The recent popularity of a low-carbohydrate diet has generated great interest in the ratio of carbohydrates, protein and fat in the diet to facilitate weight control.
Counting the calories you eat is helpful, but keeping track of where these calories occur can give you one more handle on your diet.
If you are trying to lose weight, maintain a healthy weight or gain weight, then the relative amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat may be important. Proteins, carbohydrates and fats are called macronutrients. A nutrition program can help calculate the ratio of macronutrients in your diet.
A recent study at the University of Washington School of Medicine found that a high protein diet reduces hunger more than a low protein diet, and helps achieve weight loss in a group of 19 healthy adults. In this study, carbohydrate intake was the same with 50% of the total calories in each diet, and protein was 15% or 30% of the total calories. A reminder of the total number of calories in each diet was set fat.
Thus, the ratio of macronutrients in the diet was as follows:
- High protein diet: 30% calories from protein, 50% from carbohydrates and 20% from fat.
- Lower protein diet: 15% of calories from protein, 50% of carbohydrates and 35% of fat.
Subjects were allowed to eat as much as they wanted from a high protein diet. They decided to eat about 400 fewer calories than a 15% protein diet, and they lost an average of 11 pounds in 12 weeks.
Some people may want to try a similar diet. There is considerable debate among experts about the best ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fat. It's nice that you can try diets with different levels of macronutrients for yourself. You can see if one diet or the other helps to achieve weight goals. You can see if you feel better on one diet or another.
Choosing foods and calculating manual calories can take a lot of time. Power software can make things easier. With nutrition software, you can choose the foods you usually eat and adjust the size of the portions of the foods in different food groups to get nutrition with the desired macro-element coefficients.
Most nutrition software programs have a database of thousands of products. You can select the foods you eat with the mouse, and then adjust the serving size. You can enter all the foods that you will eat in food. The software will calculate the total number of calories, as well as the amount of protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals.
Food labels now report the percentage of daily nutrients contained in a single serving. Daily guidelines are recommended by the FDA for most nutrients. Most daily values are based on the earlier Recommended Daily Discounts or RDA. Some nutrition programs will also calculate the percentage of the daily nutrient values in the diet you eat.
A good nutrition program will allow you to record the food you eat, and then report on the nutritional value of these dishes for any period of time you choose.
