Help with Nutrition, Macros, Food Choices and Recipes

[Kigorri]

Hi all, I was struggling to think of how to explain this all... sorry if its a little jumbled 

From next month, I plan on working with and sticking to a Macro plan. I have done all the ground work to get a working idea of how it works and how to calculate them.. a basic understanding but enough to get me started.

There is an almost overwhelming amount of info for this to be found online, but I just want a bit of local knowledge as I need to do this on a budget.

What sort of off shelve foods do you all grab? I'm already into my cans of tuna, a little bit of rice etc. I try and get most of my fats from the likes of Avocados, nuts & seeds and Omega3 fish oil tabs.. and milk.

Fats are pretty straight forward I think and there will be some cross over from other foods, but protien and carbs seem to be a little more difficult in trying to balance out Iwas thinking of the 2kg PaknSave chicken bits and grill/boil then skin off for protien. I also have a post workout protein shake but dont want more than one a day. Still trying to figure it all out

I'm really looking for local food suggestions, good brands, places to find a bargain and even recipe suggestions. I'm in Avondale Auckland, the markets are ok for the fruit and vege etc and PaknSave is handy.

Also.. does anyone have an excel spreadsheet I can use in order to plan the next days meals? This is really messing me up. I want to be able to add a foods fat/protein/carbs and be able to have them total in order to figure out my meals. Sadly it's been far too long between spread sheet coding for me to remember how to make this work.  

Again, sorry if I lack clarity here, I just want to fine tune my diet a little more, this is the next logical step in what has been a great year for cleaning up my diet.

Any help in any capacity is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dinahlady]

Hey. 

It's not always easy tracking macro's and cals. 

It depends how you want to do it. There are heaps of ways but overall you just need something consistent and go with that. You can be as strict as you want - only weighing things uncooked or being specific with where you want the macros to come from... Its up to you, but once you've decided It just takes time and practice. 

The main thing though is where you are going with the nutiriton. weighing things doesnt make your nutrition good, progressing up or down with carbs/fats etc changes your physique. not the counting itself. 

Some people go "all in" and just use a calorie counter like myfitnesspal.com for all their foods.This is good and easy, you just chuck in the amount you've eaten and either look as you go (eat more of a certain macro if you need it) or plan it out the day before then eat to what you planned out. 

some prefer to track macros more specifically from sources. For example they don't want the protein in nuts to be counted in their protein as they want to eat 200g of protein from complete protein sources such as meat and eggs. This is a bit more tricky but still doable. 

You can pen and paper it or a whiteboard is good. Not that difficult at all. All you need to do is look up the macro content on google and select the way you are measuring the food (cooked, raw, cup measure). Or you can work the other way saying: i want 50g of carbs. how many grams of uncooked rice is there to get 50 carbs.... google "calories in rice" and it should come up with caloriecount.com or somethign and just click the link and figet the numbers for a mintue to find out how many grams of rice you need. 

Same for 30g protein. Roughly 150g most lean meat raw. I just know that because of the amount of times ive looked it up.

You can then work out calories from that by multiplying carbs or protein macros by 4 and fat by 9. There will be some residual calories that you would have missed though but it depends if you are wanting to be strongly macro and food source emphasising or calorie emphasising. 

xPersonally I dont weigh foods but i use cup size measures and i call them "serves". Around 25-30g carbs in one serve. so 1/2 cup dry oats = 1 serve. 1 cup oats = 2 serves. same with cooked rice. Potato is more... And i just aim for serves... so I do 8 serves a day. if i want to cut down its easy and reliable....  

I used to buy food in bulk at moore wilsons which is quite good. Its not heaps cheaper but you save quite a bit and dont have to worry about running out etc. $80 for 10kgs of hoki I think it was. Can also find butchers willing to sell you stuff for cheaper in bulk - I think it was prestons in wellies that did that for us sometimes. 

 

 

For example:

Say I decided I wanted to have 180g protein per day and 200g carbs per day and 60g fat and I decided i wanted 6 meals I would divide each one by 6. 

So in each meal I would be aiming for 

30g protein 35g carbs and 10g fat 

So I would look up how much chicken there is to get 30g protein... I find its 150g raw. 

How much rice in 35g carbs... I look it up... I find its 45g of UNCOOKED rice. 

How much fats... I look it up and find thats 20g

Okay so for my meal Ive planned I need 150g raw meat. 45g uncooked rice and 20g of cashews to get 30g protein, 35g carbs and 10g fat.... 

 

So you can adjust how many meals you want and how much in each. swap soem things around. look up the sources... 

Or just use myfitnesspal and bung everything in... but you can easily compromise on the quality of your sources or end up counting the residuals in like vegetables or something - which probably aren't making much of an impact on your physique....

It seems confusing but the only way you'll get it is if you have a play around. noone was born with the ability to count macros and calories it's definitely an unnatural thing which is why I try and avoid having to do it as much as possible. 

 

[FellowshipOfTheRon]

i second the recommendation for using MyFitnessPal.com to track things works fine on PC and has free apps for your mobile devices.

same thing as dinah with counting calories its a pain but i just do it for a while until i put myself into the habbit of eating the way i need to eat then leave it (because eating that way becomes instinctive more or less save the occasional horror) and reassess later as needed (as weight goes up or down). if it's something you force yourself to do day in day out for months on end you might just go a bit whacky haha

 

as for local recommendations well theres one of those halal butchers around wolverton road i think it is they have boneless skinless chicken breast often on special at between $10 and $12 a kilo heaps better than the likes of countdown/pak n save ($15 to $22 kilo for boneless skin on) so check it out. you'll find most of those small corner butchers to offer such deals and you don't have to buy in bulk so shop around those and you'll find your goal of not having to rely on the protein shakes for protein source will be real easy and economical.

 

rice is a really easy source of carbs. we buy 10kg basmati rice as good taste and good base for most meals not sure if its the cheapest but normally get for $25 to $30 per 10kilos which lasts ages. there is also pasta and bread for some variety but hard to beat the value of rice

 

if you need more fats its really easy to just add in a bit of olive oil (oh yeah thats cheaper to buy from those chinese outlets than the big supermarkets too) to meals or little more margarine to sandwhiches

[Kigorri]

Wow, Dinah, you rock girl! thanks so much for all that info. Ron, too much too bro, much appreciated. 

I now have a bit more clarity. Didn't know Myfitness pal had those types of resources to that extent.

 

Thanks again.

[santiago]

Could be worth looking at www.fitnessmeals.co.nz. They got a build a menu service that tracks your macros.

[Kigorri]

Interesting, thanks for the link.

TBH, I have a family to support first, so any special food needs for myself comes secondary, so I need to be lean on the wallet. I dont mind eating ugly food for a while.

[Kigorri]

Hi again,

 

what is the diffference between weighing the food precooked vs cooked?

Obviously rice would weigh more due to water.... interested in the philosophies behind this. I won't be getting to carried away with weighing food, but will need to get a general idea initially.

[Dinahlady]

 

Hi again,

 

what is the diffference between weighing the food precooked vs cooked?

Obviously rice would weigh more due to water.... interested in the philosophies behind this. I won't be getting to carried away with weighing food, but will need to get a general idea initially.

The obvious difference is that they will havea different amount of macronutrient in them. For example 1 cup of white rice cooked will have 50grams of carbohydraate in where as 1 cup of uncooked rice (you measure it then you cook the cup) will have about 140 carbs. So there is a very big and real difference in which way you are accounting for it. It's a similar story with the weight too... 100g cooked = around 30g carbs and 100g raw = around 80g carbs. 

In terms of which way is better to do.... I guess weighing things raw is more reliable because they are always the same raw whereas the weight will vary with cooking therefore the amount you are getting will vary very slightly. but weighing things raw is much more inconvenient, for example just cooking up a massive batch of rice then dealing with measuring it after is much easier than weighing and cooking individual/predecided portions - this is one of the reasons i prefer using cup measurements for servings rather than weight for carbs, it's just easier and more reliable imo... With protein if you weigh it after I guess it depends how much you cremate it or the method used for cooking in how much the weight will change. If you always use a similar method it's not really going to change that much.. 

To be honest its only a minor detail and it will probably even out over time. As long as you keep the way you do certain foods fairly constant say 80% of the time. The exact macronutrients you hit (if it really is 160gram protein or if it's actually 170 gram) isn't actually that important for your progress - the important thing is where you are going overall with your diet - increasing or decreasing cals or carbs/fat by a fair amount over the weeks, or keeping things fairly constant. In fact the amount listed on food packets etc and how much you're body really can utilise or get out of it might be completely different anyway....

People do things like carb cycling all the time where their intake will vary day to day so some residule variation isn't that important in my opinion and will just smooth out over time. Weighing everything raw for any reason other than you happen to find it easier that way would be a pretty nazi way to do things imo and slightly unneccessary . 

[Kigorri]

Excellent, thanks for that. Very helpful.