Advice

patrickmullin

Hi All,

Sorry to add yet another post on the subject, but having read a lot on the EM2WH and other groups, I wanted to check that I have this correct.

I am a 5'10", 40 year old man with a very, very sedentary lifestyle (computer programmer, working long hours from home, so no commute). I currently weigh in at 226lbs.

My BMR comes up as just under 2000 calories, which would give me a TDEE of 2400 (yes, I really am extremely sedentary!)

So, my understanding is that I should be looking to eat 2040 calories a day (TDEE - 15%) in order to ensure a steady, maintainable weight loss? I am starting to do some cardio exercise, but am not currently counting the calories for this as they are pitifully low due to being so out of breath. Once I get some stamina, I am planning to eat back at least 50% of exercise calories (100% if I am confident of the calorific value of the exercise).

Previously, my diet was far from idea - typically one large meal a day in the evenings, all bad foods, and high consumption of real ale. Am I right in thinking that I can expect to have a bit of weight gain initially as my body may have been under-nourished (lots of empty calories in beer)? Or is any weight gain due to a misunderstanding of what I should be doing?

Apologies if I am covering old ground for the more experienced people on here, but I have read a fair bit and just wanted to make sure that I have this right in my head, and am taking the right approach.

Many thanks,

Patrick

heybales

You got the principles right.

What might tweak those values to get closer to reality, is getting a bodyfat estimate, and basing BMR and foundation of math on that.

And yes, if you kept base as sedentary, and wanted to log your exercise when actually done, aka MFP style, then you'd eat back the exercise calories minus the same 15% deficit.

Might check out the spreadsheet on my profile page to get those best estimates, and log progress too. Stick on the Simple Setup and Progress tabs.

Weight gain depends on where you have been eating so far.
If slightly suppressed metabolism and you make a big jump to higher level, depending on how fast your system speeds up, you could spend some time literally eating more than actual at that moment TDEE. So fat gain if no exercise being done to use the extra calories.
Some water weight is likely to be expected, again dependent on what level of depletion you've been living with and how much more gets stored.

Hence depending on the difference between current eating levels and suggested, you increase slowly, like find somewhere you can add 200 calories daily for a couple weeks, then 200 more, ect, until at goal eating level.

patrickmullin

Hi Haybales,

Thanks for the reassurance that my understanding is not mistaken.

I will try to get my BF estimate this weekend. My initial attempts came out as 32% based on the average of 3 calculators on the fat2fit site, but as I was doing the measurements myself whilst dressed, I am taking that as only a guide for now. Hopefully doing the measurements correctly will give me a more accurate figure.

I have heard a lot about your spreadsheet in the forums, so will have a try at setting that up with my figures and use it for logging progress.

Thanks again,

Patrick