Protein/Carb ratio?
 

I'm back on track. Need to lose 120 pounds (actually a bit more, but I'll be ecstatic with that!) and hoping fitday will help.

I need to figure out what my protein/carb balance should be though.

Any advice?

I'm not a nutritionist at all, but I also am trying to lose 124 pounds. So far I'm down 64 pounds, so a little better than 1/2 way. I started off not paying any attention to the ratio, I was just watching my calories. Then one day I ate waaayyy more than I was allowing myself and yet I weighed less the next day. This of course was cause for some further investigation of those calories. So I did a little studying of what I had eaten and realized that I lost more weight on the days when my carbs were less than 50%, proteins around 30% and fats around 20%. So then I started playing with that and found that if I kept the carbs around 40%, proteins at 35% and fats at 25%, my weight loss is even better. Provided I keep the calorie burn higher than my intake I'm almost guaranteed a tiny bit of weight loss everyday. Everyone is a little different, so give yourself a little time to get it figured out for your own body.

Ultimately, you'll have to tweak ratios to fit your own body chemistry (no two people are the same, unfortunately), but I have had the best luck on around 50% fat, 20-30% carb, 20-30% protein. Might sound counterintuitive, but I try to minimize carbs instead of fat. Reasoning is that at least for me, eating fat serves as kind of a fuse to light up all the fat that's sitting around my body. Carbs just interfere with that process.

The reason for the variation above is that it's hard to peg down exact ratios without getting monotonous with food choices.

Good luck!

-Nik

I can add to that, attesting to the differences! I experimented with different ways and feel best on 55% carbs, 25-30% protein, and 15-20% fat. I feel best with that and it's also been successful to getting me to my goal. Your body is so individualized that it will take some trial and error. The FitDay logs will help keep track of the proportions on any given day; you might want to jot down how you feel physically and try to match it up to see if there are any patterns.

BRILLIANT! People often forget/ignore the psychological component to all of this. Keeping a log/journal/diary/whatever you call it of how you feel after eating certain foods, how you feel when you eat a certain way, even how you feel after exercising a certain way and summarizing it all at the end of the week can help you figure out exactly what works for you in terms of both diet and exercise. Great tip!

-Nik

Thx, Nik...I'm a psychologist, so that's what I always look for first ;). In addition to what you said, how and what we eat are so often tied to emotions...even celebrations and mourning revolve around food to a degree. Figuring out that cycle is the first step in making healthy changes both in eating and in coping!

First of all, thanks for the variety of responses. It's nice to know I'm not nailed down to a number from some chart somewhere :)

Second, thank you for some targets to aim for. In looking over the last couple of days, I can see already that I'm over carbing and under protein-ing. By a lot I think. So I at least know where my focus needs to be.

Very very true. I'm an emotional eater--frustration is my downfall! Allergies, winter, you name it! It affects what and how much I eat. :(

I know that with an hour of hard walking 5 days a week, I am going to see some changes fairly soon, if I can control my food.

Hey Montana! That walking will certainly do you good. As a matter of fact, for some folks (me included), exercising when I'm frustrated or cranky or down takes away the urge to eat and puts me in a better mood. Know your triggers, avoid them if you can, and if you can't, have another plan in place to help you deal with them.

Also, once you start to see some changes, your motivation to control your food should increase. Keep in mind that it takes several weeks to form a habit; it won't always feel this hard :).

Actually for myself, I've decided that a lifetime spent over-carbing and under protein-ing was the main cause of my obesity. Now that I have a really good handle on it, I've actually found that I'm not an emotional eater at all. My real eating problem is that I'm a carboholic, with a protein avoidance issue.

Thanks. What is it they say? It takes 6 weeks to break a habit, I hope it's 6 weeks to MAKE a habit. When my husband told me how impressed he was by my getting up at 5 a.m. to walk, I told him to be impressed 6 months from now when I'm still doing it! :cool: