Weighing the Fat

Wowza what a week!  So obviously I was busy with school.  I really wanted to blog this week and felt like I had so much to say but couldn’t take the time away from studying.  Anyway, 2 midterms down and I have a free moment!

This week, I noticed I was kind of dragging like I mentioned.  I’ve also been reading Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (which was provided to me for free for review purposes, all opinions are my own, etc.).  The nutrition part of the book recommends a 50% Carbohydrates, 30% Protein, 20% Fat macronutrient breakdown.  Since I had tracked all my food last week and I decided to check it out and see how mine averaged.

CalorieBreakdown

Well, as you can see I am nowhere near that mark!  Look at how high my fat is!  It is crowding out the protein and carbs way too much so I decided something had to be done.  I worked hard and managed to have a day that was closer to 40/30/30.  And guess what?  I felt so much better!  I was energetic, able to concentrate, in a great mood all day.

So now that I’m back in the habit of at least tracking my food, I can now think about the content of what I’m eating.  I got to work on My Fitness Pal (username sugirl06 – add me!) and first set my nutrients with the manual goal setting.  Something that had been bugging me about MFP is that I have it linked with FitBit and it would constantly give me more calories for the day.  This was because my activity level on MFP was set too low. 

I fixed it but it still gave me too low for my starting calories.  You see, I won’t eat less than 1600 calories.  It isn’t healthy and when I do, I have no energy or am hungry all day!  So I went back into manual settings and managed to finagle it so that I eat at least 1600 calories per day paired with a desire to have a calorie deficit enough to lose 0.9lbs per week (according to my current weight, activity level, and other things).  This now means that it won’t add FitBit calories in unless I earn more than 1600+[calories required to burn 0.9lbs per week].  Does that make sense?  If it’s too much maths, don’t worry about it. 

MFP_FitnessGoals_2013-10-25

Third thing I did was that I changed the names of my meals.  I had thought about “Meal 1”, “Meal 2”, etc. but I don’t like that.  Is a snack a meal?  What if I have 2 snacks in a row?  Is that under 1 meal or 2?  So I changed it to time of day and I love it!

MFP_2013-10-22

This can be very helpful too, not just an easier way to decide which meal my food is.  For example, on Wednesday, I felt deprived and starved.  After I checked my tracker, I realized that was because it had been at least 6 hours since my last meal!  No wonder I was hungry!  So my goal is really to have something filled in on each meal.  Since they are only 3 hour segments, just a small snack is fine but there should be something in each block.

So that is where I’m at right now.  I’m shooting for at least a 40/30/30 breakdown for my macros and if I feel up to it to try for the 50/30/20.  Let me just say, there is nothing wrong with eating fat.  It doesn’t make you fat and this plan on mine is not going to be low fat either.  I was just finding that the fat was crowding out the good carbs and protein in my case and my body wasn’t responding well.  Not everyone will thrive on the same macronutrient ratio.  I am looking for what works best for me and obviously those extra carbs and proteins gave me the edge I needed.

So that’s it for today!  I have to get back to the many, many things that have to be done this weekend.  Let’s hope for more interesting, fun filled blogs next week!  Until then!

6 thoughts on “Weighing the Fat

  1. I have been eating way more fat since starting a Paleo based diet in January. Likely too much! I am reading that book too.

  2. Like you said, it’s what works for you! I know that I consume way more protein and far less carbs than your goals. My fat is usually about the same as your goal…I’m not doing any endurance exercise, so the amount of carbs I get from my veggies and occasional sweet potato seems to be enough. Really putting on muscle right now, so it seems like I’ve been needing more protein…when my fitness goals change, then my food macro goals will too! I’m glad that you’ve found something that works for you given what your goals are right now… keep plugging along!

    1. It is so funny because people always talk about how your macros affect your sports performance but they forget that we’re people too! We do things other than our workouts. And I’m definitely finding that more carbs help me work better at school. It just makes me laugh because researchers try to separate things when it all works together in real life!

  3. I have started tracking food as well. I found I was eating WAYYY too many carbs. NO wonder I was feeling sluggish and cranky! Once i got that under control, I was feeling back to myself

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