Caloric Deficit Question

Training Beginners
1

I apologize if this is one of those annoying newbie topics that gets repeated over and over again, but I did do some research but found some conflicting answers.

I’m 6’1’', 25 years old, and last summer I started cutting calories. I went from 265 to 228 lbs in about six months, most of that being taken off in the first few months. I just started a full-body workout regime and I also just started taking HOT-ROX because I read about how it can help with a slower metabolism due to reduced caloric intake.

However I just read this article ( http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=460401 ) and this particular bit has me confused:

[i]Q: How many calories should I eat each day?

A: Figure your minimum calories per day by multiplying your body weight by 12. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, multiplying your body weight by 12 gives you 2400 calories per day. Make certain you don’t consume less. This caloric intake will give you the fastest fat loss without losing a measurable amount of lean mass, or muscle. [/i]

That would mean that right now instead of taking in an average of 2000 calories a day I should be taking in around 2700 a day.

Is that really the best way to lose fat? I’ll do that if it works, but I wanted to get some more opinions.

Thanks for the help.

2

each person is different and responds different to all of this stuff, but i’d say that what you read is the average truth.

the most important thing is that you get enough protein, and dont go too low on calories

3

Hi Madds

There are different formulas that will give you different calorie needs.

So what the answer is saying, is that if you go below of your basal metabolic rate (BMR) that your body needs, your body will be using more muscle for fuel instead of adipose tissue fat.

In theory :
What you can do is increase 200 kcalories if you dont gain weight after 3 weeks but continue to lose body fat you can increase another 200 kcal and so on until you get to your BMR or RMR (resting metabolic rate).

In practice:
Try to consume at least 1 gram per pound of body weight of protein, at least 60 grams of fat most of them in the for of EFA’s (essential fatty acids) and veggies and fruits.

And train hard.

Hope it helps.

JG

4

Thanks for the help, I’ll try that.

What is the best way to measure body fat, aside from going to a doctor or getting special equipment?

5

[quote]Madds wrote:
Thanks for the help, I’ll try that.

What is the best way to measure body fat, aside from going to a doctor or getting special equipment?[/quote]

Rolling a dice. (not joking)

There is no accurate way to measure your body fat, calipers and modern electronic BF scales are ok for tracking your progress but about useless for absolute values.

Only real way to determine is either having a trained and experienced person use a caliper or getting a DEXA
http://www.riainvision.com/invision/patientinfo/screening/patinfo_scrn_bodycomp.asp

Worry about how you feel, how you perform or maybe even how you look (those things can be measured quite easily in comparison) instead of worrying about some arbitrary number that has basically no application in real life.

6

Gotcha. What if I just measure waist size?

7

[quote]Madds wrote:
Gotcha. What if I just measure waist size?[/quote]

So now you have a tape measure around your waist…

8

Waist size is good but again, it’s not accurate. Depending on your breathing you may have more or less air in your gut than the last time you measured and it can flucuate with your digestion but in gross terms it’s certainly an indication. The mirror is best. As long as you look leaner, you probably are.

9

if you think you need HOT-ROX for a metabolism boost then 1st you need to make sure you are eating enough calories per day to keep your metabolism going in the 1st place.

i made the same mistake you made.

im 6 foot 1 i was 230 pounds, and i only ate 2000 cals per day. low energy, low intensity, etc etc

my body went into what known as ‘starvation mode’ where your systems are diminished and fat stores preserved in order to ‘make it through’ your low calorie state.

to put it in perspective, im now 200 pounds and eating 3300 calories per day, and ive lost 3 pounds of fat(not weight) in the last 2 weeks at this weight.

Now dont emulate that! i have anal mirco control of my diet and ive been doing this a while - also my body has repaired its insulin sensitivity.
but remember you should not under eat as it will cause you more harm in the long run (and stop any fat loss dead).

go find the Harris Benedict Formula, input your measurements.

this will give you your basal metabolic rate. you then multiply this by your activity level.

the website you find the formula on should give you indicators as to what your activity multiplier is.

if you do 3 full body work outs, have a desk job and do 30-60 mins steady state cardio today id say 1.5 - 1.6 is about right.

Basal metabolic rate x activity multiplier = calories for matainence.
to lose weight - minus 20% from your matainance - no less!

to lose fat - do the above but pay attention to carb timings (a whole other post if you want an answer pm me)

make a clear distinction between losing weight and losing fat.

measurements. ignore comments on accuracy. instead focu on consistency.
every saturday, as soon as you are out of bed, measure your naval waist, waist at its narrowest point, hips and neck at its narrowest point. weight yourself (consistent clothing)

as long as you do this every sat for 2 months, you will gain a perspective that will show your measurements going down. you can use the above measurements with your height to get a bodyfat reading.

the navel waist is probably the most telling fat loss indicator across the board.

if anyone wants to argue that fine, but ive lost 120 pounds using the above techniques so youll have to do well to prove me wrong ;]

10

Okay, so I did those calculations and unless I made a mistake I should be getting 2500 calories a day. What I’ve been doing has been an average of about 2000 a week, so I’d go something like mon,wed,thur,sat,sun: 1800; tues: 2100; fri: 2500.

I did this because I read that you can plateau easily if you do a straight number every day, and that it’s better to average out with a couple of higher-calorie days. Does that sound right?

edit: Using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation I got 2355 for how many calories I should consume each day. I chose 1.4 for activity level since for these first few weeks I’m only doing a full body workout twice a week, until I can recovery more quickly. My last workout was tuesday and I was going to lift today, but I’m still slightly sore in some parts. Just slightly though.

Also, isn’t steady state cardio bad for me if I want to gain muscle as well? I do care more about losing fat, but I’d like to gain muscle too.

11
  1. from what ive read you are firmly a beginner - this means that your body will react differently from alot of the information you read.

as a beginner you will make large gains fast

when i first started some weeks my waist went down and inch and my weight didnt move.

this can be due to alot of factors, but if it happens consistently, then your fat loss weight training is building muscle too.

dont worry about gaining muscle, if you do you will just slow down the fat loss.

instead worry about working all your muscle groups, good form, and big movements. your goal is maintaining muscle through a fat loss cycle. any gain is a bonus.

an important feature is insulin sensitivity. type that intoa search engine and read away.

to summarise its relevance - its better to repair your sensitivity first, as from that point onwards your body simply works better in every way and after that point you will have a much easier time reaching any fitness/muscle goal.
to repair insulin sensitivity you want to control the timings of your carb intake and reduce non workout carb intake to as little as possible. there are many other factors but ill let you read the recent article on this!

with regards to your activity level.

1.4 would be a little low. you have already lost a bunch of weight which means your body must be ‘warmed up’. normally id say start slow but you have already done this.

if i were you id do 3 workouts a week from the very start.
if you are worried about workload, have larger rests than indicated in between each set / exercise

its better to get into a 3 workour a week routine from the start, and the 3 evenly spaced full body workouts will make sure you metabolism is firing and your body is burning throughout the week. 2 workouts just cant maximise this afterburn effect.

then as you progress slowly shave 5 secs of each rest period.

eventually you will be able to do a program like ‘real fast fat loss’ in about 20-25 mins (thats 0 secs rest for the entire period)

this means you arent devoting so much life to working out, and the more intense workout will do you all sorts of good.

i also find the cardio becomes obsolete when you weight train to this intensity.

with regards to cardio i honestly think its not necessary for a few months fat loss. if you have problems sticking to your calorie target and find yourself hungry, then add 200 cals to your intake and HIIT train (search this) for 20 mins 3 days a week (on non gym days)

if you did 3 HIIT (or 2 HIIT and 1 steady state) per week, along with 3 full body workouts, then your multiplier would be more like 1.6, which would mean a healthier calorie amount to ingest per day. (make sure you work towards this - start without HIIT training, then add 1 in per week or so)

read the Clinics for bartl and novagreg, they have lots of useful info.

such as have a cup of celery with each meal. good fibre, fills you up, slows the absorption of food (which makes fat storage less likely)

12

Wow thanks, that’s a lot of info you’ve given me. I appreciate it. I think I can start three sessions starting this week. I’ll do some research on insulin sensitivity now.

Oh and about the caloric intake, should I average it out by having lower days and then two higher days a week to get an average of ~2200-2300 calories a day, or should it be the same number every day? I’m fine with a low number of calories, that’s not a problem. I just want to make sure that I’m getting the best results.

14

ive read lots of debate about when to have your higher days.

If you read up on ‘cheat to lose’ dieting it will explain about carb reloads.

when i was in my agressive fat loss stage i did:

3000 average;

2700 x 5 weekdays.
3700 x 2 weekend days.

thats a rough estimate, sometimes the difference wasnt all that pronounced.

However - note that this was a measure to break out of a stagnation in weight loss.

i think slightly higher intake on workout days is a good idea…then you can worry about more advanced measures to help break through stalls in fat loss as and when they occur.

15

incidently…

dont live by what you read from me, instead look at the ideas, find articles and other posts discussing these techniques and build your own understanding of the material.

This is the most important feature.

If you learn it for yourself and make decisions based on a broad range of information, then you are less likely to make mistakes, and more likely to develop techniques that work for your individual situation.

16

Yeah, that’s why I wanted to post a thread here after reading a bunch of articles. I appreciate all of the help, guys.

BTW, to help with insulin sensitivity I can’t afford some of those supplements such as R-ALA and Phosphatidylserine. Does that really matter?

edit: Is the cheat to lose idea good for someone like me who’s been fat his entire life?

17
  1. ignore all those products for now. micro management will become more important when you get down to 10% bodyfat and below.

for now, stick to the principles not the products and save the non standard tactics for when you hit a road block.

18

Crap, I seem to be gaining weight. My scale isn’t perfect and I can get 231 one day and 238 the next depending on how full I am, but I seem to have gained some weight.

I’m doing a full-body weight workout for about an hour three times a week, I’m getting a lot more protein and fewer carbs, and I increased by caloric intake from an average of 2000 a day to 2300-2400 a day. And I’m taking HOT-ROX.

Around the end of last year, I stopped losing a lot of weight on my reduced-calorie diet like I was able to in the summer and fall, and I assume that’s because my metabolism just started slowing down. So even though I was on the same calorie restrictions I was basially stuck at 228 for over a month. Maybe I lost a pound or two.

But now that I’m doing weights, getting in more calories, I seem to be gaining weight.

I couldn’t be gaining that much from muscle, can I?

But this is only week three on my new diet/exercise regime, should I give it more time?

19

if you were not lifting before, then yes, you would be gaining muscle which, weighs a lot more then fat…

20

You think I could be gaining a few pounds of muscle just after two weeks of training?

21

[quote]Madds wrote:
You think I could be gaining a few pounds of muscle just after two weeks of training?[/quote]

Use more tools to track your progress. Going by weight alone is just asking for headaches. I measure waist, gut, skin fold for body fat% and my weight every week at the same time. So if the weight stays the same but my gut or waist went down then i am still going in the right direction. Its going to be hard to gain fat eating only 2400 clean cals a day. So don’t get discouraged. Just keep on trucking and measure next week. If you are stagnant for more than 3 weeks then start to mess with things. Add cardio before you remove any more calories.

And if you weren’t lifting before, yes you can gain some weight fast just by lifting. Your muscles will fill with glycogen and water.

Consistency is very important for steady progress.

Good luck!