Macro Beginner

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anniemac002
anniemac002 Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I cannot get my macros to meet my percentage goals. I’m following the Intro to Tracking Macros plan. I set my goals at 40% carb 30% protein 30% fat. I can’t seem to create a meal where the protein is equal or higher than the fat. The fat is always higher. What can I do besides eating salmon at every meal?!

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  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,154 Member
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    Firstly: you don't need to aim for your macros per individual meal, just look at the entire day. And even that doesn't need to be 100% precise either.

    Secondly: salmon seems an odd choice as protein source if you have issues with fat intake being too high - salmon is a fatty fish. White fish have less fat, chicken breast (no skin),...

    If you give some concrete example of your meals in a day, we might be able to give more precise advice.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,154 Member
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    Firstly: you don't need to aim for your macros per individual meal, just look at the entire day. And even that doesn't need to be 100% precise either.

    Secondly: salmon seems an odd choice as protein source if you have issues with fat intake being too high - salmon is a fatty fish. White fish have less fat, chicken breast (no skin),...

    If you give some concrete example of your meals in a day, we might be able to give more precise advice.
  • anniemac002
    anniemac002 Posts: 4 Member
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    The Intro to Macros plan on this app is telling me to plan one meal per day that meets my macro percentage goals and “don’t shy away from fatty proteins”.
  • anniemac002
    anniemac002 Posts: 4 Member
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  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,946 Member
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    The fat in salmon alone shouldn't be a problem. It's possible you are using inaccurate entries from the database. Please change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,530 Member
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    Salmon is fine. You should think of protein in terms of grams, over the whole day, not as a %. The % is just a guideline. People who are weight training aim for roughly 0.6 to 1.0 grams per pound bodyweight, closer to the former if overweight, and to the latter if lean. If you aren't weight training you could target less than that.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,154 Member
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    Just to clarify: of course salmon isn't a 'problem', it's healthy even. But if you're aiming for the 'perfect' meal in terms of macros and salmon leads you to be over the fat percentage, replacing it with a leaner protein seems an obvious choice. but if you have other high fat foods in your meal, you could reduce those as well.
    To follow the plan you're following.

    (whether or not the plan is necessary, I'll leave in the middle, that's another discussion :smile: )

  • DebbsSeattle
    DebbsSeattle Posts: 125 Member
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    You can make things easier by centering each meal around your vegetables. You should aim for 8-10 cups (servings) of veggies per day. That is 3 cups per meal. Sounds like a lot but it isn’t. An avocado has 2 servings. 1 ounce of lettuces is 1 serving. Once you do that you fit the protein and fats into the remaining room in your stomach. Select your proteins in 2-4 ounce portions, pair added fats to your veg and protein (egg may need some fat for frying but not poaching, lettuce salad may need oil but cucumber slices won’t, chicken may be stir fried with oil, but not baked, broiled or grilled with oil). Dairy, fruit and starches should be the “treat” components to your meals in smaller portions and be reflexive to the carbs, proteins and fats in your veg and meats. A healthy approach is “Progress not perfection”. The same way you could not learn to speak French in a week, you cannot undo a lifetime of poor eating habits in the first week. There is a learning curve. You can preplan your meals in your tracking. If the macros are out of whack, then reduce or increase the main contributor. If your chicken is too much protein, reduce it by an ounce, if your fat isn’t high enough, add olive oil or an avocado, if carbs are too high reduce fruit or starch and if carbs/fiber are too low, add another cup of greens. After some time you will be noticing that variation day to day becomes necessary to keep progress moving forward. You should even plan on mixing it up a couple times a week by including a high protein day and a low protein day, having a high healthy carb day every 5-7 days, having a high fat day here and there. This is because your body will always adapt to what you throw at it. You need to keep it confused. So have fun with playing with menus but don’t get caught in the minute details.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,948 Member
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    Focus on protein and make that your stable macro for the day, always hit your protein number and not the percentage. Basically divide your protein as equally as possible thought your meals, and as far as carbs and fat are concerned don't worry about them if your eating within your total daily calorie allotment for now, otherwise frustration can factor in and not in a good way. Good luck. Cheers.
  • anniemac002
    anniemac002 Posts: 4 Member
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    Thank you all for the advice.
    I’m going to try switching from percents to grams and aim to meet that goal for the protein.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,359 Member
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    I do understand that you're trying to follow an approach MFP suggests in their guidance.

    FWIW - and this is just personal opinion - I think the way that they're going about it makes it harder, not easier, to reach macro goals.

    Many (most?) of us who try to balance macros don't go about it by being exact meal by meal. It's more like "close, on average, over the day . . . or few". Trying to start by planning one meal in an exact way . . . well, that seems hard to me.

    To me, what makes more sense - again, just my opinion - is to just log what you're eating for a few days, trying to dial in your calorie goal if weight management is one of your key goals. Then, once you have a few days of "normal eating" logged, take a look at it, in terms of patterns.

    Are you persistently low on protein but high on fat most days (just as an example)? If so, look for foods you routine eat that have relatively high fats, but very low protein, and preferably ones that seem to you subjectively like they're not worth their calorie "cost" in terms of their contributions to your nutrition (plus other important things like satiation or tastiness). Those are foods that you can reduce or eliminate to make room for changes.

    Next, figure out some foods that you like, find convenient/affordable, that have (in this example) more protein and less fat. Find places to work those into your routine eating habits more often, or in somewhat larger portions.

    If you take that general kind of approach, looking at patterns where you're not achieving what you want, then figuring out how to change your routine going forward to improve habits, you can gradually reach a set of routine habits that keep you pretty full, pretty happy, reasonably well nourished in that "pretty close, on average, most days" kind of way. It's not like you're going to become instantly malnourished over the span of time that this will take.

    That seems like less work and stress, to me, than trying to perfect your macros one meal at a time. But maybe that's just me.

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