Hi, Adrianna!
I highly recommend Muscle and Fitness Hers. Great information (just ignore all the ads for fat burners...)
This is something I got from Muscle and Fitness a few years ago, and I am mostly following this forumla now. When I joined WISH I was on WW and lost 21 pounds thanks to that great program, woo-hoo! Now I am trying to focus more on eating to fuel my body (my workouts), lose body fat and maintain/gain muscle. This is kind of long...sorry!
The name of the article that supplies this information is "Eat to Lose" from the June 1999 issue of Muscle and Fitness. I followed this program when we moved to FL and had great results (along with running and lifting weights). Once I "reached my goal" and Ross' niece came to visit, I said "bye bye" to this plan, stopped exercising and put my weight back on! THIS TIME I am eating this way forever (during the week) and giving myself a break over the weekends. Now we are both lifting weights and I am doing alot of cardio, so this is really just a way to fuel my body. I STILL LOVE FOOD and look forward to my cheat nights!
For a man weighing 200 pounds and a woman weighing 150 pounds, determining the amount of protein, carbs, and fat each should eat to increase his or her fat-burning potential looks like this:
Determine caloric intake:
Man
200 (bodyweight in pounds) x 1 (gram of protein per pound of bodyweight) = 200 grams of protein
200 (grams of protein) x 4 (calories per gram) = 800 calories per day of protein
800 / 0.30 (% of protein in diet) = 2,667 total calories consumed per day
Woman
150 x 1 = 150
150 x 4 = 600
600 / 0.30 = 2000 total calories consumed per day
From that, determine daily macronutrient requirements:
(I will post the numbers for the female calculations)
Protein 2000 x 0.30 = 600 / 4 = 150 / 150 = 1.0
Carbs 2000 x 0.55 = 1,100 / 4 = 275 / 150 = 1.8
Fat 2000 x 0.15 = 300 / 9 = 33 / 150 = 0.2
The first # (2000) is the calories per day the 150 pound woman needs to eat.
The second number is the % of protein/carbs/fat that she should consume daily.
The third number is the total calories of protein/carbs/fat she should consume.
The fourth number is the number of calories PER GRAM per each macronutrient (protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 calories per gram)
The fifth number is the number of grams of that macronutrient she should consumer per day (using fit day you get a really good idea of how many grams of protein/carbs/fat you consume per day, and at the top of the "Food" page you will see the breakdown in percent as well)
The sixth number is the woman's body weight (what I did is to put my goal weight into the equation and then run the numbers to figure out what someone who weighs my goal weight would eat per day).
The seventh and last number if the grams of that macronutrient this woman should eat per pound of her weight per day.
I hope this makes sense! I use Fitday.com to keep track of what I am eating. I like oatmeal/multigrain (hot) cereal for breakfast with and egg white omelette. Snack is a protein shake. Lunch is brown rice, chicken breast, broccoli with a little seasoning (sort of a stir fry!) and a nectarine. Snack in the afternoon is a protein shake. Dinner is a big salad of fresh greens, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, 2 tbsp light dressing and chicken breast, snack is either fruit or a skinny cow or something. I vary my calories from about 1400-1600 per day. My carb intake is usually about the same or lower than my protein and I haven't been very strict about getting my fat down to 15% (usually bobs around 20% of my daily caloric intake).
