Diet/Macro Advice?

Diet and Nutrition
1

I’d be grateful if someone could take a look at my calories etc.

Ive been going on calorie deficit for the last 5 weeks. The first 3 weeks I went from 82KG down to 77kg and the scales were moving every couple of days I have been stalling at 77kg for the last 10 days + I could be gaining muscle at the same rate as loosing fat but I’m not convinced.

I am 77kg – 5’10 @ 13-14% BF

Consuming 1800 Kcal per day

Using primo @ 600mg/ week plus trt

90g Carbs

270g protein

40g fat

Working out 4 x per week upper/lower split but have a desk job. Currently doing no cardio

I meticulously weigh and prep all my food

My strength has gone down a bit but nothing too drastic.

My weight loss has completely stalled and my motivation is low. I am struggling to do my workouts with the same intensity as usual because I am getting bored of lack of progress.

I have calculated my TDEE as 2300 therefore at a 500 defecit I should be taking in 1800. Every website I uses gives me a different result so im going for the lowest reading.

I have 8 weeks before a summer holiday and I want to be as lean as possible, I also want to start adding some mass at some point but I need to get leaner before I start as I don’t want to get or even look at all fat.

I am super lean all over except my lower belly, I seem to store ALL my fat around my lower abs. I can see the outline of the top 4 abs but not the rest.

I’m actually starting to look worse as I’m cutting as I’m leaning out everywhere apart from the gut, at least any fat I had before was spread out evenly, now its just concentrated in one area.

My question are:

Should I continue at 1800 cals and hope that the scales shift eventually

Should I go to maintenance for a couple of weeks and then resume my cut @1800 cals

Should I reduce my protein a little to give me more carbs and in turm more energy

Should I perhaps increase my calories to 2000 cals, not have such an aggressive deficit and aim for slower fat loss but giving me more energy for the gym.

2

Try switching to 170g P and 190g C for a few days. See what happens.

3

I’ll give that a shot and see how I get on. Someone told me that I may not have enough muscle mass to support a any lower BF and that is why the weight loss has stalled, does that sound possible or bro science?

4

Some pics if that helps.

Imgur
Imgur
Imgur

5

Bro science. I see no-muscle-havin’ distance runners who are way more shredded than you all the time.

Also, I wouldn’t trust the scale all that much with the TRT and Primo on-board. Water could be fluctuating like crazy.

6

Great point about the runners. Shame, I was looking forward to going on a bulk - Bro Science always seems to be the answer you want to hear

Do you think 1800 calories per day is enough if I switch up the carb/protein ratio?

7

No one can tell you your calorie intake.

If your TDEE or whatever is 2300, then start there. After a couple of weeks, you look at what happened and make small changes. 100 calories is small, 500 is a huge change. Up or down. Yes, up of down. Last time I followed a guide line, I lost 12 lbs in a month and felt like shit.

Base is 1.5g of protein per lbs of weight.
20% fat
Rest in carbs.

Your carbs will change up or down as needed.

8

You seem like you might be in cut/bulk purgatory.

I can’t help you there. I think everyone is too fat, so i would say keep cutting until you can see your spleen and then slowly increase calories.

But your personal goals are going to be a reflection of the collective sum of lots of conscious and subconscious shit that I wouldn’t be able to help unravel.

1800 cals might be fine. I stand by my original tweak to up carbs and drop protein for a while.

But if you don’t like that advice, I promise you can find some that aligns better with what you want to hear. That is just the way things work. The better you are about locking down variables and staying consistent with one approach, the faster you will learn about yourself.

9

I do really appreciate the advice Serge and i’ll follow your advice for a week or so and see how I get on.

There is nothing that I “want to hear” - I was just joking about the bulk comment

MY goal is really straight forward, I want to put myself in THE best possible position for gaining muscle without ever looking fat which is why I want to get to as low a BF as possible. The bit of bro science that I heard totally threw me which made me think I may be wasting my efforts by continuing at a deficit.

I agree most people who think they are in good shape just look fat, for me personally I do not see the point in having big arms and a fat belly. I’ll up the carbs for a week and see if that helps with energy/motivation.

10

That is quite a big cal deficit and I’d be very surprised if your maintenance cals are 2300.
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Also that much protein may be counter productive as a huge portion of your cals are coming from it, meaning it could be getting used as energy. I may be incorrect as my experience with TRT is zero.
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I would recconebd dropping protein, upping fats significantly, upping carbs slightly and upping cals.
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Being in too much of a deficit will make you stall and store fat just as too many cals will.

11

heh, I like this