Calories question?

sharky86

Hey Folks,

I have a quick questions regarding cal's. I've been doing fairly ok adding weight and muscle for the last while but now I'm thinking that I want to concentrate on losing BF. Problem is I am lost regarding how many cal I need to for my size. I have tried two different ways of working these out and got two different answers can anyone lend a brother a hand?

method 1) (taken from stickies)

I am male aged 24 at 85kg ~ 86kg
(85*15.3)+679 = 1979.5= RMR

RMR *1.4 = 2771.3

I haven't included any excerise I do here so was going to take this as my maintance figure and redude this by about 500/600cal per day and keep the same training going without looking for any strenght gains.

Method 2) Taken from http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/start-diet.html

Calories should be set at between .7 and 1.0 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass depending on your activity level. The .7 figure is for moderate daily workout loads and the 1.0 figure is for the hardcore athlete.

I am approx 16% BF so that means I have approx 157 pounds of lean body mass.

Protein/Card/Fat split of 30/40/30.
I worked this out as 110 grams of protein, 146 grams of cards and 110 grams of fat.

I googled somewhere that one gram of protein is 4 cal, 1g of carb is 4cal and 1g of fat is 9 cal.

This would leave me at a split of 440cals of protein, 584cal of carbs and 990cal of fat. Total is 2014 cals per day.

Which method is correct? if I was to reduce the 2nd method by 500 cal per day I'm thinking that surely 1500 cals a day would not be enough for most males even on a cut? Any advise would be of great help

EileenG

Let's keep it simple. If you have some idea of your bodyfat, aim for about 14 cals per pound of lean mass. That is normally a good working level for someone who has an office job but kicks ass in the gym three or four times a week. That level should also allow for an occasional refeed/cheat meal, so you can still have a life.

As for the distribution of the calories, make sure you have enough protein (1g of protein per pound of lean is minimum), an adequate amount of fats (eggs, oily fish, fresh meat, nuts, olive oil, avocado etc) and your carbs should be from veggies, fruit and a smaller amount of wholegrains. Try to limit or avoid sugar and processed carbs.

sharky86

Now that sounds much better cheers Eileen