Calorie intake

[Thorias]

Hello and hi to everyone.

This is my first post on this forum and wanted to start out by giving a big thanks for having such an informative forum with allot of helpfull people.

I have been reading on this site for atleast a month now and have found it very informative and it has taught me allot! I finnally decided to register and start asking some questions myself.

My question is concerning my calorie intake.

I way 160 pounds
im 5.9 feet
Ive been training for 3 years now. Started out weighing 120 pounds.

Now to my concerns and questions.

Lately ive been gaining allot of fat. In a period of 3,4 months id say i gained about 10 pounds of fat on my midsection and some fat on my chest area (bye bye abs)
I dident really concern myself with it seeing i was bulking. But i feel im gaining to much fat to fast.

My situation is as followed.
I work at home. I sit at my computer for 8 to 10 hours a day.
I train 4 times a week.
I absolutly dont do any cardio whatsoever.

And im eating around 4000 / 4500 calories a day.

I have started wondering since i have such a low intensity job and basicly sit on a chair 8 to 10 hours a day that maybe i dont need so much calories as the average bodybuilder who has a job as say a construction worker and who does allot of workouts.

I would like to ask the more expirienced people concerning diets what they think would be a good calorie intake for someone in my situation.

Thats all for now. Thank you for taking the time reading my post and my apoligies if my english seems odd (not my mother language)

[Hans_Rachid]

Do you do any kind of physical activity on a regular basis besides going to the gym, be it biking, walking for 30 minutes, playing tennis or whatever ? Also, how old are you and how long and intense are your workouts ? These informations would be useful to determine with some precision your calorie needs.

Assuming you're 20 years old and the only physical activity you do is 1h of intense weight lifting 4 times a week, then you would consume around 3100 kcal per day on average, and should consume around 3500 for a clean bulk.

Hope this helped.

And don't worry about your english, we can understand you just fine.

[Thorias]

Hi Hans,

Thank you for your reply.

My workouts is 4 times a week.
Monday(arms, legs),
Wednsday(chest),
Friday(Shoulders, arms, abs),
Saturday(Legs only).

My workouts are always intense and i workout around 90 minutes.

I really dont have any physical activity besides going to the gym.

I hope this info was enough to give you some idea of my lifestyle.

[Hans_Rachid]

The formula I use to find out your total energy expenditure (TEE) is the following (I assume you're a man because the constants are different for women) :
TEE = 864 − 9.72 × age (years) + PA × [(14.2 × weight (kg) + 503 × height (meters)]

PA is the physical activity coefficient and is worth 1.00 for a sedentary person, 1.12 for someone faintly active, 1.27 for active and 1.54 for very active.

Considering the informations you've given me and assuming an age of 20, you would fall somewhere inbetween active and very active and would need between 3100 and 3600 kcal per day on average. If you're 30 it would be 3000-3500, if you're 40 it would be 2900-3400.

Since you say youve been eating 4000-4500 kcal per day and have been gaining more fat than you want, may I suggest that you try consuming between 3500 and 4000 kcal, preferably closer to 3500 on days you don't workout and closer to 4000 on days you do. This should allow for a clean bulk, gaining muscle with little to no fat.

Good luck !

[smalldude]

your workouts weird

[Thorias]

Thanks Hans,

Im actually 26 (well asof august 1 anyway)

I will follow your advise and lower my calorie intake to 3500 on non training days and 4000 on training days.


In all my years of training i never needed to cut. I was always gaining with little to no Fat. Seems next year il be having my first cut!

Things could be worse i gues :-)

Thank you for the advice!