Training & Nutrition - dietary guidelines?

I'm working the graveyard shift this week, so I have a little extra time to read things like dietary guidelines and diets. I've looked back on this subforum, plus another forum or two, plus did a search trying to find just the basic guidelines for things like protein, fat, carbs, etc. Every conceivable group has big differences in what is "right" Some are even militant about them being the only ones who are right. I know this is a much debated subject (I read way back even in this forum), but does anyone have a "middle of the road" base for calculating these:

-Protein
-Fat
-Carbohydrate

There does seem to be some consensus that we probably need more protein than was thought in the past, and I try to go heavy on the protein myself, especially after a hard workout. But I even read one article (I think it was some vegan type thing) where they compared our diets to that of a horse, using the argument that horses are strictly vegetarian and race horses are extremely musclular. Makes sense to me. Then I read another that also made sense, but it contradicted the horse food strategy, and wants me to eat steaks, eggs, cheese, butter, even pork rinds, then go out and run a marathon and have the heart of a healthy 20 year old :rolleyes:

Anyway, somebody please clear this up for me. I think I'll go whip up some bacon and eggs, all I've done so far is make myself hungry...

You may try going to fitday.com. I use this program and have input all my food intake, weight and goals. It will assist you with a diet and if you track it everyday it is a great program. It's a pain to input the data everyday but if your insane about it like I am it works well.

yeah, the best nutrition plan for you is a "healthy" one that you can maintain in the long-term. whether you log every calorie and macronutrient and hold to the 40-30-30 or eat a more traditional endurance diet with more carbs, or just eat "clean", its a matter of finding what foods make you feel good, and finding eating habits that you can keep up. in general i would suggest setting goals that span a week or a month at first that target something in your diet you dont like. one of my weaknesses was soda, so i decided to go a month without drinking sodas. if you find yourself eating too much fast food, set a goal to only eat it once a week, or once a month or whatever works. id proceed like this until you find yourself eating in a mostly clean manner (not alot of processed foods, esp sugars and fats, not alot of fried foods, a good mix of protein, fats and carbs with as much fresh and whole food as possible) then i would look more closely at what you are eating on a day to day basis and relate to how you feel that day, how your workouts/races/whatevers go, and then further modify what you eat based on patterns you find. i know it sounds like i takes a long time (and it will) but finding out what works for your tastes, fitness, and performance goals will be much more rewarding than trying to fit yourself into a rigid-theory diet.

and as far as comparing humans to racehorses, i feel like its a correlation that cannot be made, considering that our digestive systems are different and process different foods in different ways with different efficiencies, and that humans have more than the sole purpose of running fast for a year or two of their lives.

kiingfinny makes a very good point each meal should sustain you for several hours of robust energy until your next meal without cravings,swings in energy levels etc. or your body is telling you something is off.I would suggest starting out with a balanced diet of proteins/whole grains/vegies(&/or fruits)/and healthy fats.For specific foods look at a weight loss thread TVBuster started about a month or so ago where Koffee and I both recommended very similar foods in these categories.You will want to adjust the complex carb level for your activity level to aviod storage as fat.And again like was said take small steps to get to the energy sustaining diet if large changes are necessary.

Thanks for the replies.

I think I could come up with my own plan, kind of a "custom for me plan". I did read a post on here that some dietician made that suggested eating higher carb meals before your more active times of the day, then moving more toward protein towards the end of your day. This made alot of sense to me. My problem is that I work shift work on a rotating schedule and it's quite a challenge sometimes to keep everything balanced.

It would be of a great help to me if someone could post the calories in:

-A gram of fat, a gram of protein and in a gram of carbs. I could then come up with a plan for every shift that I work.

Protein and carbs are 4calories/gram while fats are 9 calories /gram.So while it is important to adjust the fats accordingly you don't want to avoid them as much as to balance them which usually means adding more omega3's(fish oil,walnuts,flax) and monounsaturateds(olive oil,nuts) relative to omega6's(vegitable oils) and saturateds(non grassfed animal fat).

Here is what I'm doing:

53% of my calories are from protein.

37% of my calories come from Carbs (mostly complex)

10% from fat.

If you know your caloric needs you can figure out how many grams of each you need daily.

Hope this helps,

ehenz