How many calories do you really need?

[THE BEAST]

I just got through reading Massive Eating by John Berardi anyone trying to gain weight shoulld read this i was way off on my cal. needs i need alot more than i thought i think some people take a random calorie number and hope it works just because its alot of food i learned i was burning atleast 4500 a day and untill you figure out how many cals. your using youll never know how many you really need your body uses so many cals. while your sleeping, so many just to survive, so many to go to work and walk around all day of course the cals. you burn in the gym, your body also uses so many cals. to digest food, stress plays a big role on how much you burn you see there are things most of us i dont think take into consideration. Personally i realized ive gotta cut way back on the physical activities in my cutting days when i was a cardio junky and eating healthy all the time i was dropping weight fast i cant imagine how many cals. i was burning then . Im struggling my ass off to gain weight so i just hope this thread helps somebody and if anyone has any tips of their own on how to gain weight feel free to comment any advice is appreciated.

 

[Yanick]

It really comes down to experimenting at the end. You'll have a feel for what your body needs once you manipulate your kcals to a certain point when your body responds. For example you use some formula and it tells you that you should eat x amount of kcals. You just start there as a rough estimate and see what happens on the scale, tape measure, gym etc. Want to gain some weight? Increase kcals until you see your weight going up. Do the opposite to cut weight. If you don't see progress in a week or two cut or add kcals as needed.

 

[Plateau_Max]

Exactly! You're not really going to be able to say for sure your precise cals, just what works for you depending on what you're doing. Those online calculators are really only good for just a ballpark figure.