How many calories should I be eating if...?

Dedshot
Dedshot Posts: 145
in Health and Weight Loss
I am 5' 3", about 104 pounds (I was 102 before I began working out, so I believe this gain is due to muscle being heavier than fat). So I am quite small to begin with.

My question is how many calories should I be eating if I am working out 6 days a week, for roughly an hour each day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do Zumba, and every day I do 30 minutes of cardio, then I weight train lower body and abs alternating each day with arms.

My goal is to build nice lean muscle to replace the fat I have, to get more "tight" I guess the word would be, not speaking as a fitness professional of course.

So what do you think? How many calories is suitable for this regimen to neither gain or lose weight, but enough to build muscle? I know MFP has the option on your regimen to "maintain", but I would like to know if that would be a different number from eating enough to gain muscle.

Thank you!

Replies

  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
    I'd start out using the MFP calculator to calc your base burn. If your exercise regimen is about the same every day (calorie wise), add that in...more or less doing a TDEE calculation. Then take a look at the recommended calories, and adjust the protein intake to about double what MFP recommends (since you're trying to build muscle). That'll get you in the ballpark, and you can adjust as the weeks go by.
  • Dedshot
    Dedshot Posts: 145
    I'd start out using the MFP calculator to calc your base burn. If your exercise regimen is about the same every day (calorie wise), add that in...more or less doing a TDEE calculation. Then take a look at the recommended calories, and adjust the protein intake to about double what MFP recommends (since you're trying to build muscle). That'll get you in the ballpark, and you can adjust as the weeks go by.

    Where is this calculator? I just went and used a TDEE cal (never heard of this before) and it told me my BMR is 1201 calories/day, and my TDEE is 2072/day. Not quite sure what this means though?
  • Mia_RagazzaTosta
    Mia_RagazzaTosta Posts: 4,885 Member
    Since you're pretty small to begin with, I'd say eat around your maintenance calories, start a beginner lifting program, and work on body recomposition.

    I'm far from an expert, though.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,427 MFP Moderator
    OK, since you are underweight, I would definitely suggest adding mass, which will help you lower your effective body fat % and give you that lean look. With that said, during a bulk it is suggested to limit cardio. It's hard to tell exactly, but if you drop the cardio and weight train 5 days a week, you will probably need around 1800-2200 calories. There are many regimes that can provide gains in new muscle... many like strong lift 5x5, starting strength 5x5 or any other routines that work compound lifts. My question is, do you know what your true maintenance calories is? You can check out the gaining section as there are many women working for the same thing as you want. There are some good stories in there too.

    ps- you wont look like a fitness professional overnight. They work for years to get to that point and you can stop well before those results happen
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
    I'd start out using the MFP calculator to calc your base burn. If your exercise regimen is about the same every day (calorie wise), add that in...more or less doing a TDEE calculation. Then take a look at the recommended calories, and adjust the protein intake to about double what MFP recommends (since you're trying to build muscle). That'll get you in the ballpark, and you can adjust as the weeks go by.

    Where is this calculator? I just went and used a TDEE cal (never heard of this before) and it told me my BMR is 1201 calories/day, and my TDEE is 2072/day. Not quite sure what this means though?

    I think it's what you were talking about in your original post -- under "My Home", "Goals". What you can do is do a first pass using the "guided" settings for either "maintain" or maybe gain a bit, then go back and do a custom setting (which will start out with what it got using the guided settings), and adjust your protein up.

    TDEE (total daily energy expediture) is your average burn based on your activity profile -- that's your minimum per day to eat to keep from losing weight.

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