Any others in here tally up their carbs, fats and proteins? I just started this method to drop some flab and it's going well.

Any others have any dos and dont's on counting your macros. Still a newbie.

Essentially it's a more specific way of hitting your caloric goal but not over indulging in one MACROnutrient.

My Daily Goals to lose weight are:

Carbs: 206g
Fat: 65g
Protein: 185g

It gets fun at night, figuring out what you can top off on without busting your goal in another area.

Cheers!

Here!
289g carbs
217g protein
96g fat

It works, I've leaned out a lot since switching from paleo.

Homemade baked sweet potatoe fries are my secret to hitting the carbs. A big plate full of those and some ketchup and mustard. And Swirl Cinammon Raisin bread.

How do you determine what your macros should be and then how do you determine if your food is in that profile?

Trial and Error and activity level.

Myfitnesspal starts you off at 50/20/30% (carbs/protien/fat) and then you adjust from there.

I do 40/30/30%

I've had past success with counting macros. I did 50/25/25 and lost 6lbs of body fat in one month. I also was tracking calories.

I don't know what else I did because I haven't had that luck again.

Just eat Dave's Killer Bread (with coconut oil or PB & honey), Ranch Style Beans, bananas, apples, nuts, and V8. Add in a sirloin, a couple of tins of sardines, some fish, or chicken once a day. Add a serving or three of a cruciferous veggie (kale, cauliflower, broccoli) once a day. Eat as much salt as you want. Add a protein scoop in skim milk or water if you need to. Eat as much salsa as you want. Work out (muscles included, not just treadmill), and stop counting stuff.

The counting is just a trick to get you trained. What you need, long term, is to start liking the stuff in the above list. Then you won't have to count any more.

I have been trying to carb cycle with workout and rest days. I enjoy it as I used to undereat and now I am enjoying eating more and losing weight

Currently I'm trying to gain weight while keeping fat gained to a minimum. I'm having a rough go of it because it's very difficult to hit my numbers consistently for more than a week or so and I end up losing weight. Weekends usually get crazy and I just don't get it done. The strange thing is, I eat MORE on the weekends when not tracking than I do during the week, and still lose weight.

395 g carbs
124 g protein
62 g fat

AgEnd, you're around 170lbs right? How's the weight gain going?

Hell no, more like 150. I'd be ecstatic to get to 160.

And it ain't going. I can fluctuate a pound or so at the beginning of the week, but it will be gone by the end. Obviously I'm still burning more than I'm eating, but I need to figure out how to adjust without gaining much fat.

You're eating about 2600 cal/day. You need to be in the 3000-3100 range. Keep the fat low but add more protein to your diet. Give it a week or 2 and you should see a difference on the scale.

That's a **** load of carbs too. I don't know how you get to 400g of carbs a day.l without shoveling in sour patch kids and gummy bears.. haha

Yeah. I've been trying to follow the recs of my coach, but I think he's worried about increasing my numbers too quickly. (Although he's only 160ish and has seen great results the past few months. That's why I went to him in the first place.)

I'm going to bump stuff up a little bit to ~2800 cals and see where that gets me:

400 g carbs
155 g protein
65 g fat

Edit: On the carbs: I have at least 1 sweet potato a day and usually at least 1 cup of brown rice. I also have some vegetable/fruit juices that have ~35g in them. Bananas, raisins, at least 1 protein bar. Etc.

The beauty is that you can really try anything once you've hit a plateau (maintaining weight). Make an adjustment, wait 2 weeks, check, and make another adjustment.

Yeah, I agree. The good thing is if I gain too much or don't like the results, I know I can cut back down easily.

Increase your fat intake if you're having a hard time gaining weight. Remember, eating fat doesn't necessarily make you fat. Also, you may just need to dirty bulk if you really have that hard of a time. Add some ice cream to your post workout shakes or something.

I just finished a bulk going from about 172 to 186 in about 5 months, but most of it being in the last 4 months. I gradually increased my calorie intake until I was up to about 4000/day near the end and still having trouble gaining weight. I did gain a decent amount of fat, but I think it was necessary to help get as much muscle on as I was able to.

My daily target was about 50% of my calories from fat, 20-25% from protein, and 25-30% from carbs.

Thanks. To be honest, if it wasn't summertime I'd be all in for a dirty bulk, but vanity keeps me from it.

I'm going to slowly increase stuff and see if I can get some results.

I just let my 16 year old start creatine. He's 180 but probably needs to be 200 to make varsity. He's been working hard, so I'm letting him give it a shot.

Do y'all with the high protein numbers use mostly supplements? I have a hard time getting that much protein without several shakes.

I've all but eliminated shakes. Maybe once or twice a week I'll have a post workout shake.

I eat a lot of chicken/turkey, some protein granola, and milk.

It gets easier and you get used to it. I used to drink a lot of shakes to get there.

I get about 25 of my ~150g of daily protein from shakes. The rest is usually from eggs, chicken, beans/lentils, milk, cheese, and then I also count all the protein I get from the smaller stuff like broccoli, bread, tortillas. The smaller stuff adds up slowly, and it's usually not complete proteins, but that's why you're eating everything else.

AgEng06 said:

---

Yeah. I've been trying to follow the recs of my coach, but I think he's worried about increasing my numbers too quickly. (Although he's only 160ish and has seen great results the past few months. That's why I went to him in the first place.)

I'm going to bump stuff up a little bit to ~2800 cals and see where that gets me:

400 g carbs
155 g protein
65 g fat

Edit: On the carbs: I have at least 1 sweet potato a day and usually at least 1 cup of brown rice. I also have some vegetable/fruit juices that have ~35g in them. Bananas, raisins, at least 1 protein bar. Etc.

---

More fats. Don't let the word fat scare you. Stay away from trans fats and you'll be okay.

You should be increasing your caloric intake every few days until you start gaining weight. Even if you end up needing 5,000 calories a day. Almonds and chocolate milk are good food sources to get there.

Coconut oil. Semi-solid at room temperature. No double bonds to clog arteries like trans fats. Great source of fuel.

>20 g of protein in a can of beans. Highly underrated source of protein...and the fiber content makes them almost free for counting programs. No cholesterol either.

There isnt near enough fiber in beans to offset the carbs if you are on a low carb diet. The protein to net carb ratio makes beans not worth it to me.

It's the best way to lose and maintain.

Double bonds aren't bad, it's the trans structure of the fats that are bad. Most healthy poly or monounsaturated fats have cis structures which is natural and the body knows how to process them. The trans structure occurs in nature in less than half of 1% or something like that of unsaturated fats.

Also, dietary cholesterol is a non issue for most people.

Thanks. I'm a Ph.D. chemist. Knew all of that. The body can make fuel more efficiently from MCFA's than from vegetable oils. I'm not sure about that mechanism, and I'm not even sure if anybody knows for sure. One resolved issue, however, is that the government campaign to scare everyone away from saturated fat and move them to mono-unsaturated fats has been a disaster and a lie. Scaring everyone about sodium was another lie, probably to hide how much HFCS and mono- and di-saccharides they were filling us with.

Several years ago in the Super Bowl, I saw the Giants, I think, treating cramps by handing out bananas. Amazing how effective the government propaganda has been, that professional trainers don't even know that cramps are caused by sodium deficiency.

I figured by your username you probably knew it, I just said it mostly for other folks reading that might not. Didn't mean to sound like I was talking down to you.

The problem with large scale government recommendations is that they often look at research of a particular cohort that looks promising, and then try to apply it to everyone. You mention salt as an example. And it's true, for anyone else not aware, decreasing salt intake in people with pre-existing heart failure, or high blood pressure is a good thing. Someone decided that if it's bad for people with these conditions, it must also be bad for people without it. The opposite is in fact true, as people without these conditions that eat a low salt diet tend to have more adverse outcomes.

My dad says they used to hand out salt tablets at halftime of his basketball games in the 1950's. When I used to play racquetball tournaments, I would start salt loading. There was just no way to prevent cramping of those fast twitch muscles 3 - 4 hours into a tournament without sodium.

So as to not derail the thread, I will reiterate that coconut oil is really a good alternative for those counting fats.

Did not know that about salt.. I have a nurse friend that rides my assabout how much salt I eat. That I'm going to die of a heart attack like her patients. Yet my blood work comes back perfect every time, with perfect sodium levels. I've heard I actually need salt by of how much i workout in the heat, but did not know there is research that states it's not bad for someone that doesn't have a heart condition.

Redline,
Think about the "Big 3" that we were supposed to be scared of - salt, fat, and cholesterol. The government was wrong on all 3. Dead wrong. I don't think they wanted to be wrong. It had to do with cronyism research, but it also had to do with the nanny state. They knew that salt wasn't a problem, imo, but because it was typically found in processed and/or fatty foods, they invented a "one size fits all" paradigm and told us to avoid salt rather than think for ourselves.

With fat, again, a mixture of incomplete research (i.e. trans fat) and poor common sense. The sheeple can't think for themselves, so we'll just tell them to avoid all fat.

With cholesterol, poor understanding of the difference between LDL and HDL cholesterol.

What is the new "Big 3?" I'd say Sugar, Sedentary, Smoking. Maybe Sweeteners. Even with sweeteners, it's kind of a nanny state. It's not that the sweeteners themselves are harmful; it's likely moreso that they trigger cravings while providing no sustenance. If you had to eat a giant apple every time you had a diet Coke, it would probably work better.

I think we would improve national health AND save the Everglades if we dropped the sugar subsidies that keep it so cheap.

Quote:

---

Scaring everyone about sodium was another lie

---

Speak more about this, please. When does sodium reach an unhealthy level?