Ashley,
When attemptingto lose weight there is one simple thought to keep in mind. 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat. Calories or "energy" is just that... energy. If you consume less than you burn, eventually you'll lose weight. If you consume more than you burn, you'll gain weight. This is especially true and easier to realize the more weight you have to lose.

No matter what the balance of nutrients (theoretically) this is true. too many calories in whole grains, proteins and good fats will make you gain weight! But here's the issue. Proper nutrient balance can be important in that an imbalance will have an adverse effect on the body and slow the metabolism down or cause it to be less efficient a fuel burner. Therefore, while you thought that you should be burning 1400 calories/day... you were actually only burning 1000 because you jacked up your body by following all these crazy diets that cut out nutrients. That's 400 excess calories/day (You can see where this is headed).

There have been some good suggestions here about how to split up your carbs, Proteins and fats. From my experience with clients that are attempting to lose weight I have found that 45-50% carbs, 40% Protein and 10-15% good fats works well as long as the person is doing some type of resistance training.

Special Note: In my opinion, one of the biggest misses with those on a weight loss journey is that they don't take a multi-vitamin. It is very difficult to get the vitamins and minerals that you need from our foods today. Even when attempting to eat mainly wholefoods or raw foods... they just don't have the nutrients in them that they used to. GET A GOOD MULTI and take it faithfully.

Coach Scott
Personal Trainer, Author and Motivational Speaker
http://www.phitcoach.com
http://www.phitwerks.com

Hello Ashley, I think you have the number of fat and protein mixed-up. General rule of thumb is 50% from carbs, 30% from protein, and 20% from fat. Of course that will vary depending on the person, the virtual dietitian program that FitCapital will release later this year will be able to give you a much better personalized plan. In the mean time, be careful that the fat you consume have very little to no saturated fat. Also, ensure that most of the carbs come from fiber and complex carbs instead of sugar.

Now, that you have the general percentages in mind, let's try to answer your question about the number of grams to be consumed. 1 gram of fat has 9 calories, 1 gram of protein has 4 calories, and one gram of carb also has 4 calories. If you don't want to do all the math yourself, I suggest to simply enter all you eat in the FitCapital calorie counter (www.FitCapital.com/calorie_counter) and it will tell you exactly how many calories every has, how many total calories you consumed, and give you a graph of your carb/protein/fat percentages. You can also enter all the exercises that you did and it will let you know your total caloric deficit (also called "negative energy balance"). Every time this negative energy balance reaches -3500 calories, it means that you've lost 1 pound of fat -- the rest of the pounds lost are usually from water weight or muscle mass, which is not advisable so make sure to include weight training in your program to keep your metabolism high.

I hope this helps!
Pascal