I am a 6’1’’ 195 pound male with about 12% bodyfat. I am trying to continually increase strength while shedding 3-4% bodyfat and maintaining as much lean mass as possible. How many calories should I be consuming to hold onto most of my muscle while shedding fat? If I eat around 5-6 meals a day how many calories should be in each meal?
Really depends on what kind of exercise you are doing exercise wise, your genetics, and lifestyle. Really an answerable question. However, if you want a rough (emphasis on rough), then you can take your lean body mass (BW - (BW * body fat)) and multiply it by 10, then multiply it by a factor of 1.2-1.5 based on activity level (1.2 for sedentary desk job, 1.5 for manual labor). Then estimate how many calories you are burning during your workout and you’ll find your daily calorie expenditure.
However, I don’t find this information terribly useful for trying to slowly get cut up while increasing strength, simply because for the majority of the population (genetics again) such a feat won’t be possible w/o drugs or more advanced diet manipulation. UD2, Anabolic diet, etc.- something thats going to provide a mini-cut and mini-bulk in the same week, where you will have a period of fat loss and a period of muscle building occurring in the same week.
Well, it’s a pretty simple equation…
Intake > Calories Burned = Weight Gain
Intake < Calories Burned = Weight Loss
Here’s another few fun facts…
You need to be at a 3500 calorie deficit to burn 1 lb of fat. So, based on your goals, you want to loose about 6-8 lbs of fat, you then need to be at a caloric deficit between 21,000-28,000 calories over time to burn that amount of fat.