Weight-Loss Is this daily food plan enough for my goals?

[krissy89]

I really, really tried going for the muscle-building diet ratio of 40-40-20 (40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat), but I just can't seem to fit that much high-protein foods into my food budget. I was wondering if I would still be successful with a 40-30-30 diet plan, since that's what I was able to construct. I Googled it, and apparently this ratio is very popular and has a high success rate. Since I don't want to bulk up really huge or anything (just become nice and defined with six-pack abs), I was thinking that this would work just as well, as long as I don't stray...? I hope so. This is what I came up with:

Of course, I will be varying things without changing any of the numbers, such as the flavor of yogurt, when I eat something, etc.

EDIT: I noticed that the information in the second row for the chicken and the apple were somehow switched, so please ignore that. The chicken is the one with 110 calories, and the apple with 80.

 

[jeffisbig]

Whats your height/weight? 1435 calories seems aweful low for building muscle.
I assume you are on the fat loss side? At best you will be able to maintain your muscle mass hwile losing fat. To get defined abs you really need a low body fat percentage, so losing the fat is the best method.

It looks like your goal is 100g protein a day. I've read that you should eat 1-1.5 g protein per pound of lean body mass to maintain muscle while losing fat.

There are calculators that tell you your LBM (lean body mass). If you know all this already, excuse me. The wording of your question confuzzled me since you say

I really, really tried going for the muscle-building diet ratio of 40-40-20 (40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat), but I just can't seem to fit that much high-protein foods into my food budget. I was wondering if I would still be successful with a 40-30-30 diet plan, since that's what I was able to construct

Building muscle mass while in a caloric deficit is never guarenteed if its possible for you at all. If you are down in weight and just looking to bulk, just ignore me. I haven't read up too much on that yet as I've got atleast till next september/october where I will be dieting.

 

[krissy89]

Thanks for your response!! No, I never knew about LBM, so I'm glad that you brought that up. ^_^

I'm 5'4'' and weigh about 140 lbs (or so my scale says, but I'm pretty sure that, since it's cheap, it's actually a few pounds off; I think that I actually weigh around 143-144). My bone structure is medium-large (with bone density of 1.5, though I don't know if that's important; I just got it measured at a free health fair and so I might as well throw it in here, if it can help), and I am naturally muscular. I think that I am carrying about 8-10 pounds of fat that I want to lose. I haven't had my BMI measured elctronically too recently, but I am positive that it would've gone down just a little bit since the last time that I had it measured since I hadn't been exercising hardly at all or eating right. At the time, though, it was I think 26.1. The site that I used to calculate my LBM estimates it to now be 24.4, and it would seem like that would be about right, since I'm about 6-9 lbs less from the time that I last had it measured.

In any case, I'm having a hard time coming up with enough calories without eating more carb-packed foods. I can't afford to eat chicken three or four times a day (or any other meat), and I don't want my cholesterol shooting up too high. Tuna fish is the only fish that I like, and it's not good to eat that every day because of the mercury levels. I could probably squeeze in another yogurt...maybe another block of cheese... Those would add another 100-200 calories, while not being super high in carbs.

My LBM is approx. 101 lbs, so I guess that eating 100 g. of protein daily is good? It also said that my current BMR is 1463. Is my diet too low, then, since I want to lose weight? If you want more info on my weightloss progress, you can check out my weightloss diary here:

http://weight-loss.fitness.com/before-after-between/26135-halfway-there-pics.html