* Your food choices are good, but I am reading some of your meals and noticing your carbs will generally outweight or overpower your protein intake in your meals. You are great with supplementing the protein elsewhere in the day, but I think you made a great point that percentages of these macronutrients (p/c/f) need to be learned by you in greater detail so you can make the necessary adjustments. BUT, your food choices are good...
so when you see you need more protein... you know what to eat/drink. If you need more fat... ANPB or lowfat cheese or nuts. If you need more carbs that day, go for whole-grains more often than not.
* To log, use fitday.com It's easy, it's free, it's easy-to-read.
I would say, ballpark, that it'll take you about 1-2 weeks to adjust to using it. Once on Fitday.com, you have 3 "usable" sections in my opinion.
- The first section is so you can search foods by keywords like "wheat noodles"
- The second section is a drop-down menu of recent foods from the past 3 days or so of logging. SO, if you typically eat the same thing, oftentimes the food you need will be in this abbreviated menu.
- The third section is a drop-down menu of Custom Foods. This is where you buy things at the store, take the box/package to your desk, and insert the necessary info about the food. From that day forward, you can choose that food from the Custom Foods list OR scroll down to "All Custom Foods" to see the master list of allllllll you've ever entered. Fitday doesn't forget
* Seeing that you are natty right now but still have goals to gain LBM and lose BF, a safe bet for macro ratio is going to be either...
- 40p/30c/30f per day
OR
- 40p/40c/20f per day
OR
some variation in the middle. If your protein is 40-50%... you're in good shape for the day, and personally I say to just let the chips fall where they do for carbs and fat. Protein is your #1 goal. Obviously, though, if you notice that you are under 25% carbs per day, you've got to add more. The list above is sort of a "minimum" expectation if you will.
* Fitday.com, once you insert your foods for the day, will present you with the percentages you are looking for. I don't know what your calorie goal has been right now, but typically, if you are looking to lose bodyfat, 12-13 x your body weight in calories per day is a safe bet (but someone else should verify or negate this, please, if I'm wrong). So if you are 210, then your daily calorie range should be 2520 to 2730.
* Lastly, I have lost weight, gained LBM, and maintained it all in the last 8.75 years (
) and I
do not own a food scale. Should you get one? Sure! I want one -- I'm just broke and until I step on a stage, it's not super important that I am EXACT-A-MUNDO-SPOT-ON with all my serving sizes.
BUT, you need something to help you ballpark it... so here are my tips:
* 3 oz of meat = size and thickness of deck of cards OR the palm of your hand (no digits)
* 1 oz of cheese = size of 1 dice
* 1 cup = size of your clenched fist (this is great for potato comparisons, noodles, etc.)
* 2 Tbsp = size of your thumb, tip to joint (not knuckle)
* 1 tsp = size of your middle finger top (tip to first joint)
I hope that helps!!!