Optimal Macronutrient Intakes

[NU_nutrition_TS]

^Excellent summary.

[MiniHulk]

^An excellent summary of a previous excellent summary

[jtwigg]

So HTTK, when dieting, would you look to remove carbs first, fats, or both? Would you increase protein to compensate at all, or do you think it is unneccessary?

[hailtotheking]

I have updated my orignal protein post earlier in this thread AGAIN Added a recommendation for vegetarians

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So HTTK, when dieting, would you look to remove carbs first, fats, or both? Would you increase protein to compensate at all, or do you think it is unneccessary?

It depends on what activity / lifestyle you have, how lean you already are, and how carb tolerant you are. All 3 are interrelated.

For example, a bloke who trains 4 days a week with some weights and cardio, and is only 10% bodyfat, is likley to have decent carb tolerance and insulin sensitivity. In his case i would maybe drop the carbs AND fat a bit simultaneously (splitting the calorie deficit between them, which relatively speaking more actual amount of fat would be dropped than carbs because fat has a higher caloric value), but i probably wouldnt go less than 150g carbs a day, and i wouldnt drop fat below 30g a day.

However, a fat office worker who doesnt do much structured exercise at all is likely to have poor insulin sensitivity and carb tolerance, and doesn't really need alot of carbs, i would possibly drop carbs back to sub 100g a day, and possibly lower fat itnake a bit as well (depending upon what their diet already looks like) and concentrate on cleaning up the diet with getting the carbs and fats from paleo-type foods that are typically quite filling due to high fibre and water content. Obviously, with this type of person the overall calorie deficit is likley to be larger as well because the risk of loss of lean mass is not as big a concern.

In both cases, if the defect was more than 30% i would probably boost protein intake a bit along the lines i previously mentioned, based on lean mass