Calories, Fat, Carbs - Quantity Per Day???

Guys What info do you have on Calorie, Carb and Fat grams per day?  I cannot find this in my NUT information packet other than 60-80 grams of protein per day. I am 5 months out and started tracking everything I eat - what is the right amount of: Calories? Carbs? Fat? Protein 60-80g Obviously I want to still lose more weight so the numbers would need to correspond with losing versus maintaining.

 

Thanks for the help. Chris 326/211/175

Chris, It ain't scientific or medical sounding nut the instructions I received tells me my dietary caloric intake should increase from 400 the first  2-4 weeks (first month) to 800 for the next phase (2-3 months).  The next 4 to 12 months should be in the 1000-1200 range.  Bythen the mold is cast and let wisdom prevail.  Fat intake, I was told not to eat anything with more than 30% of the calories coming from fat. Less was better.  The more fat, the less loss and the more gas and nausea. Carbs, not much guidance there other than complex carbs were good because they are not easily converted to fat.  Other carbs, not desireable because like sugar and fat, they are easily converted to fat for storage in the body. The concept of the surgery is you nly have room for the protein you body needs to main lean muslce thus the need for vitamns and suplements because we can no  longer consume the food needed to get that stuff in the quantities our bodies need.  Therefore, the body burns the stored fat to get what it isn't getting from our intake.  If we take our proper volume of weater to keep the kidneys flushed, the txin leftovers and excess fat etc, is processd out, thsu the rapid weight loss; in addition to the lessened ability of our new digestive system to absorb fat and sugar. Protein, depending on your level of activity, 60-80 grams is athe absolute minimum a male body needs.  If you are exercising or training, or doing more intense levels of stuff or have a physically demanding career/vocation, more protein is required or the body will digest the lean muscle to get protein.  Many web and health magazine articles call for 1 gm of protein for 1 pound of desired body weight, which even for my goal weight of 180-200, I'm at 266, is a whole bunch more protein than I was taking in.  This became a reality for me when I started training in Jan 07 for a 10K in March 07.  I upped my protein intake from 60-80 to 120-160 gms a day just so i felt like I could function and at my 2nd 3 month followup, I had lost 4 lbs of lean muscle in addition to my fat percentage of weight loss.  Note I am still better off than I was but I was maintaining muscle mass as of my 1st 3 month followup. Great determination on your part.  Good job.  Best wishes to your continuing success.  I enjoy your posts and responses.  You are most upbeat. Joe

Chris, First let me say that you should follow your doctor’s or nutritionist’s guidelines… but don’t get anal about it.  Everybody is different and you have to figure out what works for you.  What worked you at 5 weeks will not necessarily work at 5 months.  My female nutritionist told me that my goal was 65 grams of protein, but 90% of the people she talks to are women.  65 grams might be appropriate for most women, but I think us guys’ need more.  I also believe that as we heal and are able to eat more we need to add more variety into our diets.  Besides losing weight, the goal is to be able to eat like a “normal” person and eat a normal diet.  Joe’s advice is sound and pretty much the way I eat. For me, I strive for 125+ grams of protein a day.  I still use a protein supplement for breakfast but after that all of my protein comes from traditional foods.  I don’t keep track of fat grams but I avoid the foods that are obviously high in fat (potato chips, sausage, adding butter to a veggie, etc).  I don’t worry about the fat that eat in a hand full of peanuts, a slice of cheese, or a hamburger patty; but I avoid the bad carbs like the plague… most of the time.  I try to shoot for less than 50 grams of carbs per day and I try to make sure most of the carbs I eat are green vegetables.  That doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to giving myself a treat once in a while. You have to experiment to find out what works for you and your lifestyle.  Just eat healthy foods and you’ll be fine.

Hi Chris,

I'm 13 months out and I'm discovering that I can eat just about anything and keep my light weight. Is that likely to continue? No. So what I'm doing is, instead of just eating crunchy stuff all day, I'm eating as much citrus, apples and other low glycemic fruit as I like. I don't think we'll ever be able to get fat eating mostly stuff like that, especially with regular exercise. If you're doing exercise daily, fruit and yogurt along with your protein should be enough to keep you losing.

Good Luck,

Dave

Chris, On my program, we haven't gotten into counting calories.  I have to have a minimum of 86 grams of protein per day.  No more than 17 grams of fat per meal and a limit of 49 grams of fat for the day.