Like a “beer float” ? Is this a new powerlifter superfood…I may have to try this.
Depends on how large your eating window is. Eating 3000 cals in 8 hours is a lot different than eating them in a 15 or so hours.
I find that your body actually needs less calories to grow in an 8 hour eating window as opposed to eating all day long.
I do leangains with tweaks and weigh around 208 (give or take a few pounds) I find that if I eat 3000 calories I gain weight quick. Not close to maintenance at all hahaha.
To answer your question, I would play around with calories, carbs, proteins and find out what your body is like, not like an article says.
Just out of curiosity anyone have a guess as to his bf% Just as a reference. I would find it hard to beilieve that he’s 25% but I don’t know much on calculating it. Also I’m pretty jealous that’s all you have to eat to maintain that weight. If I were you and you went to bulk I would slowly add calories until you were gaining a pound a week. Thats just my 2 cents though and much more educated people have already chimed in.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Very interesting info. My “plan” if you could even call it that is pretty basic at this point. I’m primarily just counting calories as precisely as possible, and the secondary objectives are to get at least a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and to limit my carbs a lot more. My macros now are looking like they are around 40% protein, 35% fat, and 25% carb give or take 2 or 3 percent on each. Now until recently (week or two ago) there was literally no plan. If all I had to eat one day was ice cream and beer, then w/e that was cool.
[/quote]
I would play around with increasing carbs. Even to 50% of your caloric intake would probably be cool, and if the goal is to cut once you get to eating higher calories this will give you an abundance of carb macronutrients to play with rather than pulling from protein and only pulling from fat when necessary.
[quote]bulkNcut wrote:
Just out of curiosity anyone have a guess as to his bf% Just as a reference. I would find it hard to beilieve that he’s 25% but I don’t know much on calculating it. Also I’m pretty jealous that’s all you have to eat to maintain that weight. If I were you and you went to bulk I would slowly add calories until you were gaining a pound a week. Thats just my 2 cents though and much more educated people have already chimed in. [/quote]
Probably closer to 20 imo who knows judging with that pic and by the eye is kind of hard
Check your thyroid it could be being gay on you…
Low levels of T4/T3 will definitely slow down your metabolic rate.
Trust me i know.
[quote]Mike T. wrote:
I find that your body actually needs less calories to grow in an 8 hour eating window as opposed to eating all day long.
[/quote]
I’ve been playing with IF this week and would like to stick with it for a while but what do you think is the reason for this?
Long term I want to be able to just eat my fill, one of the major reasons I want to add LBM. If IF lowers my metabolism, that would totally suck.
You think because you are throwing so much energy at your body at one time its forced to store more than it would with smaller/frequent meals?
[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
Greens and calories and stuff.[/quote]
I get what you’re saying and I guess I don’t disagree with you (except that your example is extreme), but I don’t think it’s a context too helpful for the OP is all. It would be more prudent to fill yourself with decent servings of vegetables (without worrying about them) and then focus on the bigger picture. For people who have got dieting down for themselves and have experience, worrying about those details can help you achieve your goals.
Also, because of the low calorie density it would be near impossible for your diet to shift from 100 calories of greens to 500.
Anyway, lets keep this thread on track! I do have a question on the topic of setting a starting point for a diet.
(This assumes a non-keto diet) Let’s say I choose my target intake. I wanna get bigger and I’m not huge yet (so main fence isn’t too big), I choose 3000.
Next I would set my protein. 1.xx per bodyweight. I like easy numbers and not to be too anal, so I choose 200g = 800 calories a day (this is actually about 1.3/lb for me).
3000 - 800 = 2200 calories left on the plate. Now how do you play with this number, your carbs, and your fat?
I tried setting a somewhat arbitrary carb number (lets say 300g) that I think is fair game and then subtracting the calories and eating the left over calories of fat.
But I’ve never done a diet to purposefully bulk. In my short time of training I have let myself just get bigger naturally, and then I have cut fat. Cutting to me seems almost more simple because (basically) protein is kept high while you restrict carbs and fat.
But now I got these calories, and all of a sudden it’s like wait, what do I eat now? Yeah, I am complicating a somewhat basic problem (eat more), but I am mostly worried about -optimization-.
Is there a special number for carbs which keeps insulin steady for growth, or a minimal number for fats to keep hormones balanced and the body working well?
Kind of technical question, but would love to hear people’s opinion/experiences even if you don’t think you got the perfect answer.
[quote]csulli wrote:
So I weigh about 200lbs and if I’m totally honest, I only ever eat about 2300 calories a day. I’m starting to obsess over my diet more recently. I’ve seen multiple places guys writing that a guy my size who powerlifts would need like fuckin 3600 calories a day just to maintain.
Am I doin something wrong? I’ve only just started considering things like this, because I was curious what kind of calories I would need to build a bit more muscle or to trim some fat off around the middle or to just stay where I’m at. That would be a useful to know.
I’m just pretty confused about what people think a 200lb lifter really needs calorie wise.[/quote]
There is not a specific value based on weight.
If you feel good you are eating enough.
If you eat a low carbohydrate diet your body’s hunger signals for protein and fat will not lie.
[quote]giograves wrote:
[quote]Mike T. wrote:
I find that your body actually needs less calories to grow in an 8 hour eating window as opposed to eating all day long.
[/quote]
I’ve been playing with IF this week and would like to stick with it for a while but what do you think is the reason for this?
Long term I want to be able to just eat my fill, one of the major reasons I want to add LBM. If IF lowers my metabolism, that would totally suck.
You think because you are throwing so much energy at your body at one time its forced to store more than it would with smaller/frequent meals?[/quote]
I think because the meals are so much larger and you have ample time to digest these “high doses” of food, and especially if you train fasted.
I wouldn’t worry to much about lowered metabolism as long as you get your calories in the allotted eating window. I would stick with 16/8 for a while until you progress into larger fast.
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
All the calculators are a great starting point but only you will be able to determine exact caloric needs for cutting and bulking. If you noticed Stu new exactly what his caloric intake needs to be to the T. This came from time, trial and error and analy logging his needs. Only you will now your true calorie expenditure. We dont know hard you work out or how many calories you burn during the day. (you may have a manual labor job) which will effect the total calories you need.
For me as a powerlifter if I dont watch it, I will drop fat/body weight so fast its almost instant. For example when I run Sheiko I know that I will need an additional 1400 cal to just maintain my body weight which puts me right under 5000 cal a day at 235-240lbs. Yes many heavy weights simply dont care how much extra BF they carry. I am of the mindset that just because you PL doesnt mean you still cant have a good looking body. Our bodies are just shaped and formed for a specific task. [/quote]
Hey i agree with u. Im 175 lbs and ive been eating 3600 cal on anabolic diet, and my weight remains the same. Whats wrong with me? Haha
I guess some of us have much higher maintenance cals. 18x my bw is 3100, thats where some ppl bulk, i eat 500cal over and i still dont gain lol
It seems that you’ve had, admittedly, a pretty poor diet and have spent a few weeks tracking and cleaning it up. (Correct me if I’m wrong here.) “If I were you,” I would spend a few (3-6?) months really focusing on eating better and consistently hitting your protein numbers. During this time I would eat based mostly on hunger, train hard, and not worry too much about macro ratios, just see where this takes you. This is already a huge change and simply practicing success for a while would be a good thing.
With a solid foundation you will be in a much better place to decide where to go and how to do it. There are a lot of smart guys on here and many know a lot more than me about diet, Stu being a great example, but I think you may be in a better position to profit from their advice by solidifying your base/practicing good habits first.
Good luck to you, I think for most (all?) of us, training is actually the easy part!