cronometer, I'm going to go ahead and assume that my diet is pretty healthy, despite the lack of grains.
So I will again reiterate Ann's post from the previous page - a good guideline to follow is 0.6-0.8g per lb of ideal/goal weight for protein, 0.35-0.45g of fats, both as minimums, then let carbs fall where they may according to preference. Seems far more reasonable, and flexible, than your arbitrary 50C/25P/25F.4 -
And not that I need to prove anything, here is a day in my horribly unhealthful, lacking in fruit and vege diet (actually a little under 8 servings today, unless you count avocado and olives, which are both fruit...). Carbs are net, because I use New Zealand listings:
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »And not that I need to prove anything, here is a day in my horribly unhealthful, lacking in fruit and vege diet (actually a little under 8 servings today, unless you count avocado and olives, which are both fruit...). Carbs are net, because I use New Zealand listings:
If you enjoyed that great. I personally would be VERY dissatisfied by your diet and would find it impossible to stick to. Although, you would likewise not like mine 😊
My workouts require way too much energy to restrict my carbs like that. I would drag....2 -
Dogmom1978 wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »And not that I need to prove anything, here is a day in my horribly unhealthful, lacking in fruit and vege diet (actually a little under 8 servings today, unless you count avocado and olives, which are both fruit...). Carbs are net, because I use New Zealand listings:
If you enjoyed that great. I personally would be VERY dissatisfied by your diet and would find it impossible to stick to. Although, you would likewise not like mine 😊
My workouts require way too much energy to restrict my carbs like that. I would drag....
Vegetarian with various food intolerances. I work with what I have. Yoghurt and fruit for breakfast doesn't seem that odd to me though, nor a Greek salad for dinner.
Re workouts, luckily for me, I have a chronic illness that forces me to be practically sedentary, so not an issue...
Pre-illness I was very active (walked a lot, ran, strength trained, day hikes most weekends), and my day to day carbs weren't much higher than this (around 100-120 total). I did fine. I did carb up more for day hikes though.
Fuelling activity adequately is important, absolutely. But most people don't need anywhere near as many carbs as they think they do to fuel their workouts.
I have naught against carbs. At all. My current way of eating works for me, and I do find it surprisingly easy to stick to. If at some point it no longer works for me, I'll change things up. As I said, different strokes for different folks.5 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »So I will again reiterate Ann's post from the previous page - a good guideline to follow is 0.6-0.8g per lb of ideal/goal weight for protein, 0.35-0.45g of fats, both as minimums, then let carbs fall where they may according to preference. Seems far more reasonable, and flexible, than your arbitrary 50C/25P/25F.
I'll echo this too. I think OP is likely buying into some bad information in assuming that 25% is necessary or (as it seems) on the high side, and to the extent she's trying to eat a way uncomfortable for her, she should change that (I think 45% protein is probably high, for example, unless she falls there naturally). Many people do well starting with the MFP macros or the MFP macros adjusted for the protein formula quoted above (since it tends to be lower protein if one is trying to do low cals, and I'd consider 1300 low cals), and then adjusting based on how they actually eat.
I started on 1200 (MFP recommendation based on me not accurately assessing my activity level and pre exercise being added back), and ate about 40-30-30, which I really liked. But I've also tried various carb levels and find somewhat lower carb even that that easier, since I just don't care that much about grains and when cutting cals tend to cut added fats AND portions of starchy sides (or often replacing them with lower carb vegetable options).
I've never found eating around 80-100 g carbs particularly limiting on vegetables (although it does limit either fruit or starchy sides or both), so I'm in agreement with Nony here. And how it affects vigorous exercise -- unless one is really trying to maximize speed or some such -- tends to vary among people and IME, even though I was running a lot of training for half marathons and oly length tris when I was doing some of my lower carb experiments, it was never an issue. Not at something like 25%, certainly.
Absolutely NOT saying anyone should force themselves to cut carbs if they don't want to, but given how low cal vegetables are, and even some fruits, it's not hard to eat something like 25% and get plenty (likely many more than most not low carbing get given how many people eat shockingly few non starchy veg).
Here's a rare day in which I ate breakfast, which also happens to be around 25% carbs:
Breakfast: omelet with 2 eggs, a little feta, lots of broccoli, spinach, and mushrooms, with half an avocado on the side
Lunch: big salad with leftover buffalo chicken (pretty low cal, made with chicken breast in the Instant pot) with various types of greens (mainly romaine and spinach), carrots, celery, cucumber, radish, and tomatoes. Optional mock ranch dressing made with sour cream and some spices (I had this without the dressing the following day and it wasn't necessary, so if I were cutting cals I'd cut that, and certainly not veg).
Dinner: salmon with parsley/sesame seed pesto on zucchini pasta with mushrooms, cauliflower, tomatoes, and chick peas.
Dessert: 3 clementines.
Counting up servings (80 g = 1 serving but for greens where 2 cups = 1 serving), this day had 1.5 servings of fruit (my personal preference is 1-3, usually I have 1 or 2), and around 12 servings of non-starchy veg, plus one serving of chickpeas and one of nuts or seeds. Also 37 g of fiber.
This is more meat than I usually like in a day, but is just an illustration.2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »So I will again reiterate Ann's post from the previous page - a good guideline to follow is 0.6-0.8g per lb of ideal/goal weight for protein, 0.35-0.45g of fats, both as minimums, then let carbs fall where they may according to preference. Seems far more reasonable, and flexible, than your arbitrary 50C/25P/25F.
I'll echo this too. I think OP is likely buying into some bad information in assuming that 25% is necessary or (as it seems) on the high side, and to the extent she's trying to eat a way uncomfortable for her, she should change that (I think 45% protein is probably high, for example, unless she falls there naturally). Many people do well starting with the MFP macros or the MFP macros adjusted for the protein formula quoted above (since it tends to be lower protein if one is trying to do low cals, and I'd consider 1300 low cals), and then adjusting based on how they actually eat.
I started on 1200 (MFP recommendation based on me not accurately assessing my activity level and pre exercise being added back), and ate about 40-30-30, which I really liked. But I've also tried various carb levels and find somewhat lower carb even that that easier, since I just don't care that much about grains and when cutting cals tend to cut added fats AND portions of starchy sides (or often replacing them with lower carb vegetable options).
I've never found eating around 80-100 g carbs particularly limiting on vegetables (although it does limit either fruit or starchy sides or both), so I'm in agreement with Nony here. And how it affects vigorous exercise -- unless one is really trying to maximize speed or some such -- tends to vary among people and IME, even though I was running a lot of training for half marathons and oly length tris when I was doing some of my lower carb experiments, it was never an issue. Not at something like 25%, certainly.
Absolutely NOT saying anyone should force themselves to cut carbs if they don't want to, but given how low cal vegetables are, and even some fruits, it's not hard to eat something like 25% and get plenty (likely many more than most not low carbing get given how many people eat shockingly few non starchy veg).
Here's a rare day in which I ate breakfast, which also happens to be around 25% carbs:
Breakfast: omelet with 2 eggs, a little feta, lots of broccoli, spinach, and mushrooms, with half an avocado on the side
Lunch: big salad with leftover buffalo chicken (pretty low cal, made with chicken breast in the Instant pot) with various types of greens (mainly romaine and spinach), carrots, celery, cucumber, radish, and tomatoes. Optional mock ranch dressing made with sour cream and some spices (I had this without the dressing the following day and it wasn't necessary, so if I were cutting cals I'd cut that, and certainly not veg).
Dinner: salmon with parsley/sesame seed pesto on zucchini pasta with mushrooms, cauliflower, tomatoes, and chick peas.
Dessert: 3 clementines.
Counting up servings (80 g = 1 serving but for greens where 2 cups = 1 serving), this day had 1.5 servings of fruit (my personal preference is 1-3, usually I have 1 or 2), and around 12 servings of non-starchy veg, plus one serving of chickpeas and one of nuts or seeds. Also 37 g of fiber.
This is more meat than I usually like in a day, but is just an illustration.
Yes, it's really not that hard to do. And like Lemur, definitely not saying anyone has to be low carb. The point of my post with the screen shots was merely to show that eating plentiful vege can be done on low carb, since @nooshi713 didn't seem to believe me. And to the bolded, I find this especially funny when those people are looking down on me for being low carb.
Also, I clearly wasn't mathing well
- even excluding avocado and olives from the count, and taking berry/blackcurrant servings at 125g per serve, that's still just over 9 servings for the day (there were some changes to the final amounts for my dinner salad, which increased the total a little). Today as currently pre-logged is just over 10 serves, so not an anomaly. 2 -
My dessert tonight will be 2 oreos with my tea, although I did have a clementine, dehydrated apples and some carrot sticks at work as snacks. That’s about it for me and fruit/veg though. I know I personally need to eat some more veggies, I just find them so unappealing and I can lose weight just fine without them 😜
For the OP, macros are very individual. Some people feel full on more fat, higher carb, low carb, high protein, etc etc. So, you’ll need to experiment to find what works best for you.0 -
Thank you for the informative feedback! I don’t have a problem with my current macros. I’ll see how this week goes and if I need to adjust I’ll lower my protein intake and slightly increase my carbs
✌🏼5
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