The T-Dawg 2 article says that 100g of carbs should be taken in on training days, and 70 on non-training days. Plus 1.5g of protein per pound. But how many grams of fats should i consume, with weight loss being my primary goal?
Max, let’s use a training day. 100g x 4 cal = 400 carb calories. If you were 200 pounds, your protein requirements would be 350g x 4 cal = 1400 protein calories. Just add your protein calories and carb calories together (1800 in our example above) and subtract that number from the number of calories you intend to eat each day. The number you get is the number of fat calories you need to take in. And remember, each fat gram is worth 9 calories.
Does that answer your question?
I also have slight problems with my good fat intake, esp. omega-3. If you are a smaller and shorter person like me (165 pounds), 70 grams of carbs will constitute around 15% of daily calories, which is a lot more than for a 250-pound guy. So…this combined with tasty=fatty foods that are allowed on T-dawg (real cheese, some bacon, whole eggs, olive-oil based salad dressings, nuts), I’m finding that there is no room in my calorie allowance for good things like flax. Most of the stuff is still good fat like in olive oil and nuts, but too little omega-3 fats. I just hate drinking flax straigth (too evil to mix it in foods, either). Sigh…trading a nice piece of cream cheese to a can of cottage cheese plus a swig of wicked flax oil (or fish oil pills) doesn’t sound that nice. I know, I’m a pussy…but people lost fat even on atkinsque diets with lot of animal fats. So I’ll hope that flax is there just for general health and cholesterol - I’m planning for 4-week session at the most so I’m assuming that cholesterol will not shoot through the roof.
Otherwise, I’m having only minor problems (tiredness, absent feelings) with low carbs after two days of t-dawg - I think the worst carb depletion and cravings are still ahead. Actually my carbs have been a bit lower than recommeded just because I think that I am a bit smaller than the average T-magger. Strength was ok at the gym - I decided to split my workout drink into two parts, and really felt that carb spike already during training gave needed extra energy.
BTW, how do you get paragraph spacing in this forum? No matter how many line feeds I insert in my text, it always appears as one paragraph in the forums…
Pretty much, Terry. Does this sound about right? Thanks!
2500 total (BW x 1.2)
100g carb = 400 cal
315g prot = 1260 cal (BW x 1.5)
210g fat = 840 cal
JF, i honestly have no idea. Sometimes paragraph spacing works, sometimes it doesn’t 
Max, this is a subtletie, but an important one. Try using the multiplier 13+ (not 1.2) times your LBM, not your TBW. Can you get your BF tested somewhere? I have an extremely slow, stubborn metabolism, and I use the multiplier 13. I feel you’d do better with 15 as the article says, but definitely don’t use 12. The number you get will be the number of calories you’re allowed to take in on a daily basis.
Your protein looks good, and your carbs look good. Remember to reduce your carbs to 70g on non-weightlifting days. You may have to recalculate your fat grams and calories because 210g of fat is equal to 1,890 kCal. 9 kCal per fat gram. Carbs and protein are 4 kCal per gram. Get back to me with your LBM, and I’ll check your numbers.
How to paragraph: I type open angle bracket, br, close angle bracket. The “br” stands for a line break. I use 2 to get a paragraph. No spaces necessary.
Good going, Max. You’ve about got this thing nailed. I can see you’re doing it right; i.e., scientifically. I promise you it will get easier. It’s only a hassle in the beginning when you’re trying to figure it all out.
Hi, JF. I know what you’re saying about getting in your good fats. I take in a lot of good fats, but the only reason I’m able to do so is because I don’t eat bacon or sausage or butter, and I no longer use cream in my coffee. I eat chicken breasts, tuna, eggs, LC Grow, salmon and an occasional (very occasional) steak. My salad dressing I make with flaxseed oil, garlic, lemon juice, Splenda, salt and fresh basil.
There’s nothing wrong with some saturated fat in your diet. It increases testosterone levels, for one thing. I just like the health benefits I get from flaxing (and fish-oil’ing).
When I’m planning out what I’m going to eat for the day, the first thing I plug in is my protein. I prioritize protein like a BB prioritizes the body part he want to improve. I also try to keep my fat (that comes with meat or other external sources) as low as I possibly can. I love nuts and there’s good fats in 'em, but I’m careful with 'em because I do VERY low carbs (<30g per day except on carb refeed days) and don’t want to pay the carb price. The reason I’m so stingy with meat-containing and what I call “external” sources of fat is that the lower I cut the number, the more room there is for my good fats.
After protein, getting in my high-dose fish oil (6g) is my second priority. That costs me 202 kCal.
Just thinking, since I do really low carbs 5 days a week, that gives me the opportunity to raise my good fat intake. Honestly, though, I eat for my goals, not for taste. It took me a long time to get to this point, though, probably that multi-month plateau I went through. (grin)
Does that help?
Part II, here.
Since you’re only talking four weeks or so that you’ll be doing T-Dawg, it probably isn’t going to be a big deal if you don’t get your good fats in. It’s more important that the sum total of the good you do is greater than the bad you do over the course of your life. Myself, I miss my veggies and fruit, but I do supplement with a good multi, and more importantly, I’m not going to be eating this way for the rest of my life. I’m eating/dieting to achieve a goal.
Energy will get better as your body adapts. It will take you about a week to make the metabolic shift, at which point you won’t even have to worry about cravings. Don’t be afraid to drink coffee or tea for energy. And if you ever do have the opportunity to take high-dose EPA/DHA, it has stimulatory, endurance enhancing and cognitive benefits in addition to its other health benefits.
I included instructions on how to paragraph in my message to Max. Do a search on HTML tags on the Internet, and you’ll learn how people bold, italicize, paragraph messages here on T-Mag.
Keep us posted on how you’re doing. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
FYI: you can create a paragraph by typing < then the letter p, followed by a > Hope that’s helpful.
Terry, i’m planning to pick up a caliper tomorrow, so i should know what my BF is pretty soon. How do i calculate my LBM though? BF% subtracted from TBW, correct?
Alright, so say my LBM is 175lbs. That times 13 is 2275 cal. But the T-Dawg 2 article says i should multiply my TBW by 15 instead, which comes out to 3150 cal. Two very different numbers, as you can see. I can live with 2275 just fine though, but i’d still like to know why they recommend such a drastically different formula?
And finally, what’s the difference (if any) between kCal and cal?
Well, let’s see. Start by calculating your Lean Body Mass (LBM). If you were 185 pounds and 20% BF, you would multiply 185 x .20, which equals 37 pounds of Fat Mass (FM). Subtract 37 pounds from 185 and you end up with 148 pounds of LBM.
Chris Shugard explained why he recommended using a multiplier of 15 times TBW in another message posted here today; i.e., people guess, measure incorrectly, keep trying until they get a BF% they like, etc. Normally, when you’re trying to determine your caloric requirements, you do it based on LBM, but when giving something a go – T-Dawg, in this case – it’s always best to play by the rules, in this case T-Dawg’s rules and Chris Shugart & TC’s rules.
So yes, use the multiplier 15, but don’t forget that after the first week you’re supposed to subtract 500 calories per day from the number. You gave me an example of 3150 calories (kCAl and cal are one and the same). Subtracting 500 from that would give you 2650.
Still higher than the 2275 number, but it’s better to start high, give it a week, drop the calories a bit as needed, than it is to start too low, lose a lot of weight fast and a lot of LBM in the process.
No matter what number you start with, you’re probably going to have to make some adjustments. Just the fact that you’re keeping a food log is going to allow you to make subtle changes, tweak and fine-tune things. Most OTHER people (the kind that don’t keep food logs) make DRASTIC changes and lose LBM as a result.
Does that help?
Thanks Terry, that answers everything!
Damn, I wrote an reply but it disappeared…
However, to shortly tell what's been happening this week: I went straight to diet phase (~2000 cals for a guy my size). Also started creatine to offset strength loss on diet. I'm down 2 pounds, mostly water I guess. But since creatine usually has the effect of bumping my weight up 4 pounds, I'm hoping that there is some fat loss also as it cannot be *just* water. Mirror confirms this also as my ab definition is better. I'm eating a bit too little protein, but anyway at least as much as during my normal diet. Anyway, original T-dawg diet suggested even lower amounts so I'll suppose I'm ok.