[quote]Mateus wrote:
…and 4,000kcals is probably too much. What do you do for a living? Are you a student? At 200lbs and meeting you in the middle at 13%BF your LBM is around 174lbs. To gain, that’s around 3,100 to 3,300kcals a day. Depending on your activity level of course. You may want to start out a little lower and mess with your macros every 2 weeks or so as you watch your weight and BF numbers move. [/quote]
Yeah im a student but im generally an active person, although at the moment im not doing any cardio.
[quote]Mateus wrote:
…and 4,000kcals is probably too much. What do you do for a living? Are you a student? At 200lbs and meeting you in the middle at 13%BF your LBM is around 174lbs. To gain, that’s around 3,100 to 3,300kcals a day. Depending on your activity level of course. You may want to start out a little lower and mess with your macros every 2 weeks or so as you watch your weight and BF numbers move. [/quote]
shoot, I’m around 165 lbs LBM, and I need around 4200/day to gain. Some people have faster metabolisms, me for one
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
Mateus wrote:
…and 4,000kcals is probably too much. What do you do for a living? Are you a student? At 200lbs and meeting you in the middle at 13%BF your LBM is around 174lbs. To gain, that’s around 3,100 to 3,300kcals a day. Depending on your activity level of course. You may want to start out a little lower and mess with your macros every 2 weeks or so as you watch your weight and BF numbers move.
shoot, I’m around 165 lbs LBM, and I need around 4200/day to gain. Some people have faster metabolisms, me for one[/quote]
True. I know metabolic rate has lots to do with it, but I am just trying to figure out where he got the 4,000kcal figure from???
[quote]Professor X wrote:
dratner wrote:
yeah, seriously man, if you’re going to be eating 4,000 calories of food a day, why the hell would you deny yourself foods that will aid in serious muscle growth, make you healthier, and make living easier? I advise a carb cycling approach.
Are we all looking at the same pictures? This guy doesn’t even need carb cycling in my opinion, at least not yet. If he even needs 4,000cals a day, he simply needs to work on getting that food in and make adjustments as needed. You worry about cutting back on carbs if you are gaining fat too easily. However, treating carbs like the devil when you aren’t even at an intermediate level makes no sense.
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I cant imagine the need for something like Carb Cycling either, i’m guessing you have always looked somewhat like you do now (i.e naturally lean) and if thats the case I would read around the site from the guys who have managed to bulk successfully and go with something similar.
I wouldn’t even worry hugely about percentages either if I were you, you’re young, don’t burn yourself out with a whole lot of overly complicated crap that isn’t all that necessary in the first place. Enjoy going to the gym and getting bigger, don’t turn it into wormhole physics.
I like stevo’s advice not to overcomplicate it. Eat more calories than you need (tracking calories for a few weeks should help), and make sure you get a lot of protein. vary carbs and fat any damn well you please.
If high-carb or low-carb days make you feel like dookie, then don’t do those any more.
Bouncing around with carbs sucks. I tried it for a week (going from 40 grams a day to 120 or 150 the next) and gave up on it and now just stick with 120 grams a day on average (all before and post workout.) I’ll be going up to about 200 once I up my caloric intake from 3000 > 3500/3600 next week when I get my post workout in the mail.
If you’re focusing on eating your carbs in the morning and staying away from too many sweets I don’t think you should worry about them. The people that swear by low carb diets are (from what I could tell, don’t quote me on this, i’m a noob) advanced/professional bodybuilders who can AFFORD to do low carb diets (as in are big enough for it to matter) and know a lot about their own bodies. I used to be afraid of carbs and think that if I kept them low and had lots of protein and fats I would still be able to lift big in the gym, but I don’t think that’s true. You still need a good amount of carbs. Not a lot, but more than 30-40 grams. When I hit that low, I was always stressed out at work and REALLY grumpy. Especially doesn’t help that I work in a BAKERY!