Thread: Is my calories low enough?

Originally Posted by feinburgrl

I'm 5'9 and about 167 pounds. I hit the gym with weights about 4 days a week and do some type of cardio everyday. My goal is to gain muscle and still lose weight. My BF% is between 11 - 12%. My daily calorie intake is about 2200. I would like to know if I should it's low enough to lose body fat or I should drop it even lower? I have done a 1500 calorie diet before but I feel the need to lose 10 pounds really quit. When I was doing 1500 calorie I was about 185 at the time.

I remember reading an article on the web about a week ago. I says that people who ate 500 calorie deficit lost more muscle along with fat than people who ate 300 calorie deficit. Later group of people lost more fat and maintained more lean mass. I will post the link of it if I find it again.

you would have to learn your maitnance calorie level before formulating an answer to how many calories you need to cut...

i think a GENERIC model is 10-13 cals per lb of BODY weight is cutting and 13-15 for maintaining and 15+ for gaining... try that... also you need to get your macros right... but there are others here that would most definately be of better help with that than I i would be.

as Built had to write to me a few times "post your macros, or we can not help you"

You're not gonna have much luck losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time unless you are a beginner or are on gear.

I am still looking for that link.

This is from a book titled ' Power Eating' by Susan Kleiner
page 86- 87

Antifat Diet Strategies
The old-fashioned way of figuring out how many calories you should eat to lose weight is to just chop off 500 to 1,000 calories from your current deit. One pound (.5 kilogram) of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. According to the laws of the thermodynamics, if you feed yourself 500 calories fewer than you need each day for seven days, theoretically you should lose 1 pound (.5 kilogram) at the end of the week. Double that amount and you should lose 2 pounds ( 1 kilogram). But dietitians have known for years that it never works this way, and this strategy becomes more frustrating as the weeks of dieting wear on.
At Georgia State University, Dr. Dan Benardot wondered why these seemingly clear laws of physics don't hold true within the human body. His research has shown that once food enters the biological system of the body, there are more variables at work than the simple number of calories that are given off by a pound of fat when measured directly in a science lab. The human body is a living organism, and the drive for survival allows the rules of the system to change based on thousands of years of adaptation to the environment. Dr. Bernardot tested two groups of female gymnasts and runners: One group ate a diet of 500 fewer calories than they needed to maintain their weight each day, and the other group ate 300 fewer calories. What he found was astounding: The group that ate 300 fewer calories had a lower percentage of body fat than the group that actually ate less food. His theory is that when too few calories are eaten, resting energy expenditure (REE) slows down to meet the energy available to the body.
The ability of the body to slow metabolic rate to meet available energy has long been understood by scientists. Called starvation adaptation, it is induced in extreme circumstances of famine to allow the body to survive far longer than would be predicted based on normal metabolic rate of energy use. Dr. Bernardot is proposing for the first time than even under mild states of energy deficit, energy use slows down. There is no benefit to eating far fewer calories than your body needs. In fact, he calls a 300-calorie deficit the ideal metabolic window for women to lose the most amount of fat in the shortest amount of time.
So forget low-calorie dieting. When you reduce your caloric intake by 300 calories (women) or 400 calories (men), you can keep your metabolic rate high enough to continue to burn fat at a good clip. Additionally, you want to have enough energy to perform at peak levels both physically and mentally. Here's how to eat to give youself the best chance at losing fat and saving muscle.

Originally Posted by feinburgrl

I'm 5'9 and about 167 pounds. I hit the gym with weights about 4 days a week and do some type of cardio everyday. My goal is to gain muscle and still lose weight. My BF% is between 11 - 12%. My daily calorie intake is about 2200. I would like to know if I should it's low enough to lose body fat or I should drop it even lower? I have done a 1500 calorie diet before but I feel the need to lose 10 pounds really quit. When I was doing 1500 calorie I was about 185 at the time.

you take 12 times your bw and thats your daily calories to lose 2 lbs a week (including 4 gym sessions).

keep adjusting every month since youll be losing 8lbs monthly. you wont lose any muscle at this modest ammt.

gaining while trying to lose fat is kinda hard to do. you might pull off a couple lbs gain in mass.

anyhow trust me, this will work.

I decided to start bulking.