Best macros for weight loss

Carbs are too low! I think carbs, especially simple carbs like bread and sugar, should be limited. Complex carbs in moderation. That works for me. And the occasional treat like a homemade dessert on the weekend or a special occasion.

Use grams and not percentages.

Start with protein. .7 to 1 gram per lb of bodyweight, use lean bodyweight if you're very overweight. Fats are around .4 grams per lb of lean bodyweight. Fill in the rest of your targeted calories with whatever you want.

bevsiemens wrote: »

I'm tired of fad diets that drastically reduce carbs, fat, sugar or whatever. They don't work for me ... I get really cranky and cheat. I find I am more satiated and less likely to cheat when I eat a balanced diet. I read online that the most effective approach for many people is eating a range of 5 to 15% carbs, 25 to 35% protein, and 45 to 65% fat (healthy fat, obviously). Thoughts?

Give it a try if you want, there is nothing inherently unhealthy about reducing carbs (especially processed and high glycemic carbs) and replacing those calories with healthy fats. Everyone is different, and while most folks might consider the macro splits you listed as a fad, you might find that you are one of those "many people". If you find that isn't sustainable, or is too restrictive/stressful, then experiment with a different mix of macros. Organizations put out these guidelines and recommendations as a suggested starting point for the average person. They aren't Laws etched into stone tablets. You'll most likely need to figure out what works for you - what effortlessly keeps you healthy and can be your forever way of eating. As your health, body, and activity levels change you will likely want to tweak those macros to suit your present needs.

I go with 35% proteins /35% carbs/30% fat. its balanced and works for me. It was recommended by my Dr.

I find that if I try to count my percentages I get frustrated and the eating plan becomes hard for me. So I have studied the main foods I eat, learned how to cook them and the portion size and go from there. I am usually amazed at the end of the day how near to my calorie range for loosing weight that I am and without all the counting etc throughout the day. I just log the food in and let the fitnesspal count it out for me. So far so good. I am open to change along the way but for now it is a good place for me to be. Best wishes everyone!

I have been focusing on low carb mainly because I'm T2 diabetic but Im not on any specific diet. I also have been doing intermittent fasting 16/8 for the past year or so. I stay away from fast food for the most part but there are cheats here and there.

I recently gave up alcohol as well so hopefully I will see some improvement.

I say just do whatever works for you, everyone is different. Whatever you come up with make sure it's sustainable.

Cheers!!

bevsiemens wrote: »

I'm tired of fad diets that drastically reduce carbs, fat, sugar or whatever. They don't work for me ... I get really cranky and cheat. I find I am more satiated and less likely to cheat when I eat a balanced diet. I read online that the most effective approach for many people is eating a range of 5 to 15% carbs, 25 to 35% protein, and 45 to 65% fat (healthy fat, obviously). Thoughts?

Yep most people get cranky when they leave out carbs and then they cheat, a very common scenario.

MacLowCarbing wrote: »

I eat 5% carbs /25% protein /70% fat. That's 20 grams or less of carbs per day. Low-carb diets aren't a fad, they are how many cultures ate for ages. As we evolved, humans only ate plants when they couldn't get meat. There's reasons for that.

Fat is more satiating, when you're diet is high fat/low carb most people report a significant decrease in hunger pangs and cravings between meals.

Also when your body goes off carbs it eventually becomes fat-adapted (burns fat for fuel instead of recently consumed carbs). Fat adaption is associated with decreased appetite, higher energy levels, and improved sleep.

Carbs make a lot of people hungrier; so cutting them a little bit doesn't work. That's why people get cranky then "cheat."

Mainly it depends on the kind of carbs-- moderate to low-carb veggies & fruits are fine for most (not all) people on low-carb diets. They don't tend to stir up cravings or cause massive blood sugar spikes, they don't make you hungry.

Added sugar and grains are the real culprits. Sugar we know is unnecessary, but grains are equally unnecessary. There is no such thing as "unprocessed grains" because we can't digest them without processing them. Even "brown" or "whole" grains are processed, just less processed.

Grains digest so quickly that they are harder to fill up on and make you hungry for more quite quickly. It's a long and crazy story what grains do to the metabolism, especially anyone who is insulin resistant, diabetic, hypoglycemic, etc. (which most people in my country are, many undiagnosed).

There are tricks people use to slow down the digestion of grains-- eat them in moderation, choose whole grains, eat them with protein, etc. Another solution is, don't eat them, lol. Problem solved. There is nothing grains give us that you can't get from veggies, fruits, and animal products.

We like grains, let's face it they're good. Seems impossible to think of giving them up-- until you do and realize you don't care anymore because you're feeling so much better without them.

This is getting long and has the potential to get longer because it's a complex subject. Feel free to ask me any specific questions about what my diet is like or how it has affected me.

I'll just end with this-- I do not feel restricted at all eating this way. On the contrary, I feel more free than ever, like a drug addict free of the drug and my head is finally clear. I don't miss it, I don't feel I'm missing out anything, and I'm getting healthier.

PS to anyone- if you eat carbs, that's fine. Not judging. I wish you well. I'm not asking you to change. If eating grains or whatever works for you, that's great that your body can handle it. If you enjoy some sugar sometimes as a treat, likewise, that's fantastic. I'm happy you can do that. Really. Just offering an alternative perspective here.

Well said! You're absolutely right, there are some people who just do better low carb. And that's great!

kshama2001 wrote: »

MacLowCarbing wrote: »

I eat 5% carbs /25% protein /70% fat. That's 20 grams or less of carbs per day. Low-carb diets aren't a fad, they are how many cultures ate for ages. As we evolved, humans only ate plants when they couldn't get meat. There's reasons for that.

Fat is more satiating, when you're diet is high fat/low carb most people report a significant decrease in hunger pangs and cravings between meals.

[snip]

PS to anyone- if you eat carbs, that's fine. Not judging. I wish you well. I'm not asking you to change. If eating grains or whatever works for you, that's great that your body can handle it. If you enjoy some sugar sometimes as a treat, likewise, that's fantastic. I'm happy you can do that. Really. Just offering an alternative perspective here.

This is an interesting topic. I think it's more accurate to say that before the modern age, people ate what was available. Sure, people in the arctic north ate high fat. Mangoes weren't available; muktuk (sea mammal blubber) was.

However, people such as the Inuit weren't just eating random high fat, they were eating high fat specific to their environment, and they had genetic mutations that made this beneficial to them.

How the Inuit adapted to Ice Age living and a high-fat diet

Greenland natives - the Inuit - have mutations in genes that control how the body uses fat which provides the clearest evidence to date that human populations are adapted to particular diets according to new UCL research.

The genetic differences allow the Inuit to physically adapt to survive Arctic conditions and live healthily on a traditional diet which is rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids from marine mammal fat.

The Inuit diet is an example of how high levels of omega-3 fatty acids can counterbalance the bad health effects of a high-fat diet. Fish oils were thought to be protective as the Inuit have a low incidence of cardiovascular disease, but having discovered their special genetic adaptations to this diet, the researchers from UCL, UC Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen say the benefits of the Inuit diet cannot be extrapolated to other populations.

Read more: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/sep/how-inuit-adapted-ice-age-living-and-high-fat-diet

************

I think you're also saying that satiety is individual, and I agree with that. For me it is also related to my environment. I like hot foods when it's cold, and cold foods when it's hot. During my months in south Costa Rica, a diet full of tropical fruit, rice, and beans - high carb and lowish protein - worked well for me. But once I came back to the US north east, I wanted more protein and cooked vegetables, and less raw fruit.

Not surprising, humans can generate over 50 mutation per generation (20 years) and adapting to a high omega 3 diet for the Inuit makes sense. Scandinavian and early European not to mention other northern civilizations around the world that were hunter gathers and lived above the 39th parallel consumed a similar diet except for maybe the high omega 3's, for those long winter months that lasted most of the year during the last ice age of 125,000 to 14,500 years ago. Humans are adaptable and hopefully we adapt better to the diet we now have the pleasure to be consuming.

Fattyohfat wrote: »

My goal is...
50% protein
30% carbs
20% fats
I eat a lot of grass fed beef, chicken, eggs, salmon, bacon, cruciferous vegetables, some brown rice, some legumes, and avocado or olive oil.
Like a few others have said I don't get bogged down by the percentages. If I eat protein the most in a day I am happy.
I have found in order not to be hungry I also include 1 protein shake a day as a snack or drink as part of a meal. I am a big fan of Ensure™ MAX Protein.
So far down 40 lbs in 2 months.

40 pounds in 2 months seems like a massive drop, how much weight have you got to lose?

Fattyohfat wrote: »

My goal is...
50% protein
30% carbs
20% fats
I eat a lot of grass fed beef, chicken, eggs, salmon, bacon, cruciferous vegetables, some brown rice, some legumes, and avocado or olive oil.
Like a few others have said I don't get bogged down by the percentages. If I eat protein the most in a day I am happy.
I have found in order not to be hungry I also include 1 protein shake a day as a snack or drink as part of a meal. I am a big fan of Ensure™ MAX Protein.
So far down 40 lbs in 2 months.

That's a massive loss, and a massive amount of protein, and then not even as actual protein but as some highly processed food stuff. I mean, you do you but make sure that your kidneys are fine and that you don't stink everyone around you away.

Wolfman just saved me a bunch of typing.

On top of that, since the 1980s, usually pointed out as the start of the "obesity crisis" we move a lot less in daily life. (I was alive and firmly adult in 1980. Huge changes since then, both in the social expectations around food and eating (moreMoreMORE), and in daily life movement (ubiquitous computers, less home cooking activity, more automation or hiring out of physical home tasks, etc.).

The latter aren't macros, but they matter when we inaccurately look at recent history of eating habits as the full story.

It's the Standard American Diet that is killing people, not macro's or the USDA dietary guidelines imo, which on a macro level are pretty much identical to the Mediterranean diet and a vegetarian diet can easily be composed to show similar if not exactly the same macro breakdown as both of those, yeah, it's not macro's even though completely different foods can be consumed.

In 1977 when the Dietary Goals for Americans were released by the US Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs which was led by governor George McGovern the basic premise was based on the foundation that dietary cholesterol, saturated fat, sugar and salt were linked directly to heart disease, cancer, as well as other health concerns which led to the dietary goals to increase carbohydrates to 55-60%, decrease dietary fat to under 30% and with about an equal distribution for saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, basically about 10% each. I believe fat intake was around 42% back then. Decrease cholesterol to under 300 mg/d. Reduce sugar to less than 15% of calories and decrease salt to 3g/d. 3 years later in 1980 we had the first Dietary Guidelines. So yeah, the guidelines had a drastic reduction in dietary fat and was made up by consuming more carbohydrates. Protein seems to be a constant in human nutrition where it will normally fall in and around 15% of total calories in ad libitum situations regardless of other macro's, funny how that works I thought.


Back to what's killing us. The SAD was basically the solution to a problem at that time, which was malnutrition, food security and affordability for all Americans post WW2. So back then in the 70's it was important to first produce lots of food at scale to make food more easily available. It can't cost too much, so we make enough food that is cheap and affordable. Next it has to be non perishable and portable, in other words we can't make lots of food available if it needs to be consumed right away, I mean they could have but whole foods would be more expensive, seasonal, and are perishable very quickly, that gets expensive. And finally the food has to taste really good, otherwise people aren't going to eat it and certainly won't pay for it and that will effect shareholder value for the companies that make these foods. So make lots of unperishable and portable food at scale and make it cheap and make it taste good. The solution to this business problem is what we have today, basically when you walk into any store that sells food what we see is that solution to that problem which is the standard American diet.

American's consume about 75% of their calories from processed foods with around 60% coming from ultra processed foods, children and teens consume 67% of their calories just from what's classified as UPF up from 61% in 1999 and the consumption of whole foods is down from 32% to 27% from around 2001 to 2018. Not a good look for Americans and I suspect people won't be cooking broccoli or asparagus with their Micky D's or pizza take away any time soon either.

The overconsumption of these foods, which are a given according to the NIH will cause people to overeat, become overweight and obese and increase the cascade of inflammatory machinery from the mitochondria down and is responsible pretty much single handed for the consequences that are happening right now in healthcare and of course the main driver of the obesity epidemic. imo

I've been on a ketogenic/low carb diet for a dozen years, so I do understand where your coming from but any culture that consumes a diet that is mostly whole and dictated by that culture we generally find a healthy population not to mention the other social and economical confounders that play probably, the most important part of health.

For example the Adventists of Loma Linda who are revered for their long life and health and are part of the blue zone when compared to another religious group like the Mormons who happen to live as long as the Adventists and are omnivore never gets any notice. Or the fact that only 30% are actually vegetarian. also the fact that Ikarus in Sardinia that's also part of blue zone is only relevant in a couple of regions in the mountainous areas where life hasn't changed for centuries, who are sustenance farmers and sheppard's of sheep and goats where the men live as long as the women, which never happens, and that's because they walk on average around 15 kilometes extra a day. The rest of Sardinia's life expectancy is nowhere near that and actually it's around the same as Canada or Spain. Hong Kong has the longest lived people by population and they also consume the most animal product, more than Argentina, Australia and the USA. Even the population of France lives longer which also has the lowest incident of heart disease in the world while consuming one of the higher diets of saturated fat. Ancel Keys of the Mediterranean Diet fame called that the "French Paradox" because he didn't have an answer and it was in direct conflict to his epidemiologic data, which is a pretty funny reality to be living in. And of course it was found out later that it wasn't only France that contradicted his data but another 14 countries he left out of his study, it was actually a 22 country study. Keys is the guy the convinced the US Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs that cholesterol and saturated fat caused heart disease and influenced with his wonderful epidemiological data that the country should go low fat, brilliant idea or science experiment.

73% of the low fat and other processed food in a grocery store are UPF's, so not a lot of food without a nutrition label and a shiny package to promote the smart health claims approved by the USDA, AHA, and the ADA.

Here's an example. The American Diabetes Association just came out with an ad that said that an oatmeal cookie could be part of a healthy breakfast for children. 1 cookie has 270 calories, 33g's carbs. The ingredients are reduced fat peanut butter, unsweetened applesauce, Splenda, flax seed, salt, cinnamon, quick oats, vanilla protein powder, dried and reduced sugar cranberries, pumpkin seeds.

Here's the problem. Low fat peanut butter have corn syrups, sugars, molasses and corn starches normally added for texture to make it eatable and familiar. Unsweetened applesauce is basically sugar and fiber. Quick oats convert quickly into blood glucose which they also claim reduces cholesterol. The flax seed is for omega 3's but omega 3's in plant form are ALA's and not EPA or DHA which are the actual essential omega's. ALA is converted in the body to EPA but the conversion rate is very low and what ever was converted is then further converted to DHA, which normally is less that 1% and why most medical professionals will tell vegans to supplement because ALA really doesn't cut it. Basically useless and plastered over a full array of products to make people feel good without telling them the real reason they're doing it, and that's because of the natural fat they're asking people to consume less of, and replaced those fats with refined polyunsaturated seed oils that have created this pro inflammatory imbalance of our omega 6 to omega 3 ratio's that are totally out of control in the American population that is very pro inflammatory on a chronic level, a really slimy tactic that does not promote confidence in our Gov't. or the science they believe to be accurate. The best part is Splenda that contributes financially every year to the ADA is a sponsor of this little cookie promotion, wonderful lol. Later

https://diabetesfoodhub.org/recipes/breakfast-cookies.html

MacLowCarbing wrote: »

@cwolfman13 @AnnPT77

I don't completely disagree, the obesity epidemic was also largely caused by reduction in activity and a rise in the availability of processed foods. There has been a combination of factors. I was mainly focusing on the low-fat craze and how remnants of it still linger in many of the recommendations even though the data was faulty.

When I was young and the food pyramid came out it was drilled into us that we should make carbs the foundation of our diet and eat 6-11 servings per day. We were told eggs were in general bad for you and we should not eat more than 4 per week. We were told to eat margarine instead of butter, that cheap, processed seed oils were healthy, and we should lay off animal fats-- particularly beef.

There have been a lot of studies that have thrown all of those recommendations into question, and progress to make corrections and change dietary advice from the so-called experts has been slow (probably because it would require admitting fault). Hence, at this point, I continue to remain skeptical on the subject, and am open to learning and experimenting to see what works for my body.

So while they may have found a genetic mutation in the Inuit, I don't think it is evidence that not having that specific genetic mutation means a high fat/low carb/high protein diet should be avoided.

Look at populations in countries. Asian populations have less obese people (although Western diet introduction is increasing it as of late) and they survived on carbs (rice and noodles) as their main source of diet. But in general they don't eat a lot mostly due to economics. And I would bet it's same same every else in the world where they don't earn a lot of money as well. Just eating less in general is what keeps weight down.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 35+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition