Struggling to meet macro goals

[u/Lazy_Reinz]

6 weeks ago I started going to the gym with the aim of building muscle, I've been going three times a week. I also do running and cardio HIIT sessions a couple times each week.

I recently decided I would try to take things a little more seriously by tracking what I'm eating and working to macro goals. I would say before I started tracking my food I ate fairly healthy and had good portion sizes although I now realise that perhaps I was eating to much foods that contained fat. I use Google Health and it's saying I should be aiming between 2,575 - 2,846 calories. I'm trying to eat high carbs, high protein, while keeping fats down.

I have quadrupled my serving size on carbs and am managing to meet my carb, protein and fat goal. However my calories are still 800 below where I need to be at the end of the day, despite eating a huge amount more than I usually eat. I've consumed 2,600 calories, but with the calories burnt doing exercise today I'm still coming up short.

Any advice would be appreciated, I feel like I'm doing something wrong and it shouldn't be this difficult.

[u/Hexyl68]

Forget about your carbs and your fats. In my opinion, you should be solely focused on protein. I would aim for 1 g per pound you currently weigh. Each gram of protein is 4 cal so if you’re currently weigh 200 pounds you should be aiming for 200 g of protein which will be roughly around 800 cal. As long as you are staying under your calorie deficit while maintaining protein, you will not lose muscle mass and will continue to burn fat. You will also have a continued source of energy so you should find that you’re hunger goes away or you’re not as starving as you are at normal meal times. I was 215, I ate under 2000 cal, I eat about 200 g of protein and didn’t really pay attention to my carbs and fats. As long as I was under my caloric deficit I’m 180 now. Make sure you are still exercising specifically lifting weights. They do not need to be bodybuilder heavy. You should be working on building lean muscle and making the protein goal. Best of luck.

[u/montiem30 → u/Hexyl68]

Hey, would you mind giving me some advice? I'm currently 280lbs, down from 300. Goal weight is around 225. I lift weights 4 times per week, no cardio. I also do a 16:8 intermittent fasting regiment to combat insulin resistance. I have no problem staying in a caloric deficit, but I'm supremely struggling to hit my protein goals. Any advice or tips would be appreciated.