Calories/protein for recomp

joeperpetua

Hi all,
Hope you are doing well.

This is my first post and I am quite new to the nutrition/working out world.
I actually hit the gym for some years in my teenager times, but put no attention whatsoever to nutrition as I just did it to do some physical activity.

Now I am a 22yo male and I have started working out about 2 months ago and learning some stuff about nutrition just to keep myself active and work for a healthy body. I actually really enjoy going to the gym, and I consider it as my sport of choice in order to keep myself active.

I always knew about bulking/cutting but I just recently got to know about recomp and it is something that drew my attention.
When I started working out, I was weighing around 81kg (which was kind of high for me, as I always was around 70/75kg in the last few years).

I started tracking my calories, I set my objective to go down to 75kg without any clear goal in mind, maybe just reduce body fat. MyFitnessPal gave me a goal of 1800kcal per day and I stuck with it for the last two months (except for some messy days or whenever I trained - always aiming to not eat more than 1800kcal + active kcal in the day).

Now after 2 months, I am around 79kg and I see some considerable growth in muscle, but I am not sure what to aim for anymore and I would like to have some advice.

My goal is to get bigger but in a healthy way, just doing this to enjoy. The ideal scenario would be building muscle and losing body fat so I was wondering what the nutritional goals should be for that.

Personally, I think 1800kcal per day is a little low (TDEE calculator says 2800kcal - BMR calculator says 1820kcal), but not that bad I think. Aside from that, I have a pretty sedentary lifestyle (office work - so not much activity outside of doing grocery shopping some days and working out).

Regarding protein intake, I am only getting protein shakes when working out, and then I try to eat some protein rich foods during the week, but it proves to be quite challenging (living alone, working 39h/week) - in average I have been getting around 100g/day of protein.

I have seen that it is recommended to get way more, following the 1.3g/lb, I would have to be getting around 220g/day, but that kind of seem like a lot and hard to fit in the 1800kcal ingest without having to rely on several whey protein shakes per day.

Would this be normal? I have no issues in taking that much protein per day, but I just want to be sure as I am quite new in the topic.

For clarity sake, here is my body data:

• Age: 22
• Height: 182cm / 5' 12"
• Weight: 79kg / 175lbs
• Body type: Endomorph (I guess lol)
• Workout: 3 times per week - Upper / Lower / Full body - Hevy profile

Sorry for the long text, and thanks in advance for the help!

Retroguy2000

The real world data of your history is more informative than any TDEE calculator, which rely on multiplier estimates (1.2x, 1.4x, 1.6x, etc.) of your BMR based on vague activity descriptions.

It sounds like you've lost 2kg (4.4lb) in 8 weeks, which considering you don't have much weight to lose that sounds like very reasonable progress. This suggests you have been in a daily deficit of about 275 calories. I wonder if you've actually been ingesting 1800 as you think, since 1800+275 sounds a bit low for you imo as your actual TDEE (not counting workouts).

100g protein is low, but OTOH 1.3g per pound would be way too high. Generally, 0.7g-1g per pound is plenty while lifting, the former if you're quite overweight, latter if lean. So for you, 130g-175g should be good.

Edintokyo

Don’t know if this will be of any help, but I also was having a hard time eating enough protein. Then I saw a post where someone mentioned that they concentrate on hitting their daily protein number and let the other macros fall where they may. I adopted that approach and have since had no problem eating enough protein.

nossmf

Yep, my daily eating plan starts with planning my protein and veggies intake...yogurt for breakfast, chicken/pork with veggies and milk at dinner, whatever leftovers I have planned for lunch, protein shake on days I lift. Then I know how much room is left in my calorie budget for the day for anything else...bread, chips, desserts, occasional soda. Some days I get a second helping of bread; other days I have to live without. When I want to lose weight, I lay off the desserts, otherwise eat the same.

joeperpetua

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

The real world data of your history is more informative than any TDEE calculator, which rely on multiplier estimates (1.2x, 1.4x, 1.6x, etc.) of your BMR based on vague activity descriptions.

It sounds like you've lost 2kg (4.4lb) in 8 weeks, which considering you don't have much weight to lose that sounds like very reasonable progress. This suggests you have been in a daily deficit of about 275 calories. I wonder if you've actually been ingesting 1800 as you think, since 1800+275 sounds a bit low for you imo as your actual TDEE (not counting workouts).

100g protein is low, but OTOH 1.3g per pound would be way too high. Generally, 0.7g-1g per pound is plenty while lifting, the former if you're quite overweight, latter if lean. So for you, 130g-175g should be good.

Thanks for the response! I didn't get any notifications about this thread so I just thought it was buried in the forum lol 😅

Now, 3 weeks after this post, it would seem I am maintaining the 79kg (some wild trips and fun days here and there) but I don't think it will move much more at this pace I think (or maybe my scale is totally off lol), this is the weight trend:
https://dsm.joeper.myds.me/d/s/uRWfrvMVFMWGfBDs5oK3eVR25Ve9Zw2a/3zjTPqMfIfwIN5IjketQ9ZFHZTJS9PWM-o7Ng4zeVmgo

To be honest, staying at 79kg doesn't sound that bad as long as I can go through the recomp well.

I am now usually taking one shake in the morning as breakfast (50g) and then one in the evening (another 50g), so then with the rest of food ingestion I am getting a total of 170g on average these last weeks. I guess I will continue with it and see how it goes in a few months

Aside from that, really happy on the progress in the gym 😀

joeperpetua

Edintokyo wrote: »

Don’t know if this will be of any help, but I also was having a hard time eating enough protein. Then I saw a post where someone mentioned that they concentrate on hitting their daily protein number and let the other macros fall where they may. I adopted that approach and have since had no problem eating enough protein.

Hey! thanks for the response

Yeah, I think that is a very good way to go. At first I was very focused in the macros and it made things kind of stressful, now just thinking about the calories and protein is way more maintainable and easy to keep up hehe

joeperpetua

nossmf wrote: »

Yep, my daily eating plan starts with planning my protein and veggies intake...yogurt for breakfast, chicken/pork with veggies and milk at dinner, whatever leftovers I have planned for lunch, protein shake on days I lift. Then I know how much room is left in my calorie budget for the day for anything else...bread, chips, desserts, occasional soda. Some days I get a second helping of bread; other days I have to live without. When I want to lose weight, I lay off the desserts, otherwise eat the same.

That's nice! I have a bit of a problem planning foods though 😔 I like to improvise in the moment with what I have in the fridge I guess 😅😅

Usually eggs and ham are the way to go for me, versatile and quick, they go with everything and are kind of affordable here. Chicken is nice but I have to find it cheap hehe

For the rest some days I give myself some treats or go out with friends and I don't stress too much but I really like counting calories, it is the first time I do it and I find it really nice to understand what I eat and what is needed and what not 😀