Perfecting my calorie intake

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andrewnd92
andrewnd92 Posts: 21
in Fitness and Exercise
I have been hitting the gym 4 days a week doing lifting. I was doing some research about techniques and how to get the best results from lifting a found this interesting article. It was about gaining a pound of muscle a week and something in this article regarding calories and the metabolic rate got me confused.

Basically it said you need to calculate the amount of calories your body needs by converting your weight to pounds and them multiply it by 12. So I am 140 pounds x 12 gets me 1680 basic calorie needs. It then said to multiply 1680 x 1.6 to get an estimated metabolic rate, which is the calorie burn without factoring in exercise. This gets me 2688.

So I'm burning 2688, without factoring in a workout, calories a day when I am only consuming 1680?? Surely this is wrong or I have been misinformed as what the metabolic rate is.

Contrary to this article I have been consuming 2100 cals a day minimum. Eating 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and protein shakes. A Personal trainer said to me I should up this to 2800 minimum with an additional 500.

Obviously I don't want to lift on a calorie defect and I want to get the best results from my workout. Can any one point me in the right direction. What is the best calorie intake to build muscle from the gym?

My stats are, about 5.10 height, 21 year old male weighting 140 pounds.

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  • drazani
    drazani Posts: 98 Member
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    Hi using a TDEE calculator at the IIFYM web site, your maintenance calories workout at 2337 per day, this is just with the excercise and doesn't take into account if you also have a very active lifestyle, your bulking calories Work out as 2454 (5% gain per week). If you go too high you end up putting on a lot of other mass, instead of the LBM you are looking to put on, you will also have to concentrate on your Macro Nutrients as well (protein,carbs and fat). Google IIFYM and go onto the website and have a read through there to find out what works best for you.
  • glowgirl14
    glowgirl14 Posts: 200 Member
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    That formula is easy, and is close to my numbers...but if I used it, I'm afraid I wouldn't be losing anything...I used the calculators suggested by this thread:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

    The numbers here agree much more closely with what my fitbit and my HRM say I burn...

    I'm 5'4, 119lbs. the formula you found give me a BMR of 1428. My actual BMR is 1313. TDEE varies according to my activity for the day, but it is a range of 1700 (rest days) and 2200 (on VERY active days). The simple calculation you found puts me at 2284.

    If you're serious about this, get a decent HRM, and wear it all day for a couple of weeks to see what you're actually burning. Especially during your workouts.And in the meantime, check out that link. It's long and sort of complicated, but it explains things really well.

    Good luck! : )

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