Nutritional Math for 40%, 30%, 20% Diet

[James23]

Can someone help me here?

Let's say you want a 40%, 30%, 20% (P, C, F) diet. Does that mean you want 40% of the GRAMS of food you eat to come from protien or 40% of the CALORIES you eat to come from protien?

For example, let's say you need a 2300 calorie per day diet. You spit it across 6 meals for 385 calories per meal, and you already know you want 26-30g of protien per meal:

We know that 1g of PROTIEN = 4 cal.; CARB = 4 cal.; FAT = 9 cal.

If you need 26g of protien, and that's supposed to be 40% of your meal -- that means that the total meal size would have to be 65g of food. (65g x .40 = 26g)

By just doing the rest of the math, you come up with the following table:

Per meal:
Calories: 385 needed
Protien: 26g = 100 calories
Carbo: 20g = 80 calories
Fat: 13g = 117 calories
Total: 297 calories

My point is -- if you already know your protien requirement, and your calorie requirement, it seems impossible to make meals match a 40, 30, 20 ratio if your are using GRAMS of protien, carbs, and fat for the ratio. You simply can't make the caloric requirement work!

What am I doing wrong here?

[zxcv]

40 + 30 + 20 = 90, you need it to equal to 100%, the percentages is based on calories.
say its 40/30/30
2300 calories into 6 meals =

385 cals per meal
Protein = 38g
carbs= 29g
fats = 13g

BTW why is your calories so low? are you dieting?

[James23]

Thanks!

I'm trying to lose fat, and hopefully maintain most of my muscle mass -- which is quite low at this point.