Diet Feedback Needed

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’ve been out of the gym for two years. I went from a respectibly lean and thick 6’ 225 lbs to a fatty 260 lbs. I’m now back in the gym and hating myself for taking that amount of time off and getting as fat as I am.

I have a spreadsheet that I created a few years ago that calculates calorie requirements using Berardi’s Massive Eating. I have a scale at home that also measures body fat percentage.

Even as fat as I am, my RMR is supposed to be 2129. Add in exercise and all of the other calculations, and it says that I need 4738.5 calories to maintain my current weight, and my max calories when trying to lose weight is 3076.

I can tell you that if I consumed this amount of calories, I’d swell up like a house and be a total fat bastard. Images of Cartman in the bed yelling “Beefcake” come to mind if you have seen that episode.

Anyhow, I decided to wing my diet. I have set the following limitations for myself:

  • Minimum of 200g of protein a day (I usually get more than this)
  • Maximum of 1800-1900 calories a day (I hover around 1850)

I happen to like this approach because it allows me to fluctuate on the fat and carbs on a daily basis. I only eat healthy foods; no excess sugar, fat, or junk food for me.

I also allow myself one relaxed day in the week to not watch calories. This isn’t a cheat day, per se, just a day that I don’t have to crunch the numbers. This allows me to go out to dinner, have something sensible, and not worry about it. There’s still nothing bad in the diet, so I imagine that on these days I get a little over 2000 calories.

I’ve also been taking Red Bands, two capsules twice a day.

In 16 days, I have dropped 11.5 lbs.

I just wanted to share this with you guys and see what feedback you have.

2

Molnir,

From your post, it seems to me that you know what you are doing. Only you know what you respond to. The Massive eating requirements are guidelines, only you know whether to add or subtract calories to what works for you. Good job on getting back into it!
“Sancho”

3

Yeah, I find the massive eating guidelines are more suited to those that are carrying around decent muscle to fat ratios or perhaps even muscle to bodyweight ratios.

Eat clean, work hard, drop fat, build up those muscles with “beginner” gains… then eat more. After dropping over fifty pounds of fat (over a year ago now) and probably putting on ten or twenty pounds of muscle in the last year while trying to stay lean, I’m finally in a bulking phase.

Now I find I do need to eat a lot of damned calories to gain muscle. I figure if I can get more muscle mass, it will be easier to get down towards single digit fat percentages.

Anyway, for feedback, you sound on the right track. Eat protien and work out to spare LBM and keep the carbs fairly low. Once the fat level drops, change your eating to support new goals.

More rambling than feedback, but thats what you get on a sunday afternoon.