P-F-C balance. how did it effect your diet?

[theflatlander]

I just started belly off from mens health. I'm 26 years old 6'1" 240lbs. the diet I started said I should have roughly 2000-2100 calories a day. with my diet is says is should be having a 25-30-45 balance of proteins-fats-carbs.

For those who have been dieting a while how much did the PFC balance make it difference on your diet or if at all? I'm just curious to see how much I should really be worrying about this

I am working out at the same time. I'm doing the belly off jump start. Their dieting plan was to complicated with the meals and I'm not home enough to cook all that stuff. I went different routes such as frozen microwavable food and pre- made turkeys burgers, etc.

Just curious to see how different diets affected different people

thanks

 

[Jeff91]

I haven't been focusing on it at all. I just try to pick healthier foods and if I notice im not getting enough fruits/veggies, dairy, grains...(definately not a problem with protein though lol) I just up it a bit

 

[Steve]

For me and my clients, I generally don't count calories. It's simply about picking energy-sparse, nutrient-dense foods. I will, however, set targets for protein consumption, which generally fall at 1 gram per pound of goal body weight.

In the past I was more anal.

I'd pick my caloric goal - for fat loss this would generally be anywhere from 8-12 calories per pound of total body weight.

Suppose this came out to be 2,000.

From there I'd set protein at 1 gram per pound of goal weight. Suppose we're dealing with a 200 lb person who'd like to get down to 160 lbs. They'd shoot for 160 grams of protein.

Knowing that each gram of protein yields approximately 4 calories per gram, we'd be "using up" 640 calories of our original 2000 calorie allotment.

From there I'd look to fats.

On the fat front I like, in general, 25-30% of calories to be coming from fat. 30% of 2000 is 600 calories. There are approximately 9 calories in each gram of fat, so our target fat intake would be 65 or so.

Of the original 2000 calories, once we subtract the target protein (640) and the target fat (600), we're left with 760 calories to fill.

I recommend 5-7 servings of fibrous veggies per day and 2-4 servings of fruit per day on top of the above. These can be viewed as your carbohydrate base, if you will. It's hard to pinpoint how many calories this accounts for since caloric contents of different veggies and fruits varies quite a bit.

I'll suppose an average of 25 calories per serving of veggies and 75 calories per serving of fruit. Realize, however, that this can vary quite a bit so you should look up your veggies and fruits to make sure you're not consuming anything that's drastically above these averages.

Using these figures, out veggie intake would total about 150 calories and our fruit intake would total about 225 calories.

We still have 385 calories to fill.

What you use to fill them is completely up to you. Personally I filled mine with whatever I wanted.

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On a different tangent... different folks will certainly fare better with different nutrient profiles in their diets. Protein stays pretty constant but especially carbs can vary quite wildly in terms of how people respond to them.