Need Some Info On Balanced Diet For Weight Loss

My personal thoughts... Calories matter for weight loss. Macros can matter for how satiated one feels, and that may take some trial and error to figure out the right balance for YOU. For example: I can eat raw veggies or fruit and 20 minutes later: feel like I didn't eat anything. But if I eat the apple slices or celery sticks (example) with a little bit of peanut butter or have an ounce of cheese along with the grapes, it is SO MUCH more filling. So for me, having a little protein & fat with my carbs I feel fuller longer.

The problem with restrictive diets: can you honestly see yourself not eating X for life? Most people are not successful at this. You can lose weight eating variety, as long as you budget for it.

I just started by logging what I was eating, then gradually tweaked that to improve the balance of nutrition, satiation, tastiness, and practicality within my calorie goal. In parallel, I was reading up on nutrition, and fine-tuning my ultimate goals. I figure that unless a person is starting with a diagnosed deficiency or diet-related health condition, it's fine to gradually remodel one's eating in a positive direction, working toward better habits on average. Humans are adaptive omnivores!

It's the calorie goal that has the direct effect on body fat levels.

Macros can affect weight management indirectly via satiation (cravings = harder to stick to proper calories) or energy level (fatigue = burn fewer calories in daily life). It takes time to lose any meaningful total amount of weight, so sustainability of one's methods is an important dimension. Hitting a reasonable calorie goal in a sustainable way is therefore the key thing, IMO. (Reasonable calorie goal, IMO, is one that keeps weight loss in the range of 0.5-1% of body weight weekly on average, with a bias toward the lower percent end unless severely obese or under close medical supervision for negative health consequences of aggressive dieting. )

Personally, I like setting macro goals in terms of grams rather than percentages. (I have quite a variable calorie intake because exercise varies seasonally, among other things.) When I was using free MFP, I calculated gram minimums for protein and fats (the "essential nutrients" in the sense that the body can't manufacture them out of other intake), set my pre-exercise percentages to come close to those numbers, ate to the gram goals, and let carbs fall wherever. (If my MFP totals turned some combination of red and green, I just pretended it was Christmas. 😉) I have premium MFP now, and can set gram goals, plus tell it how to allocate exercise calories, which is nice (but not required).

For me, what made sense was a protein minimum of 0.6-0.8g per pound of healthy goal weight (which is close enough to 0.8-1g per pound of lean body mass for most people), and 0.35-0.45g fats per pound (women may need a little higher fats than men, IMU, and I'm female). Protein and fats are the "essential nutrients", in the sense that we need certain amounts in our eating, because our body can't manufacture protein or fats out of any other nutrient.

I'm maybe more structured about nutrition than some other MFP users (it's common for folks to just set a personal protein minimum, I think, but I'm the weirdo who'll come up short on fats if I don't pay attention). In addition to I the protein/fat goals, I think some other things matter, like getting a reasonable balance of fats (MUFA/PUFA/Sat fats, O-3/O-6 balance), and getting enough fiber/micros. I don't really track fiber/micros explicitly, but I do shoot for a minimum of 5 (80g) varied, colorful veggie/fruit servings daily, and prefer to get 10+ when I can, which tends to put fiber/micros in a good place. I also make it a point to eat probiotic foods daily, preferably multiple types. But that's just me. Not everyone does all that - far from it - and it's not all vital IMO, just my personal preferences.

I followed this general kind of process to tweak my eating gradually:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

FWIW, I've maintained a healthy weight for 6+ years now, after 30ish years of overweight/obesity before that. You've gotten advice from some other long-termers above, some of them maintaining longer than I.

Best wishes!

cfbfan41115 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies so far. I absolutely have no trouble eating a variety of things. I love brussel sprouts, beans, broccoli, etc. I am wondering do I need to stay away from saturated fat on the 40-30-30 diet? I know on keto it wasn't a big deal. Matter of fact it was encouraged. With my 5 ft 8 in height, age 47, and 234 pound weight, I will say it is all in my belly. I have pretty thin arms and legs. I have had many women say, "I wished I had your legs" lol. But seriously I wear a 36 waist jeans, and x large shirt. Belly fat is the main problem. I do get about 10,000 steps a day in the classroom teaching, walking around, helping, monitoring, etc. I do vacuum almost daily, prepare supper, take the dog out, wash the dishes, etc. With all this info, can someone please help me figure out the amount of calories a day I should be consuming. Thanks for all the help so far.

Put your information into your MFP profile, and it will give you a calorie goal. Set your activity level based on daily life without exercise, then log exercise when you do it (or synch a fitness tracker), and eat those calories, too. With 10k steps plus home chores, you'd probably want the "active" setting, at least.

Follow those calories for at least 4-6 weeks, in order to see a valid average effect (water weight fluctuations can make things look weird in the shorter run, mislead). (If you were female of the right age, I'd tell you to track for enough weeks to compare bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different monthly cycles).

Even after that, if the first couple of weeks look wildly different from what follows, ignore those and go on for another couple of weeks. Once you have enough experiential data, you can use it to fine-tune your calorie goal to *you*. (Calculators like MFP's just spit out statistical averages for similar people. Some of us are more average than others. 😉)

If you want to do 40-30-30, then set your MFP macro goals to those percentages, and work toward eating accordingly. For most people, the MFP default goals aren't terrible, so it's also fine to just follow those for a while, before adjusting. Like I said, it's the calories that matter for fat loss . . . no matter where the fat sits on our body.

All of the above.

To add to the answer about one of your points re cutting food types out: when I started, I stuck to foods that I ate previously- but served myself smaller portion sizes. At no point have I felt I was depriving myself, because I was (and still do) eat foods that I like.

I mostly cook in bulk anyway so, my pot of bolognese or curry or chilli or casserole might now be split into 7 containers rather than 6 etc etc. I only put 2 or 3 pieces of potato on my plate, rather than the equivalent of 2 or 3 large potatoes. I cook a weighed portion of pasta instead of a mugful plus a further handful, because that didn't look enough. Gradually I started doing more substitutions- I bulk out an even smaller portion of pasta with spiralised courgette, I use sauted cabbage as a base for many dishes instead of having rice or potatoes, I add lots of veg to my stirfry so that I don't need rice or noodles as well.

It's all trial and error but, as was said above, it's easier to stick to this way of eating if you're happy with what you're eating.