Hello everyone. I’m just starting the BSD and I’m wondering what is the percentage of Fat?Protein?Carbs that I should be striving for? Is it 30%/20%/50%? Thanks!

Welcome lisaj – I’ve never got to grips with the macros, but have successfully lost 3st (42lb) and have maintained for a year. The carbs should very much be the smallest percentage of your intake and to be honest, if you push the carbs down and include good fats to make up around 40% of you calories (think that is what I’ve seen posted before) you should do fine. Undoubtedly others who are better informed on the macros will respond, but really it’s not absolutely necessary to bog yourself down in these, especially as you begin, because the BSD is quite a steep learning curve anyway and given one plenty to get to grips with, just getting into the basic diet.

You could try using the search box at the top right of the page, to look for previous posts on macros, which might give you the answers you are seeking.

Wishing you all possible success and hope to see you out and about on the forum, which is a great resource, full of wisdom, knowledge, experience and support.

Hi Lisaj,
I would recommend not focusing on percentages but on grams of each nutrient. – I would suggest watching one of the podcasts by Dr Bikman that I provided a link to on the Take a look at this thread a few months ago. – It explains how insulin controls if your body is burning the fuel eaten or accessing your fat stores. – So it explains the importance of the levels of carbs you are eating. – The best level of carbs depends on how long you have been overweight, and if you have developed resistance to insulin. While the BSD doesn’t specify levels of carbs, other experts recommend a daily target of less than 50g, and some people have to drop down to the 20g level to consistently loose weight.
If you eat excess protein, it has the same effect on insulin levels as carbs. So the idea is work out a limit of grams of protein based on your target weight. – Different experts promote formulas ranging from 0.6 to 0.8 grams per kilo of target weight.
The remainder of your diet should be made up of healthy fats.

If you work this out in percentages for the 800 cals per day period, the problem is that the percentages will change after that period. You still need to keep the carbs down to keep insulin down, the protein levels will continue to be based on your target weight, and extra cals should be coming from adding more healthy fat to your diet.

Hi, lisaj! Welcome to the community 🙂 I wholeheartedly agree with Sunny and JGwen’s comments. The
3 of us can be considered experienced BSDers, as we’ve been living this lifestyle for quite awhile. I found
that trying to use %’s of macros too confusing also, so I just set my protein and carb grams to 50 and 20.
Within the parameters of 800 calories, the healthy fats made up the rest! MMosley isn’t specific about
grams of these 2 macronutrients, but many of us have researched other experts…the body of knowledge
on how low the carbs need to go varies, depending on how insulin resistant you may be. Accepted advice
is that carbs need to be under 50g, but many of us found that for consistent weight loss to occur,
sometimes we must go lower than that. It’s a good starting point, however! If the dreaded “plateau”
occurs, than going lower with the carbs seems to be the answer. We all have different experiences,
so voice any concerns or problems you might be having, and chances are we’ve all been there at one
time or another 🙂 Shout out if you need us, and we’ll come running. Very best to you. This way of
eating transforms lives!

Allie