Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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I'm a Crossfitter and have heard that I should be getting my calories as follows:

40% Carbs 30% Fats 30% Protein.

My question is: how do you calculate what counts towards what?

Easy example a dozen eggs:

           Calories   Fat    Carbs    Protein
12 Egg       720       60      6        72

How many of the 720 calories count as "Fat" calories?

720 * ( 60/(60+6+72) ) = ~313?

Follow up question (may repost): How the hell do you get 40% of your calories from veggies? Assuming you don't want to go into the realm of grains, 40% seems steep.

Thanks guys!

flag	asked May 31 at 20:45 SR 13●3

	Re: getting 40% of your cals from carbs - this would probably call for some sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, squashes, and/or fruit. You'll have to experiment a little to find out which source works best for you. I love some spaghetti squash with meatballs and a baked potato, post work out. – raney May 31 at 21:28
	60 grams of fat. Fat has 9 calories per gram. 9X60 = 540 calories from the fat in your eggs. – ben61820 May 31 at 23:12

borofergie · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-31 21:16:38Z UTC

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1g of fat contains 9kcal of energy
1g of protein contains 4kcal of energy
1g of carb contains 4kcal of energy

So if you have 60g of fat, 72g of protein and 6g of carb, the total energy is: 60*9+6*4+72*4= 852kcal *

Fat % = 60*9/852 = 63%
Protein % = 72*4/852 = 34%
Carb % = 6*4/852 = 3%

*Where the 720kcal comes from is a bit of a mystery. Are you sure you wrote the numbers down correctly?

You can easily get 40% of energy from carbs by eating starchy vegetables such as potatoes and sweet potatoes and nuts.

answered May 31 at 21:16

borofergie
11.5k●1●5●28

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I think this pretty much covers it. In response to the 720: I've noticed a lot of packaging is rounded to some extent, and sometimes just off by an amount that I can't explain. Other possibilities are that they rounded up on some of the macros, maybe it has 5.5g of protein and 4.5g of fat per egg - and the total caloric mass is accurate but the breakdown is rounded. Labeling requirements aren't particularly scientific in nature. – raney May 31 at 21:24

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Upvoted for answering the question and not asking ridiculous questions like "who told you those ratios are correct and why do you listen to them?" – Joy May 31 at 21:45

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Genius! Thanks. I probably grabbed the information from a two different sources. – SR May 31 at 22:10

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The alternative is just to whack it into cron-o-meter and let it do the math it says: 60% Fat, 38% Protein, 2% Carb and (best of all) 858kcal ! imm.io/r9ih – borofergie May 31 at 22:27

Calculating Calories (bum bum bum)

1 Answer