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Calorie Confusion

I am still so confused with my maintenance calories and tdee.

Pabs
Pabs g Pablo Sanchez
6 Post(s)
6 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: January 1, 2018
Posted

Hello, my name is Pablo. I am looking to get really lean and build some muscle either during or after the leaning down process. 

Stats: 

Gender: Male

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 180lbs

Age: 28

Work Out Days Per Week: 4(I burn about 400-600 calories during my 50-60min workouts)

When I punch this in to the calculator on the meal plan page it gives me the following results:

BMR At Rest: 1898

BMR In Motion: 2942

I know in Scott's Meal Plan video he says to add them up and devide by 2 to get your maintenance which would leave me at 2420cals per day.

My confusion is that when I punch numbers in to the Macro section of the calculator at 18%bf, 1g of protein, .35g of fat and for "Rapid Fat Loss" it tells me I need to eat 2443cals which is above my maintenance by 23 calories.

Macros From Calculator:

Protein: 148

Fat:52

Carbs: 346

 

By the way, I use a polar heart rate sensor and app to track my calories burned. I know it isn't 100% accurate but it is indeed the most accurate you can get.

 

Here are my questions:

1) Is this what I should eat everyday to stay the same? If I wanted to lose fat can I simply lower my cals per day to 2100(320cal deficit)?

 

2) On the days I work out, should I be eating more? If I burn 600 calories during my workout should I eat some of that back?

 

3) On the days I don't work out should I be eating less?

 

Thanks so much for you help guys. My final goal is to be around 9-11% body fat and build some really nice lean muscle. I would say right now I am between 15-20% body fat. I am pretty thin and dont have to flex to hard at all to see abs but if I relax I still have a nice little tummy showing which looks even worse because of the way I stand with my lower back arched forward so much. 

Scott_Herman
Scott_Herman a Scott Herman
7.1K Post(s)
7.1K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: August 8, 2008
Posted
Posted By: Pabs

Hello, my name is Pablo. I am looking to get really lean and build some muscle either during or after the leaning down process. 

Stats: 

Gender: Male

Height: 5'11"

Weight: 180lbs

Age: 28

Work Out Days Per Week: 4(I burn about 400-600 calories during my 50-60min workouts)

When I punch this in to the calculator on the meal plan page it gives me the following results:

BMR At Rest: 1898

BMR In Motion: 2942

I know in Scott's Meal Plan video he says to add them up and devide by 2 to get your maintenance which would leave me at 2420cals per day.

My confusion is that when I punch numbers in to the Macro section of the calculator at 18%bf, 1g of protein, .35g of fat and for "Rapid Fat Loss" it tells me I need to eat 2443cals which is above my maintenance by 23 calories.

Macros From Calculator:

Protein: 148

Fat:52

Carbs: 346

 

By the way, I use a polar heart rate sensor and app to track my calories burned. I know it isn't 100% accurate but it is indeed the most accurate you can get.

 

Here are my questions:

1) Is this what I should eat everyday to stay the same? If I wanted to lose fat can I simply lower my cals per day to 2100(320cal deficit)?

 

2) On the days I work out, should I be eating more? If I burn 600 calories during my workout should I eat some of that back?

 

3) On the days I don't work out should I be eating less?

 

Thanks so much for you help guys. My final goal is to be around 9-11% body fat and build some really nice lean muscle. I would say right now I am between 15-20% body fat. I am pretty thin and dont have to flex to hard at all to see abs but if I relax I still have a nice little tummy showing which looks even worse because of the way I stand with my lower back arched forward so much. 

Hey Pablo.

 

For starters, I'd say go for the numbers you're getting from the site. 2400 calories is a pretty good starting point to cut from. Then if it turns out that you're not losing weight there, you just slowly reduce the calories until you get to the point where you can consistently drop weight. I think we just need to adjust the macros a little bit.

 

1) If you want to stay at the same weight then you would need to eat at maintenance level. That would probably be around 2800-2900 calories judging by the calculator (remember this is just a starting point). If you want to lose fat, then 2400-2600 is probably your ideal area in order to not lose weight too fast, and focus more on fat loss than muscle loss. Only cut back further than that if you have to because you stop losing weight.

 

2) On days you workout, that's when you're burning about 2900 calories - so you still want to be in a deficit on those days, and eating around 2400 calories should have you in that deficit.

 

3) Maybe cut the calories back a little bit.. but only by 100-200 probably. The main thing here would be carb manipulation.. so just reduce carbs to reduce calories, but keep the other macros the same.

 

So for your macros on workout days, I'd suggest something like this...

 

Protein: 225g (900 Calories) *1.5g per pound of lean body weight

Carbs: 200g (800 Calories)

Fat: 85g (765 Calories) *0.55g per pound of lean body weight

 

Total Calories = 2465

 

I adjust your protein and fat intake so that you can lower the carbs, which is typically what you want with cutting. Then on your off days, you could drop carbs to 150g to cut back 200 calories.

 

Thoughts?

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