[quote]Scott M wrote:
For beginners I see a function but for someone who’s been in the game for a little while I don’t. If people look at it more like this…
This is my basic diet template, I eat roughly the same amount of food at around the same times everyday. I am gaining muscle at a consistent rate and not putting on too much fat or maybe I’m getting leaner. My diet is perfect as is, no changes will be made.
or
I haven’t been putting on muscle lately so therefore something needs to be stepped up. Post workout carbs maybe, maybe healthy fats added to some meals to bump up calories easily. I will make this tweak alone and monitor my progress after.
or
I have been gaining muscle but too much fat so therefore I need to take something down such as carbohydrates or add something such as cardio/more cardio. I will make this tweak alone and monitor my progress after.
…they’d be making much more consistent progress towards their goals.
Outcome based decision making based on observations and feedback be it waist measurement, the scale, bodyfat, upper arm measurement, whatever. People should check out Berardi’s Tailor Made Nutrition article series because that in my opinion was some of the best stuff this site ever put out but wasn’t popular. Why not? Because he asked people to A) stick to their diet for one month before they even thought about changing things and be 90% strict(how many people do that?) and B) it asked people to do this outcome based decision making on their own. [/quote]
This is how I look at it. Especially when looking to gain, if you’re eating good food often enough to avoid hunger and keep full throughout the day, you’re eating enough to avoid catabolism and build muscle. If you’re 300 pounds, you’re gonna be hungrier. If you’re more muscular, you’ll be hungrier. Your body knows how to maintain.
I wonder, for the people who count calories regularly, (not just in special ‘dieting down’ phases) how do you choose what to count to? Is your daily ‘magic kcal number’ from a planned diet? Do you bring gains/losses into the equation? (Meaning, if you are 200 pounds and plan to be 250, are you factoring in an increase in expenditure?) I think about this a lot when I read other peoples’ logs.
Often I’m thinking, ‘Yes, you’re 170 pounds and need to add bulk, but if you’re already planning on eating 6,000 kcal, what do you plan to eat when you’re 220?’ Gains don’t come linearly, and sometimes I feel like we try to make an exact science out of something that’s not.
Just some thoughts from a fat-ish injured guy who hates math.
[quote]Dirty_Bulk wrote:
I wonder, for the people who count calories regularly, (not just in special ‘dieting down’ phases) how do you choose what to count to? Is your daily ‘magic kcal number’ from a planned diet? Do you bring gains/losses into the equation? (Meaning, if you are 200 pounds and plan to be 250, are you factoring in an increase in expenditure?) I think about this a lot when I read other peoples’ logs.[/quote]
Personally, I keep my calories in a ballpark range. On the days that I run, I’ll allow myself extra calories to make up for the ones I burned. When I don’t run, I tend to disallow those extra calories. I don’t aim for specific counts, but I do know what’s too high or too low.
As for my gains, they’re normally consistent. If I don’t see gains, it’s not my diet: it’s my workouts. So I switch up and go from there.
If you eat the same meals day in and day out you really don’t need to count calories; just monitor the scale and if you’re not gaining add an extra snack or two. I used to eat the same meals day in and day out for several months and to tell you the truth I just got bored of it. This is why I count calories. Lately, I’ve been eating out quite a bit and it’s easy to go over my Kcal needs when I’m eating cheesburgers and burritos all the time. It’s funny, a lot of the guys on here say that they have to monitor the cals cuz they might not eat enough. It’s the opposite for me. I can easily put down 4k cals without even knowing it. I weigh 190 and am gaining weight at a steady rate eating about 3500 cals/day. If I start hitting 4k/day I gain weight too fast. But also, as someone alluded to before, gains aren’t always linear. I’ll be putting up the same weight for weeks at a time and then one day I exceed what I’ve been doing and get all stoked then the next time I do the same workout I can’t put it up. It’s god damn frustrating, but hey, I get it goes with the territory.
I’ve done it long enough that I pretty much know how many calories most foods are. Even when I’m not dieting or anything like that, I keep a ballpark figure in my head. Also, to stop myself from killing myself on any one meal…
Again, the total calories are in a ballpark range. I have a target to shoot for and I get to that +/- a few hundred calories. Usually I’ll adjust my last meal to be a little more or less depending on what I’ve eaten/done that day.
it tends to mess with my head and make me want more food than i should eat so I haven’t done it in years. I’m having good results just manipulating food selection and portions since i have a pretty good idea of the calorie density of most foods (i read my labels). but if progress stalls out i will start counting them.
I eat a really large amount of calories (3,500 MINIMUM/ day at around 185lbs) and have had trouble in the past because the recommended intake levels for ‘cutting’ type diets were too low by far for me to stick to them. when gaining weight i just eat as much as i want but keep food selection in check, if I eat junk food or bread or pasta or too much milk i get fatter very quickly. selecting healthy foods makes it much harder to put on fat
no thats too much work-although my main focus is strength and gaining, so I just eat a lot of good sources of food as well as bad and not worry about how much I’m getting- I do however try to count protein in take.
[quote]DirtyRobot wrote:
I have an excel spreadsheet which give me the total carbs, protein, fats, (in both grams and percentage of total calories) and calories of every meal, as well as the totals for the entire day.[/quote]
Any chance of posting that up? I’ve only recently started counting calories etc and something like excel would work wonders. Cheers
[quote]Scott M wrote:
For beginners I see a function but for someone who’s been in the game for a little while I don’t. If people look at it more like this…
This is my basic diet template, I eat roughly the same amount of food at around the same times everyday. I am gaining muscle at a consistent rate and not putting on too much fat or maybe I’m getting leaner. My diet is perfect as is, no changes will be made.
or
I haven’t been putting on muscle lately so therefore something needs to be stepped up. Post workout carbs maybe, maybe healthy fats added to some meals to bump up calories easily. I will make this tweak alone and monitor my progress after.
or
I have been gaining muscle but too much fat so therefore I need to take something down such as carbohydrates or add something such as cardio/more cardio. I will make this tweak alone and monitor my progress after.
…they’d be making much more consistent progress towards their goals.
Outcome based decision making based on observations and feedback be it waist measurement, the scale, bodyfat, upper arm measurement, whatever. People should check out Berardi’s Tailor Made Nutrition article series because that in my opinion was some of the best stuff this site ever put out but wasn’t popular. Why not? Because he asked people to A) stick to their diet for one month before they even thought about changing things and be 90% strict(how many people do that?) and B) it asked people to do this outcome based decision making on their own. [/quote]