Hi,
In the Reasons Fat Loss Would Stall section of the Best Damn Diet for Naturals article it mentions decreasing calories by an equal ratio of carbs and fats. However, further on in the Amount of Carbs Per Day part it mentions you increase carbs as the diet goes on.
Please could you clarify this point? Is the answer different if you have 40% vs 60% of your non-protein calories as carbs?
Thanks
Aye, as per the article,
Note: Protein intake should not be decreased. The drop in calories should come from an equal ratio of carbs and fat. So if you need to lower your daily calories by 250, cut 125 calories from carbs and 125 from fats.
Carbs are increased relatively, by skewing the percentage of non-protein calories, this does not necessarily equate to a higher total carbohydrate intake in grams.
@Voxel thank you but sorry I don’t follow.
I just did the numbers decreasing the calories from 11xBW to 10xBW and taking half of those calories from carbs and half from fat. In terms of non-protein calories originally the ratio was 40:60 carbs:fats but at 10xBW calories it became 38:62.
Have I done something wrong?
No, sounds like your math is sound.
Let’s say that you are a 200 pound individual, so you were at
2200 calories (bw*11)
And let’s say a protein intake of 1.5g/lbs so that’s
1.5*200*4=1200 calories from protein
Leaving you with 1000 non-protein calories.
You said your fat/carbs are 60/40* meaning that last week you had,
600 calories from fat, which is about 66-67g
400 calories from carbs, so 100g
You are now furthering your deficit by 200 calories, leaving you to take out 100 calories from fat and a 100 calories from carbs, meaning you’ll reduce your fat intake by about 11g and your carb intake by 25g.
So, taking this week’s caloric intake of 2000, we remove the protein calories (1200) leaving 800.
We now have 500 calories of fat, and 300 calories of carbs.
500/800=0.625 → 62.5%
300/800=0.375 → 37.5%
*but at this point in the deficit I’d urge a higher carb intake, since I’m assuming you’ve leaned out. Also don’t stay at the 10 multiplier too long.
Yeah your math is basically the same as mine just slightly higher body weight.
So, I’m back at my initial question - I guess if I were to start with 40% of non-protein calories as carbs I wouldn’t decrease them and fats equally
My guess, the instruction still stands. Meaning that, when you further the deficit because you’ve stalled out you do that by downregulating fats and carbs equally but you are free to change the percentage as you find that you are leaning out.
I believe something like,
40% carbs if you are fat,
50% if you are moderately lean,
60% if you are already lean.
As you lean out you can also probably skew your protein intake from 1.5g to 1.25g or even 1g.
Sounds reasonable. Thank you for helping.
Glad to help. Could’ve just as well caused more confusion. Good luck with your deficit.