A few calorie questions

napoleon · July 2nd, 2009, 12:26 PM

So its been a while since Ive been in the gym my work and living situation has kinda prohibited it, but Im planning on starting sooner this year in an attempt to get myself together for next year.

Long story short someone on here helped me get a great workout routine together last year which I followed pretty well and had some good luck with, appearance ehh not so much but I was much stronger than I ever was and felt good. Ive always had a tough time getting the diet down though. Well the last few weeks Ive been kinda sitting down in my spare time planning out my routine and my diet for my comeback to the gym. Someone suggested trying that fitday calendar. I was told to keep my calorie intake around 3500 a day if I was working out hard which I felt I was, lifting to exhaustion and cardio both 4 times a week to build muscle and lose some fat or atleast minimize adding any more fat. Well after plugging into the fitday calenday all the stuff I was eating and even being generous with some stuff I was coming up at around 2600 calories about 30% coming from protein, 40% coming from carbs and 30% from fats, give or take. Thats just about what Im suggested to just maintain my current physique(5'10", 19%bf 195lbs)

Now given that I felt I hit a plateau and never really gained much size would my calorie intake or lack thereof really have hampered my efforts of gaining any considerable muscle? I plan on getting back on the ball in about a month, I worked out all the stuff on the fitday site and came up with around 3500 calories as suggested I eat with 22% coming from fat, 35% carbs and 43% coming from protein, it takes quite a bit of food to get to those numbers!

So now does all this sound about right? Should I ease into this diet and calorie level or jump right in on my first day back training? I was going to give myself about 3 weeks taking it easy getting back into the motions so I dont hurt anything.

Thanks

**tooncesthecat** · July 2nd, 2009, 06:17 PM

First, congratulations on deciding to get back on the wagon! Second, decide if you are trying to add muscle or lose fat. By this I mean you will need to train differently for either. Now it is likely you may lose some fat from a muscle-building workout routine, but what I am talking about is ditching the cardio if you are trying to add muscle size.

The fitday numbers sound a bit high but the only way you will know for sure is to try to stick with them and see your results over a few weeks. See if you are gaining weight or losing or staying the same. Under even the best conditions and (assuming you are AAS free) you will probably only gain 5 or 6 pounds of MUSCLE in 12 months. So you want to guard against "bulking up" too much. Bodybuilders on AAS do this in the off season (it's lots of water weight from the drugs) but natties shouldn't do it because it just ends up being fat.

napoleon · July 4th, 2009, 12:12 AM

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I really do miss my time at the gym but I moved downtown Chicago for the summer and since my time was limited here Ive been going out as much as I can, not too much time for the gym or eating well.

Ive always been trying to work both sides but I think my best bet is gonna be getting rid of this fat to see what muscle I have. I love to lift heavy though. Ive heard a from a few other people that building muscle naturally is super slow without any 'help' I'm just not prepared to go that route right now.

I'm just wondering if I should eat the suggested calories to maintain my current weight, less to lose weight or more calories to try and build muscle since Im going to be lifting heavy even though I want to cut the fat.

**wildstang** · July 4th, 2009, 02:25 AM

get back 2 the gym life you will tons better. such a long break better be wise and ease back into things and lighter weight higher rep til you get 2 to 4 weeks gym time logged and then start cranking up the weight if your gonna try n add some mass. def cut cardio or seriously minimize it or morning only 4 fat burn. as far as fitday suggesting set calorie, most suggested dont work that well. really depends on your activity level how many cals needed and spacing the cals throughout the day. tape, scale, and mirror is all you need to figure what you need.

napoleon · July 6th, 2009, 09:09 AM

Yea I was planning on taking it easy for my first few weeks, Ive learned my lesson in the past from trying to pick up where I left off.

As far as the fitday thing is concerned, the calories that were listed for particular foods were pretty darn close when I went to the websites of each of the foods in question. I just couldnt believe how much food was involved to get up to 3500 calories.

The problem with just using the mirror and measuring tape to judge how much I need to eat. I dont know if its just me or not but my diet has varied greatly over the years and no matter what I always seem to maintain about the same size. Granted after working out for a year I seen a noticeable increase in size but clothes for the most part always fit the same no matter what I was doing. Over the years I dont think my weight has changed more than 10lbs plus or minus. I always settle back to around 190.