im 6’2 240 lbs to start off my goal is to get down to 190. im just now getting into calorie counting and have never done it before. I know stay away from excessive carbohydrates and obviously no junk food or soda. The issue i’m noticing is that whenever i do the math for what my deficit should be its around 3200 calories a day it just seems like that’s too much food intake still. I do a manual labor job 5 days a week for at least 12 hours a day then i’m working out mostly weight lifting for about an hour then finish with 30 minutes of light cardio 4-5 days a week (hard to get a consistent schedule with my work).
Should I go for 3200 calories a day or do you think i could do lower. honestly just any help on how to lose the weight would be incredible. as far as diet goes its a hotel breakfast (scrambled eggs, hash browns and sausage or bacon monday through friday) lunch and dinner i meal prep on sunday for the entire week burritos (ground beef, cream cheese, onions, red chili’s, habaneros) for lunches, and a variation of chicken and rice for dinner or steak and rice.
UPDATE: i was drinking an additional 1200 calories a day and not adding it into my count. stupid on my part thanks everyone for the responses and help. will update again in a month of no alcoholic consumption.
Jesus, 5 12 hour hard manual work days per week, and then you’re lifting an hour on top of that and THEN doing 30 minutes of cardio on top of THAT? What is your sleep like? This might be the most immediate way to help.
If 3200 is too much, lower the intake. Simplest thing to do is eat a certain amount for a few weeks and see what the scale does. Stuart McRobert recommended 3 weeks in “Beyond Brawn”. 2 weeks might be sufficient.
cardio is new gym was regular for a few years then i stopped working out for about a year due to a work injury. gained about 40 pounds due to inactivity and just unhealthy eating/ a lot of drinking. i’m not losing weight no matter how much i work or work out i seem to only be going up even without drinking.
i’m just getting into calorie counting i’m not 100% sure as to my current intake im just not sure 3200 would be a good deficit for me ill keep log better this week and get back to you soon. just 3200 sounds like way too much to be in taking i dont think im anywhere near that but apparently that’s my deficit. will update when i get off work though for more accurate information.
Yeah, you were training 90 minutes a day 5 days a week: I was saying I’d take away 60 of those 90 minutes. From there, it could be divided as necessary. Dan John’s “Easy Strength for Fat Loss” is an excellent example of going about that, 5 days a week with lifting each day AND a walk to follow. That would actually creep up to maybe 45-60 minutes of training per day.
I would just like to throw in that with all the variables at play, someone with your frame could potentially be going through 3200 cal a day no problem if they truly were making use of it with their individual physiology. The fact that you are not lean at this weight tells you that the combination/equation of your metabolic rate, your diet, and your caloric, expenditure etc are not in balance.
It may be a simple as adjusting diet, adjusting activity, or even sleep or other variables that may influence your metabolic rate.
Just wanted to say that it’s not a ridiculous figure but there are always plenty of variables at play.
yeah i went exact with calories even including seasonings and everything for all my meals yesterday and i was at around 2800 which i wasn’t hungry and felt fine. i know typically the first step in people wanting to get fit is removing alcohol from the equation but i was determined “it doesn’t make that much of a difference” until i added it up and 8 drinks was about 1200 calories pushing me well over the 3200 goal. I’m sure that’s the issue considering 5-6 days of that a week is an additional 7200-10k calories of pure garbage. Guess it’s time to quit the booze thanks for the comment i’ll update in around a month of sobriety, don’t know why i didn’t include what i drink into my intake seems like a pretty stupid mistake on my part, appreciate the response
don’t know why i didn’t include what i drink into my intake seems like a pretty stupid mistake on my part
Yup.
Fun fact: your body will prioritize metabolizing alcohol ahead of all other macronutrients. Which means that’s what your body will run on until it’s all burnt up, and THEN it will move onto glucose and fats. Which means you’ll be feeling pretty crummy AND not getting the benefits of the nutrition you’re consuming. And when the body can’t BURN fuel, it stores it.
So yeah, definitely lead with THAT next time, haha. And this should go a long way in improving your sleep as well.
I was going to say all the things @T3hPwnisher already nailed about drinking (impacts both sides of the metabolic equation, is a toxin, ruins your workouts and sleep, etc), but maybe I can also offer a little advice as you bring it down: I wouldn’t think about it in black and white terms. You’re in a job where it’s part of the lifestyle (I was too) and it’s certainly something we’d do to kick back. If you make it a hard “I can’t do this anymore,” I think you’re probably doomed either to fail or to be really pissed off all the time.
Instead, I’d think about it like a cheat meal - you get to do whatever you want for one big meal on Saturday nights or whatever. What you’ll probably find is, after ~4 days or so, you don’t really crave it anyway; then you’ll be able to have a beer or two (within that meal window) and get on with your life.
I just tend to find if we do the “I’m done with it” mindset, it goes poorly. That’s not just for beer, it’s for cake or cheeseburgers or whatever our thing is. I do better with a “choice” kind of mentality.
Obviously, if it’s easier for you to just say “it’s off the menu,” do that.
Before everyone gets after me, my recommendation would probably be different if we were talking a drug addiction coupled with a grim physician diagnosis.
Edit: Oh! And find something to do to keep yourself busy during the time you’d normally be drinking. It’s easier to replace a habit than to cease it.
A little psychological strategy I have found that helps for this is “kick the can”. I made a lot of promises to myself “for later”. I used to do a weekly cheat meal that was really just a gigantic binge (which, ultimately, I decided was a poor habit, but I digress), and through the week, if I encountered something that looked really yummy, I’d tell myself that I would eat it during my weekly cheat meal.
By the end of the week, I had a list that was like 50 items long…and, of course, at that point, most of the cravings had come and gone and I just settled on a few choice items. But it mentally checked the box that I was GOING to get that thing, even if it never happened.
It might be helpful, when the urge hits, to go “I’m SO going to do that…on Saturday”, and when Saturday rolls around, see if you still want it.
I remember you talking about this previously and I think it’s fantastic. Having permission to eat the thing also kept it reasonable when I actually ate it. Like if eating pizza is actually breaking the rules and not allowed, then, when I do break down, I’m eating two pizzas because I’m already a bad person and I can never have it again. If it’s allowed, then I can just have a slice because I know any more is self-defeating and there’s not the same urgency.
It also tends to titrate the cravings down along a similar timeline that my calories need to come down and these binges need to get stricter/ gone - that’s a nice win.
Love the “kick the can” analogy - I think that’s the perfect way to deal with it. Tomorrow never comes and all that.
