Macro's Question?
Hi everyone, I’m Angela, a 58 female, 5’9”, 224 lbs. My husband & I have been on & off of Keto for about 4 yrs, until recently (July 2019) we’re back ON! I’ve been able to lose my first 50 lbs! But have about 50 more to go, so I’m so glad I found this group! You guys sound amazing and so supportive. I also started in Jan 2020 doing Intermittent Fasting of 18:6 fasts.
My Macros are: Carbs- 5% @ 15g / Fat- 75% @ 100g / Protein- 20% @ 60g with 1200 calories.
Q: Recently I’m having a really hard time “trying” to eat all of my Macros!?! I almost feel like I’m forcing myself to eat more food until I reach all of my Macros for the day. Help! I’m really not sure what to do, except find an amazing group and reach out for advice! I know we shouldn’t eat unless we’re hungry, but that would put me way under my Macros for the day.
So, if anyone has any experience, advice, tips that you can pass along I’d be so appreciative! I do a lot of research, read a lot of books, favorite is “The Keto Cure” by Dr Adam Nally. Thank you everyone who is listening! 😉
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Hey Angela! Pat here, 63, male, keto since mid-Oct and down just shy of 60lbs. More importantly, A1C is way down and well within normal range, as is cholesterol and BP. Completely off meds.
As for macros - my thoughts, based on my readings (more below on that):
It’s especially important to keep below the carbs as they’re what your body used to run on when you were a sugar-fuel person. Converting to fat happens only when we greatly restrict carbs so any extra is not in your best interest.
Likewise, watch going over your proteins as extra proteins can and will be converted to glucose sugars; again, that defeats the purpose.
However, you can eat healthy fats till you’re full. But think on this a moment - by taking the carbs way down we force our body to burn fat for fuel. If we eat a lot of fat, our body can burn dietary fat... what we want it to do is burn stored body fat. It’s best to keep fat intake below the limit for maximum results.
Now for the good news! As you become fat-adapted, food cravings often go down and folks aren’t as hungry as before.
So, stay below carbs, don’t go over proteins, and enough fats to feel full but staying below fats hastens burning stored fat.
Stick with it and you’ll be happy with the results.
I also enjoy a good read or two - recommend, ‘The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living’ and ‘The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance’, both by Drs Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek. I picked up my now-dog eared and highlighted copies on Amazon; well worth the investment in myself. You can also watch them on YouTube.
Keto on!
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Thanks Pat for the advice! I have read (Dr Berg) that you have to be careful not to go too high on your Fat for that exact reason! Any suggestions on whats a good Fat Macro level? Great job on your A1C - my husband also pulled a low A1C and off all meds, just awesome. Thanks for the book reads, already have Dr Phinneys, great book. Also have Gary Taubes "Good Calories Bad Calories" and Andreas Eenfeldt "Low Carb High Fat", but please pass along any others that might be helpful. Thanks again for the reply! ;-)
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angelaangelasmith7050 lengthy answer, forgive me.
Marcos are initially based on height/weight, but you sure can adjust them. I’m 6’1” and currently 207 lbs (down from 265 at the start). To set my fat macro, I went to Settings, then macros, and first set my ‘lose weight’ setting to zero. That gave me 2458 cals to maintain my height/weight, including 12g carbs, 104g protein, and 221g fat.. I use that as a baseline.
I’d like to get down to 200 lbs so I slid the ‘lose weight’ slider left to 19% deficit (projecting a loss of 4 lbs per month) and that reduced the macros to their current 10/85/179 grams respectively.
As I’m sure you know, the initial weight loss was ‘easy’ and quick (relative terms), but the last 10 have been tough. That’s typical.
thanks for the reading ideas - I’ll check them out.