Maintenance calories and TRT

Pharma
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Hello everyone, I have a lot of experience of tracking my food and eating a very healthy balanced diet. Lately I have been trying to lose weight inorder to make weight for bjj competitions. I am 6’ normally 180-185 lbs and probably 10% body fat. Goal weight is 176 lbs,. I have visible abs, appear lean and muscular. I have been on TRT for past few years, 100mg a week.

Even when I eat 2800-3000 calories a day, I find myseld very hungry. 1 gram protien per lbs, very high fiber and nutrient dense meals. All my micro nutriet targets go far beyond 100%. I would say my diet is very good and balanced. My training involves weight lifting days, 3 times per week, where I train full body movements for 1-2 hours with moderate load and intensity and include some home yoga, sauna and ice bath. Alternating days I training bjj for 1-2 hours, total 4-6 classes a week and sometimes an additoinal hot yoga class for an hour. I try to take one rest day every 7-9 days. When not exercising I am reasonaby active and busy. Once every week or two I will have a refeed day and eat about 3,600 calories, mainly from additional carbs. I often still find myself low on energy and dragging. Is it possible that my maintenance caliries are around 3,500 and that 2,800 is too low? I have lost about 4-6 in past 6 weeks with this stragety so it is nice and slow but it is settling around 178 it seems. My sleep is good 7-9 hours a night.

Curious what other people with similiar activity levels eat to maintain or lose weight. Does being on TRT affect calorie burn in any way? I use the whoop but the calorie burn seems very low for me, showing 2,400-2,800 daily. Any feedback or knowledge on this would be greatly appreciated.

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Look up Dr. Anthony Chaffee on YT. An American medical doctor and Neurosurgical resident who, over a span of 20+ years, has researched the optimal nutrition for humans.

The human digestion system can’t break down fiber, fiber dilutes stomach acid. Plant chemical interfere with acid and absorption of minerals. Plant based protein has very poor bioavailability.

Fiber may also reduce the energy value of foods through inhibiting digestion and absorption of other energy-providing macronutrients in the diet. Thus, Baer et al. and Miles found that both fat and protein digestibility was negatively affected when fiber content in diets increased.

I tried the mostly plant based diet and was always hungry. I switched to the carnivore diet and I’m satisfied in-between meals. I can eat until I’m full and still lose weight and gaining muscle!

I haven’t consumed carbs in almost 6 months, I feel superhuman, mentally and physically! You don’t need to supplement anything on the carnivore diet, because it’s our species specific diet!

Humans were hyper-carnivorous apex predators 2 million years ago. You have no business eating a salad no more than a lion does. Feed a salad, a diet mostly composed of fiber to a lion and see what happens.

Our acid base digestion system is biologically optimized for fatty red meat, B12, protein, minerals all of which neutralize bacteria. A diet rich in mostly red meat doesn’t cause heart disease, which didn’t exist 100 years ago, yet humans have been eating red meat at least since 2 million years ago.

Hong Kong has the highest red meat consumption per capita in the world, 1.5 pounds per person, per day and ranks number #1 for longevity!

The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.

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@thomas1212

Sorry I cant give a real answer to this but rolling that much is a huge energy drain, I would need to eat like a horse (LOL) to manage that, I can imagine upping your protein intake may be beneficial but it may be that at your height, low body fat and level of activity thats the weight your body wants to be at?

And then look up the thousands of research papers that totally disagree with this, you know some of the thousands of papers about the benefits of eating plants such as the many phytonutrients that may help fight against cancer (just search TNation for a plethora of articles).

And we dont rely on it to do that, we want it to stay “whole” to travel through the gut. As I understand it some people on keto/carnivore style diets have to supplement with fibre as they get constipated? (no jokes from me about being full of shit).

Sorry I couldn’t find the whole paper to see what it says but if we are going to quote parts of papers
Epidemiological and clinical studies demonstrate that intake of dietary fiber and whole grain is inversely related to obesity, type two diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Thousands of similar articles can be found about the benefits of fibre (as can be about anything if you look in the right places).
But now to

First you wouldn’t feel a lion a salad, its a carnivore. If you did and it actually ate it what would happen @systemlord? Honest question.
I’m guessing nothing you’d actually notice (huge salad = mild diarrhea?), however I will say lions do eat greens, if you watch any nature program where big cats catch and kill large prey they will first of all rip open the stomach and tear out the viscera, eating the intestines and the (normally vegetarian preys) last meal in the process. They dont do this to get a balanced diet, they do it as its a soft easy place to start eating from, God, mother nature is amazing…
(As I love a good appeal to authority I must add I have been a professional animal keeper all my life including over a decade at a major zoo, with an interest in nutrition. And although not really big cats the major break through in big cat nutrition is to stop feeding them just muscle meat sprinkled in vitamin/calcium powder, its not enough, they need a balanced diet.)

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here is what I did so far. with success. (at 20-30mg/T daily). and yes you will get a million opinions on this. and I am also higher BF% not sure how the last stretch will go. I lost 18lb since mid november, working out ofc. which equals 1lb/week on avg.
I do 0 fucking tracking of any kind. my diet is 80% calories from beef and dairy, and rest is fruit/honey (no keto). little fiber, or whatever i get from some fruit. i believe the key is reduce your PUFA intake as close to 0 as possible. which is mostly seed oils, seeds, nuts, fatty chicken and most pork (i do still bacon). i really have no clue what my calories are, and I do experience absolute no hunger. i could be in a slight deficit.
i also started adding injectable l-carnitine + oral l carnitine l tartrate which seems to have a positive effect.
again, not trying to argue with anyone, as you will get a different take from each one here, but so far this definitely worked for me. gym is 4-5x (weight only) and a 30min bike ride 3-4x a week later in the day

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I personally enjoy eating higher fiber with lots of fruit and vegetables. I am still eating plenty of meat and total protein.

I know I am very active but is it reasonably to believe my maintenance calories are 3,500 or more a day? I’m trying my best to eat a 200-500 calorie deficit every day. Even with eating so much I seem to hit a wall and have no energy every few weeks. I guess I’ll keep doing 2,800-3,000 calories a day and see if I maintain or lose more weight.

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If you’re losing weight then you’re not eating at maintenance. Up your calories until you stop losing weight. Also, you’re underweight and feel drained from doing all of the activities listed above at a caloric deficit. This isn’t really brain surgery and has nothing to do with carnivores, omnivores, fiber intake, etc. Just eat more or do less.

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This is not TRT, it is a cycle.

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That is a low dose, not a cycle.

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Not looking to get specific diet info and I am aware of calorie balance to maintain or lose weight.

Mainly want to see if others with similar activity level needed the same amount of daily calories so that I can better gauge if my fatigue is due to a large calories deficit or just over training. Likely a combination of both. Also curious if other on trt have noticed an increase in daily calories to maintain weight and energy.

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You are correct, I misread it.

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You don’t have to guess! You can measure your BMR, measure your BF % and track your activity level to get an idea/average TDEE. Then, just eat that. If you maintain weight, you’re good. Eat less to lose, more to gain.