New member hello and question

I am enjoying this site and have high hopes for the ability to see what I am doing actually change what I am doing and help me make some progress.  But that is where I have a question...I see what my calories need to be, but should I be concerned also about the percent of my diet that is carbs and fats???  I see everyday the same sort of mix- almost 60-65% carbs and 20-27% fats and then the rest...even when I think I am eating well, I end up in the same area- perhaps this is a problem.......Is there a magic ratio of fats/carbs/proteins etc????????  Thanks!

hi dawn! i just bumped a post put together by hkellick, affectionately known as hk around here... it the calorie-count diet. you should check it out. it has a tone of info, but it is broken down into chapters (even has a clickable table of contents!).

good luck, and if after reading you are still confused, ask again! just fyi, i try to keep my carb-protein-fat ratio at about 50-30-20 repectively.

Welcome!!! Def read the HK post- hes wonderous...

I try and stay closer to 40-40-30 (carbs, protein, fat) but thats basically the zone diet theory (The one Jennifer Aniston and a few other notables follow) but I'd agree with meljo on her ratios..... Protein is very important!!

good luck!

I too aim for about 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat. Usually it looks more like 55% carbs, 20% protein, and 25% fat, though...I find it hard to get protein up to where it should be!

I try to keep each meal relatively balanced - like for breakfast I might have one piece of whole wheat toast (carbs) with a tbsp of peanut butter (fat and protein), with a half a cup of yoghurt (carbs and protein) with half a cup of cottage cheese (protein). If I want to up the 'good fat' content for that breakfast I stir in a teaspoon of flaxseed oil into the yoghurt - can't even taste it, and it's loaded with omega 3 and other good stuff. And all of that only comes to about 400 calories.

You can also balance out over a day - if you have a lot of carbs for breakfast, choose a carb-light lunch and reach for more protein instead. A lot of the trick is getting to know the nutritional contents of foods.

This will tell you based on your daily calorie needs how much you should get of each.

Not sure if it's exactly right or not. It's just one I found while surfing.

http://www.csgnetwork.com/nutritionalreqcalc. html

thanks for all the feedback- I need to get busy reading and learning- let you know how it goes..thanks again.

ok- I looked at it- and looked at it over a week(which is the time I have been doing this) and I see the trend, like many of the posts I have been reading - I am lacking PROTEIN and taking in too many CARBs(if I am shooting for 40/30/30- right now I am closer to 55/15/30) so I need to change something- thanks again for your help I will do some reading of others success and tricks and go from there- thanks!