Carb/protein/fat daily percentage for weight loss?

Hello everyone!

Just recently started to be on a diet and found out Myfitnesspal is the best in aiding me with that! The thing I’m confused about and not sure is the Carb/protein/fat daily percentage for weight loss. I’m 104.5 kilos at the moment and my goal is to have 85 kilos eventually. Would like to lose around 1 kilo per week. I’m 180 cm in height. Working in the mornings from 7 to 2 30 pm usually, moderately active at work around 10000 steps. In my days off, not too active, probably around 2000 steps per day when off work. I want to go with the low carb diet, been doing it before but without measuring the calories, carbs and things. I got myself a scale and now I weigh everything in grams and add it in myfitness pal. Just not sure what the optimal percentage of carb/protein and fat is for my height and weight? Is it 25 percent carbs/30 percent protein and 45 percent fat? Or can I go on a lower percentage in carbs and in which to adjust higher? Aproximately how many calories per day in total would be enough to lose 1 kilo per week?

Best Answer

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,190 Member
    edited January 13 Answer ✓
    If you put your demographic stats into your MFP profile, MFP will recommend a very mainstream starting point for calorie intake and amount of each macro.

    That's easy, and it leaves few excuses for not starting immediately. Having to research every detail before starting can be an excuse, for some - not saying that's true for you.

    As you proceed, you can learn more, and make changes to any of calories or macros. If you know enough now, make them now. If you don't, the default percents aren't a bad starting point for most people. The exception would be people who try to lose weight too aggressively fast for their current size. There's no getting adequate nutrition on too few calories.

    Because of that, I'd suggest telling MFP you want to lose a number of pounds or kilos that's no more than .5-1% of your current weight, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless you're severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

    In USA terms, you're about 5'11, and weigh about 220 pounds; your 85 kilo goal would be 187 pounds. Your MFP profile says you're male.

    One kilo loss per week may be sustainable for a while at your current weight, but if around 20 kilos are the total amount you have to lose, it could be a little aggressive for best odds of preserving of existing muscle mass, especially if you stick with that loss rate the whole way. Your call.

    If weight loss is the key goal, calories are the direct determinant. Nutrition (macros and more) is important for health, but it's impact on body weight is indirect, usually through fatigue (move less) or spiked appetite (urge to eat more). Calories are still the direct mechanism.

    Tom is right: Treat your starting calorie goal as a hypothesis to test. Follow it pretty closely on average for 4-6 weeks, like +/- 50 calories-ish. At the end of that time, compare your average weekly weight loss to your goal, and adjust calorie goal if necessary. Calorie recommendations from MFP or any other source, including fitness trackers, are just statistical estimates, basically the average for demographically similar people. You're an individual. Most people are close to average, but a few will be far enough off from average to make a meaningful difference, either high or low.

    I'd recommend working first on figuring out how to stay reasonably full and happy most of the time on the reduced calories so you can stick with it, if weight loss is the main goal. If you can't stick with it, you won't get to goal. Time enough to tune up nutrition once that's dialed in, though you may notice that getting relatively more protein, fat or fiber may help you feel more full more often. (People vary in which if any of those matter for feeling full.)

    When it comes to nutrition, realize that protein and fats contain "essential nutrients" that our bodies can't manufacture on their own out of anything else, so we need to eat a certain minimum. I'd suggest focusing on those first. Protein is probably number one during weight loss, so that we keep as much as possible of existing muscle. Retro's suggestion of 0.8g per pound of goal weight daily is sensible as a rule of thumb . . . whether lifting or not, IMO. (But lifting is a good plan.) Obviously, 0.8g per pound is 1.76g per kilo.

    If you want a more nuanced but research-based protein estimate, consider this source:

    https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

    You can use your goal weight in the calculator there.

    For fats, I go with 0.35-0.45g per pound minimum daily, but I'm female. Men might get away with a little bit less, maybe 0.30, but that's not my wheelhouse. As you know, 0.35-0.45g per pound would be roughly 0.8-1g per kilo.

    Carbs are more flexible, not "essential nutrients" in the same technical sense as protein and fats, because (loosely speaking) our bodies can manufacture carb equivalents on their own.

    It's fine to go over protein or fat minimums, within reason. Being persistently and significantly under either one is not the best health strategy. The limit when going over the minimums is basically avoiding eating too many calories, or getting too little nutrition.

    My bias is to augment the protein and fat minimums with lots of varied, colorful veggies and fruits for micronutrients and fiber. I strive for at least 400g and more like 800g daily as a minimum. Not everyone will agree . . . and those tend to bring in some carbs, though nutrient-dense ones.

    Repeating myself, though: Nutrition is about health, energy level, body composition and that sort of thing. It's the calories that matter most for weight management.

    Best wishes!

Answers

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,307 Member
    Get away from percentages in Macros, use grams. Protein is around .8 grams per POUND of your goal weight and around .4 grams of good fats per pound of goal weight. The remainder of calories can be whatever you want.

    As far as what amount of calories needed for you to lose that’s a very hard question to answer without a lot more information and even then it’s going to be a guess. You’ll start at a calorie amount that seems realistic and then review in four weeks. At that time if you’re not losing enough, you will lower your weekly calories if you’re losing about right then you were correcting your assumptions.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,950 Member
    To add to the above, 0.8g per pound if you're lifting frequently. Otherwise, that's more than you need.
  • moroimihai11296
    moroimihai11296 Posts: 5 Member
    Thank you all for your answers. Really helped. Changed now my goals in the app to 0.8 kg and it changed my custom values to 50% carbs 294g, 20 % protein 118g and 30 % fat 78, but that doesnt seem right. 0.8 g per pound for my weight of 104 kg would be 183 grams right, not 118g as in the app? Also 0.4 per pound for my weight would be 83 grams, not 78grams right?
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 12,843 Member
    Your math isn't lining up because they are coming from two different starting points...

    MFP starts with a total calorie goal based on weight and desired rate of loss, then calculates how much protein equals 20% of that total.

    The 0.8g/lb recommendation starts with your current weight, gives a ratio, then assumes the other two macros (carbs/fats) will go up/down as needed to match the calorie goal.

    What's different between these two methods? The carbs. MFP says 294g if your goal is exactly 50%; the second method would be 199g if you start from the same 2350 calories and subtract the 0.8g/lb protein and 0.4g/lb fat.

    Which should you use? Entirely personal choice. If you know nothing more than you want to lose weight, the MFP numbers are a good starting point. If you want to make things more personal, you can begin tweaking numbers away from the percentage calculation, but for every macro you increase then another will have to decrease if you want the calories to remain the same. Some people feel massive hunger cravings if they reduce fat too low, which sabotages their willpower to keep within calories; they may benefit from having more fat, lower carbs. Others feel the same way with protein; increase protein, lower carbs.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,307 Member
    To add to the above, 0.8g per pound if you're lifting frequently. Otherwise, that's more than you need.
    that is for lean weight so won’t coincide with body weight which would be an excess however protein is very satiating and has a HUGE TEF number so more isnt a bad thing if you can get it in.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,190 Member

    The guys are right: Two different methods for estimating protein needs, percent of calories, or grams per body weight, will give you different recommendations. Also, for the body weight estimates, use a healthy goal weight, not current body weight. You don't need a bunch of extra protein to maintain your body fat, it's for maintaining lean mass.

    You note that 20% protein based on calorie goal is 118g. If your actual goal weight is 85kg/187lbs, 0.8g per pound applied to that would be around 150g. The science-based calculator I linked recommends 102g as an optimal value for 85kg body weight if weight loss is the goal; 125g as optimal if you use 104.5kg. It also says that up to 204g (based on 85kg) or 251g (based on 104.5kg) "may maximize improvements in body composition in individuals who perform regular exercise, based on limited evidence," i.e. the higher values are somewhat speculative, plus you haven't said anything about exercise other than walking at work so you probably don't need to shoot for those big numbers.

    I can understand that 118g, 102g, 125g and 150g may seem dramatically different, but they really aren't as a practical thing in the short term. This is not such a pinned-down precision thing, and you can likely use any one of those as a minimum and do fine for quite a while, while you're figuring out what macro mix works best for you and learning more about nutrition generally. (In the unlikely event that lots of your protein comes from plant vs. animal sources, shoot for the higher one.)

    Just start. Log your food. See where you end up with protein and fats. Notice how you feel: Full/hungry? Energetic/fatigued? Happy/miserable? Then adjust.

    Remember, weight loss is about calories, and nutrients only matter indirectly for that. If you try to hit calories, and get roughly around those numbers for protein while you figure out what macro mix and food choices best help you stay full and happy on reduced calories, you'll be fine. If more protein helps you stay more full and happy, eat more. As long as you're not wildly low on fats to do that, you'll be fine. I'd say you need micros and fiber, too, but some others will disagree, and certainly some of the extremely low carb people turn to something like Metamucil for fiber.

    Even in the long run, you don't need to be exactly exact. Macro mix is not magic spell in which every detail must be perfect or mayhem will result. Pretty good on average is a common sense standard; perfection isn't.

    Get started now. Work on your macro mix along the way. That'll be fine.
    To add to the above, 0.8g per pound if you're lifting frequently. Otherwise, that's more than you need.
    that is for lean weight so won’t coincide with body weight which would be an excess however protein is very satiating and has a HUGE TEF number so more isnt a bad thing if you can get it in.

    As an aside, I'm not sure I'd call roughly 20-30% of the protein's calories "HUGE TEF". Yeah, it's bigger than the 5-10% for carbs, or the 0-3% for fats. But protein isn't the only nutrient we need, so we do need to eat some of those "tiny TEF" fats, and potentially some carbs as well.

    Maybe TEF is an argument in favor of lean-source carnivore to maximize calorie efficiency (<= unserious suggestion), but most people will believe they need other nutrients in addition to protein, or want to eat other things for happiness or satiety. The average overall TEF of a mixed-macro diet is going to run around 10%, according to what I've read.

    Eating more protein simply to maximize calorie efficiency is kind of majoring in the minors, IMO. Noting that I'm much smaller than OP (60kg/133lbs, 165cm/5'5"), I ate 122g protein yesterday, which is fairly high for my size, well over the .8g per pound. That's 488 calories of protein, so maybe 98-146 calories of TEF. That's nice . . . but "HUGE"? I think that's overselling it a little.

    How sating protein is may depend on the individual and the actual food (not just its macronutrient composition).