I was reading through old author posts, and i found Massive Eating by John Berardi
plugged in all the data, and ended with a maintenance level of 3500 calories a day. Coincidentally that’s what i’ve been eating, and i haven’t been gaining weight.
How much does everyone else intake in a day, and does it coincide with the maintenance level you get from this article?
I’m definitely going to step up the eating.
I made good gains on 3700 when that article recommended 4100. Then again, I’m far from a hardgainer. You should keep uppin it by 300-500/day every week or two until you’re happy with the rate of your gains.
if i was you guys i would just find your own bodys balance and stop using a caculator, everyone is diff and your better off increasin cals when u stop growing
I just don’t understand these things sometimes, the numbers seem absurd. For example I’ve been on 3000/day for a few weeks now, and I’ve gained like 3 lbs per week each week (too much for it to be muscle, I know). Now the calculator there tells me I should be closer to 3500! Surely that would just make the problem worse!
Its really just trial and error, I’m eating 4’500 kcal per day, its just trial and error, you should know your own body better than a calculator. e.g. carbohydrate tolerance
I just don’t understand physically how I can be gaining fat based on 3000cals/day!!! I’m nearly 6 foot, 175 lbs, through my job I end up walking around 1 hour per day, and workout 4 times per week!
[quote]ShutUpAndSquat wrote:
I just don’t understand physically how I can be gaining fat based on 3000cals/day!!! I’m nearly 6 foot, 175 lbs, through my job I end up walking around 1 hour per day, and workout 4 times per week![/quote]
Are you training with enough intensity? Because it sounds like you’re not.
No calculator will ever equal experience and trial + error. Your body’s homeostasis is extremely variable and there could be a hundred reasons you gain weight or lose weight on whatever number you get from that article. Train with intensity and eat enough to make sure you are gradually gaining weight and muscle. If you gain too much fat, eat less or do more cardio. It’s the same shit you hear constantly but it’s really the stuff that matters the most.
THere are so many formulas and calculators out there, but Der Candy is right, you have to experiment with trial and error. You can try to plugs figures in and get a ballpark amount, but it may work, or it may not work. Some folks just seem to overcomplicate everything. If you go to Mayoclinic.com, you get a very simple approximation.
However if you plus in all the numbers into Berardi’s formulas, you factor in the added thermic effect of a high protein diet, elevated metabolism from certain activities (Met coefficients),… and will come up with a much different (most likely higher) number. Again,… you just get your ballpark starting # and adjust accordingly (this is where you have to be smart, and not just lift heavy things -lol)
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
THere are so many formulas and calculators out there, but Der Candy is right, you have to experiment with trial and error. You can try to plugs figures in and get a ballpark amount, but it may work, or it may not work. Some folks just seem to overcomplicate everything. If you go to Mayoclinic.com, you get a very simple approximation.
However if you plus in all the numbers into Berardi’s formulas, you factor in the added thermic effect of a high protein diet, elevated metabolism from certain activities (Met coefficients),… and will come up with a much different (most likely higher) number. Again,… you just get your ballpark starting # and adjust accordingly (this is where you have to be smart, and not just lift heavy things -lol)
S
[/quote]
arms are looking huge bro
[quote]ShutUpAndSquat wrote:
I just don’t understand physically how I can be gaining fat based on 3000cals/day!!! I’m nearly 6 foot, 175 lbs, through my job I end up walking around 1 hour per day, and workout 4 times per week![/quote]
How much protein are you getting a day?
I bulked up my freshman year of college (no shit haha) and I think if I got more of my calories from protein rather than fat or carbs I would have been way more successful.
eat at least 1 gram of protein/lb of body weight
The calculator put me at ~4000 on training days. I take in 5-6,000 and still don’t see the gains that I’d like. (Lots of walking around campus)
I just did my calculations, and it came out over 4500 calories. That is so far off for my body. I must have a slow metabolism or something, because through the years, I have determined I need to eat 3200 to maintain, and adjust by 500-700 from there to gain or lose. I’m currently eating 2700, and barely even noticing much weight loss… if I ate 4500 as a maintenance (even with the 5-6 days cardio, and 5x/week weights I included in that calculation), I would be a lard-ass…
[quote]crod266 wrote:
if i was you guys i would just find your own bodys balance and stop using a caculator, everyone is diff and your better off increasin cals when u stop growing[/quote]
Well the calculation is a perfect place to start … eat that much for a week or two and see what happens and adjust accordingly … I think that that method is actually recommended by CT and CW … if I’m not mistaken
[quote]ShutUpAndSquat wrote:
I just don’t understand physically how I can be gaining fat based on 3000cals/day!!! I’m nearly 6 foot, 175 lbs, through my job I end up walking around 1 hour per day, and workout 4 times per week![/quote]
Well, ARE you actually gaining fat? (and if you are gaining a little, what’s so bad about that as long as you gain enough muscle along with it?).
Because considering your stats you seem to be in the beginner stage… It’s quite normal for someone (provided their strength goes up quite a bit during that time) at your stage (later on as well) to have periods of fast muscle-gain…
Who actually grows in a linear fashion?
I originally went from ~120 to 160 in 2-3 months while progressively getting stronger quite fast, then was stuck at that weight for a while and strength didn’t move up much/was trying to figure out how to bust through those plateaus back then…
Then I went up to 185 or so in 3-4 months… Stuck again for some time… Etc.
Weight “jumps” got smaller the bigger I got or took longer to achieve, but the point is I’ve never grown “1.1342842947 lbs per week for 4 years straight” or some bullshit like that.
You get so many factors that play a role there, genetic/biological as well as routine, diet, stress, sleep, your own stupidity (switching routines all the time or whatever, you know what I mean), possibly injuries, weight-loss and then fast re-accumulation of weight due to muscle-memory…
So unless you are actually just getting visibly fat fast(and I mean fat, not just “a tad smooth, oh god I think I left lower ab doesn’t show quite as clearly as it used to anymore”), why the hell worry?
I think what many people are forgetting is that the “Massive Eating” protocol was originally aimed at people who had trouble gaining weight–it was tailored towards a faster metabolism to begin with.
Furthermore, metabolic needs can easily vary as much as 20% of any number any calculator gives you. That’s why trial and error, and a food log, beat a calculator.
To the 6 foot 175 lb guy–don’t worry about it. If you’re a beginner you should be gaining faster than what’s considered normal rate. Don’t sweat it unless you’re getting a gut. And I don’t mean an enlarged stomach from eating frequent meals. There IS a difference–one’s a spare tire and the other is increased volume of the stomach/G.I.T.
The best gauge is still experience. I track my weight every two weeks, and if I have lost weight, I eat more (If I’m bulking). Its quite simple really.
I’m not going to workout the equation. But I’m 5’6, 185, dunno what my BF% but I’m guessing 10-12. I eat 5000 calories right now to gain maybe like a lb every two weeks. Once I drop to 4000 I start losing weight. This was all done through trial and error.