USDA recommends 60% carbs, 30% fat, 10% protein?

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
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just looked at the usda recommendations for a 2000 calorie diet.
doing the math, it's 60% carbs, 30% fat, 10% protein. :eek:

Over at my IIFYM thread, multiple people said that it doesn't where you get your calories from if you're not active. ie: gym 1x/week for 20min

a woman with 6pack abs came up with the 'Donut diet' which is 40% carb/30% fat/30% protein.
She's very active in the gym.

What would happen if an inactive person went from the USDA recommendation to a 40% carb/30% fat/30% protein diet?
 

MagnusTheBrewer

IN MEMORIAM
Jun 19, 2004
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It depends on the individual. Repeat after me, there are no magic ratios. There is no specific diet whether promoted by the usda or, anyone else, that is guaranteed to produce specific results. Eating healthy is eating a wide variety of foods in reasonable amounts .
 

cbrunny

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2007
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if an inactive person went from 2000 calories a day made of 60/30/10 to 2000 calories a day made of 40/30/30, two things would change:

1) their grocery list
2) a inflated sense of self importance at thinking they know better than the USDA when really there's no actual change
 
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cbrunny

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2007
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lol I'm being a bit facetious, but I think for anyone the first step is just calories. Start simple.
 

Zivic

Diamond Member
Nov 25, 2002
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the first step is just calories. Start simple.

people ALWAYS think that those that are in shape or built, or lean or whatever have some secret knowledge base or access to some 'tricks' that others don't.

to get where you want to be is so simple people find it impossible to do. It took me damn near 20 yrs to realize there was no magic formula, no tricks. BE CONSISTENT. get your diet in check first and the the very first thing is to get your overall calories in check. If you cannot do that, no macro break down, no perfect rep range or workout is going to do a darn thing for you.

Get your calories in check, hang with that for a bit, then evaluate where those calories come from. If you find something off, say getting 90% of calories from carbs, then yeah, an adjustment in your macro breakdown might benefit you a bit. Given what OP said in the other thread that he works out very little, a change from a 60% carb intake to a 50 or 40% will likely not me anything AS LONG AS he has his calories in check
 

mike8675309

Senior member
Jul 17, 2013
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When the USDA recommends those figures, remember they assume people are eating what they recommend as well. They are not saying eat 60% of carbs from McDonald french fries. They are talking about whole food fruits and vegetables and grains.
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
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There are different biochemical pathways that process carbs, proteins, and fats (gross oversimplification). Needless to say, Oreos and HFCS are bad for you for this reason. Hint: fructose skips a few steps on the way to fat.

If you're trying to lose weight you should attempt to eat at your basal metabolic rate or thereabouts. Roughly 24 x (your weight in kg). Then add exercise and you should slowly start to drop weight. If you don't, you're either calculating your caloric intake incorrectly, cheating, or you just might have a metabolic problem.
 

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
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What would happen if an inactive person went from the USDA recommendation to a 40% carb/30% fat/30% protein diet?
For most people (not just "inactive" ones, but anyone who isn't a bodybuilder or extremely "active" otherwise), it would basically just be (nutritionally) pointless. For some others, it could exacerbate other health problems, if they already exist, but it would be unlikely to cause even long-term harm to most people.

Excess protein does put some degree of unnecessary stress on our digestive systems, though. Whatever isn't used "as protein" will eventually be broken down into much smaller, otherwise usable components, eventually just resulting in fat - like most everything else we eat or drink - unless it's used for something else before it gets there. All that "extra" digestion/metabolizing puts some amount of extra stress on the kidneys, first and foremost, since they have to filter out the useless and in a few cases, harmful by-products of those metabolic processes, but on other bodily parts involved in digestion as well, to one extent or another. But healthy humans have way more kidney-real-estate than we strictly need to begin with, and as organs go, they're very resilient (though not as amazingly so as our livers).

fructose skips a few steps on the way to fat.
The jury's definitely still out on that, but before you even get to what happens to fructose in our bodies, you have to consider how much fructose you're consuming in the first place. And since very few people consume significant amounts of pure glucose, I assume you're referring mostly to the "dreaded" HFCS, and are comparing it to "regular/ordinary sugar"? Well, the latter is sucrose, and sucrose is exactly 50% glucose and 50% fructose and while there are different formulations of HFCS, they're all close enough to 50-50 for any difference in fructose content to be irrelevant. (NB: "High fructose corn syrup" gets its name by comparison to "regular" corn syrup, which is in fact mostly glucose.)

And while we're on the subject of HFCS, I'll give my standard rant... That there's never been any "hard" evidence that fructose in and of itself is "bad for you" in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, I know about the studies "correlating" the rise of obesity to increased consumption of HFCS, but my response to those can be summed up as: "spare me"... On the macro level, one could correlate also the rise in obesity to climate change, the fall of the Soviet Union, or for that matter (considering I'm posting this on a tech forum) Intel x86 CPUs breaking the 640K RAM barrier....:colbert:

/soapbox
 
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Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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The jury's definitely still out on that, but before you even get to what happens to fructose in our bodies, you have to consider how much fructose you're consuming in the first place. And since very few people consume significant amounts of pure glucose, I assume you're referring mostly to the "dreaded" HFCS, and are comparing it to "regular/ordinary sugar"? Well, the latter is sucrose, and sucrose is exactly 50% glucose and 50% fructose and while there are different formulations of HFCS, they're all close enough to 50-50 for any difference in fructose content to be irrelevant. (NB: "High fructose corn syrup" gets its name by comparison to "regular" corn syrup, which is in fact mostly glucose.)

And while we're on the subject of HFCS, I'll give my standard rant... That there's never been any "hard" evidence that fructose in and of itself is "bad for you" in any way, shape, or form. Yeah, I know about the studies "correlating" the rise of obesity to increased consumption of HFCS, but my response to those can be summed up as: "spare me"... On the macro level, one could correlate also the rise in obesity to climate change, the fall of the Soviet Union, or for that matter (considering I'm posting this on a tech forum) Intel x86 CPUs breaking the 640K RAM barrier....:colbert:/soapbox

Technically, sugar is bad. Causes a host of inflammation-related issues. In moderation...not so bad. I went through a phase where I didn't consume sugar for awhile. I also went through a phase where I was allergic to everything so I couldn't eat anything for awhile. These days, I cook & bake with corn syrup on a semi-regular basis. Meh. I have dessert nearly every single day, but I also eat mostly whole foods these days, so I feel like it kind of balances out. imo artificial & natural flavorings & dyes cause more problems than anything.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
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Over TG holiday I stayed with my nephew. He explained to the family that starting in September he started a program in which he cut way down on his carbohydrate intake. He said he was eating "as much protein as I like." He'd installed gym equipment in his house and was using it. He'd lost a fair amount of weight and put on substantial muscle in those 3 months. He said he was feeling a lot better, had a lot more energy, wasn't experiencing the lack of energy he used to experience after eating high-carb meals. He obviously cut out most of the pasta, bread, pizza, high-carb dessert type offerings he often encounters in his life. That took some discipline but he did it.

It was inspiring and I've decided to try to emulate this. I have been going to the gym every other day for years, but my carb intake is, I figure, excessive. I'm not throwing out the carbs in my cabinets and refrigerator, but I have resolved to not buy a lot of that stuff in the future and gradually adjust my diet to reduce carbohydrate consumption. I think this should make it a lot easier to control my weight. I'm not fat but I'd like to fit in some of my pants that I can't now (I'll put it that way)! I kind of think that substantially increasing my protein intake might be beneficial. Not sure about that, though.

- - - -
Beware the barrenness of a busy life. - Socrates
 
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blackdogdeek

Lifer
Mar 14, 2003
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Over TG holiday I stayed with my nephew. He explained to the family that starting in September he started a program in which he cut way down on his carbohydrate intake. He said he was eating "as much protein as I like." He'd installed gym equipment in his house and was using it. He'd lost a fair amount of weight and put on substantial muscle in those 3 months. He said he was feeling a lot better, had a lot more energy, wasn't experiencing the lack of energy he used to experience after eating high-carb meals. He obviously cut out most of the pasta, bread, pizza, high-carb dessert type offerings he often encounters in his life. That took some discipline but he did it.

It was inspiring and I've decided to try to emulate this. I have been going to the gym every other day for years, but my carb intake is, I figure, excessive. I'm not throwing out the carbs in my cabinets and refrigerator, but I have resolved to not buy a lot of that stuff in the future and gradually adjust my diet to reduce carbohydrate consumption. I think this should make it a lot easier to control my weight. I'm not fat but I'd like to fit in some of my pants that I can't now (I'll put it that way)! I kind of think that substantially increasing my protein intake might be beneficial. Not sure about that, though.

- - - -
Beware the barrenness of a busy life. - Socrates

Have you read the fat-loss sticky?
 

mike8675309

Senior member
Jul 17, 2013
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Technically, added sugar is bad. Causes a host of inflammation-related issues. In moderation...not so bad.

Fixed that for you, we wouldn't want people to stop eating whole fruits now would we?
A good summary of the various evidence related to health risks of excess sugar.
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-added-sugar-is-too-much/

And here a look at why added sugar is a problem, but fructose from whole fruits is just fine.
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/if-fructose-is-bad-what-about-fruit/
 
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mike8675309

Senior member
Jul 17, 2013
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Calories in vs calories burned is still the most important thing.

(see the Twinkie diet for an example

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/)

I think the most important factor about all successful diets is that they create artificial limits on eating habits, and limit incoming calories one way or another.

If simply trying to lose weight is your goal. A diet based on crack or heroin will really pull the pounds off.

Generally the goal is not to just loose weight, but to do it in a healthy and sustainable way. That guy losing weight eating twinkies will simply go back to the original weight if he doesn't change how he was eating prior to the twinkies.