Eating While Recovering from Surgery?

Diet and Nutrition
1

I have been reading T-Nation, lifting, and trying to eat right for about 4 months now. I have gained about 15 lbs but still would like to gain a lot more ~30 more lbs. I am about 6’1 145 lbs (I know super skinny), but I did not know how much I needed to eat until I got on this site. I currently am eating around 3500-4000 cals, but I am getting ready to have knee surgery this Friday. I was wondering how my carb/pro/fat breakdown should be and how much I should cut my cals (if any) since I will not be able to train for about 3 weeks. I do not want to lose any weight, but I do not want to gain fat and lose muscle(although I am sure I will lose a little). Any suggestions?

2

at 145 4000 cals is a lot. Being ur gonna be sitting around, to keep fat gains down. I would eat less cals and also follow a low carb diet while ur out. Make sure to keep fat high though. Then carb back up once a week.
Basically eat less then ur eating now to avoid getting fat but enough to keep from losing mass which if u still eat frequently and a basically good diet should not be a serious problem.

3

I would keep your carbs fairly high (about 40%) simply because you seem to have ectomorphic tendencies. I know that I start to loose weight at 35% of my calories coming from carbs and I have a similar body type. Many will disagree, but I know that I when I was recently out for 2 months for my rotator cuff, I kept carbs that high and gained only 1 lb in that time (I wanted to maintain weight)

Also, try to get your bodyweight (minimum in protein) to try to keep most muscle mass.

I would probably use the massive eating calculations as a baseline. Berardi recommends that a person eats 10% more than baseline when injured, but massive eating already is a little high for most people.

Good luck.

4

So if I currently eat about 3500 cals to maintain my weight, lifting 4x a week, how much do you think I need to cut cals (as a baseline) to maintain when not lifting? I know I will need to monitor and adjust accordingly just wondering where I should start?

5

Assuming you use the massive eating calculator:

6 145/2.21 hr= 395 calories

So probably 3000-3100ish. Give it a try.

6

thanks I will try that out as a baseline