Caloric Intake & Body Fat

trelm249

I'm a little confused at how kaitlyn and I can be the same height, but so drastically different in weight. I mean, according to the skinfold test I have almost her entire body weight in muscle alone. Unless I my calculations are completely wrong. Apparently my goal body weight for 20% body fat should put me around 171 lbs, but that still seems high. Insight?

That is not necessarily high based on the body composition of the person involved. Same height with different frames (the width of the pelvic girdle impacting waist and hip size) and muscle makeup can produce drastically different weights.

This is what drives me crazy about people focusing on some number on the scale. While body composition, endurance, strength, stamina, and blood work are all fairly consistent measurements of fitness, they can appear radically different when applied to individuals due to the myriad of variables. It is about you being a fit and healthy you, not the same weight as someone else.

I will get out of the pulpit now and we can pass the plate around.

tross0924

If you still need more -

Age - 36
Sex - Male
Weight - 205
Height - 5' 11"
Body fat % - 17% (Impedance)
LBM - 171
Daily Calories - 2900 - 3100 (that's including my exercise calories)
Goal BF % - 8%

wondergirl1003

That is not necessarily high based on the body composition of the person involved. Same height with different frames (the width of the pelvic girdle impacting waist and hip size) and muscle makeup can produce drastically different weights.

This is what drives me crazy about people focusing on some number on the scale. While body composition, endurance, strength, stamina, and blood work are all fairly consistent measurements of fitness, they can appear radically different when applied to individuals due to the myriad of variables. It is about you being a fit and healthy you, not the same weight as someone else.

I will get out of the pulpit now and we can pass the plate around.

I'm not living and dying by the scale, I care mostly about what I look and feel like. Thing is, in college (when I was lifting 3 days a week, conditioning 3 and playing 3-4 hours of softball a day) I weighed around 165. Still had the same trouble areas that I have now, possibly less prominent, but weighed 20lbs less. My lifts were much heavier and I was doing so more consistently than I am at the moment. I never had my BF% taken then, but I seriously don't look much different even with more weight on me now. So what, I gained an eff-ton of muscle without trying? Or maybe I was much thinner then and my memory is warped.

Jesung

Age - 22
Sex - Male
Weight - 170
Height - 5' 11"
Body fat % - 15% (skinfold caliper)
Daily Calories - 3500 (just upped from 3000)

tameko2

Age: 36
Sex: F
Height: 5'9"
Weight 148.4
Body fat: 25%
Daily Calories: 1450 net

I upped my calories 5 weeks ago because after doing a lot of reading here, I realized I was not eating enough. I was eating 1200 and not eating my excercise calories back. After changing my calorie intake, I lost 3 pounds in 2 weeks but have been stuck ever since. I exercise 5 days a week. Weight training 3 days and hiit cardio 2 days. My goal is to be 18-20% bf.

There is a slight chance you are still not eating enough. There are a couple of ways to test this. First, increase your caloric intake by another 200 calories. Do this for amount a month to see how your weight changes. The other is to run the katch mcardle formula I originally posted to do this method. If you want help, please let me know. I will be glad to help.

yeah I thought that sounded pretty low because this is what I eat:

Age: 29
Sex: F
Body Fat : 29% (maybe its lower now...but probably not! I'm down 2lbs though since I measured)
Daily Calories: 1680 -- but I fluctuate daily between about 1500 and 1950 and I am a little unscientific about the calorie counting since I eat out mostly so its reliant on what restaurants post and guesstimation about how much of it I eat, general idea of how much 4 ounces of meat is etc.

I was eating a lot less for a while - staying under 1450 and not only was I find it hard to stay that low but it was exhausting me. I felt tired and had some terrible workouts for a few weeks. After I upped it I had to retrain my body to eat the extra - I'd feel like I wasn't very hungry and I'd eat because I knew I should - and NOW my body seems to be very accurate in letting me know when I need more. I'm at about 1430 right now nad getting hunger signals so having a scoop and a half of protein powder and that will set me AND my protein macro for the day.

BF Goal (optional): 18-20% I don't know what its going to look like yet.

I think this is an interesting project and I'm excited to see the data but don't we scientifically know that a pound of muscle burns more than a pound of fat? So the answer will be yes - someone who weighs the same as me (175) and is 35% body fat will have a lower BMR. Whcih is why the Katch Mcardle formula that this calculator uses exists. http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

tameko2

That is not necessarily high based on the body composition of the person involved. Same height with different frames (the width of the pelvic girdle impacting waist and hip size) and muscle makeup can produce drastically different weights.

This is what drives me crazy about people focusing on some number on the scale. While body composition, endurance, strength, stamina, and blood work are all fairly consistent measurements of fitness, they can appear radically different when applied to individuals due to the myriad of variables. It is about you being a fit and healthy you, not the same weight as someone else.

I will get out of the pulpit now and we can pass the plate around.

I'm not living and dying by the scale, I care mostly about what I look and feel like. Thing is, in college (when I was lifting 3 days a week, conditioning 3 and playing 3-4 hours of softball a day) I weighed around 165. Still had the same trouble areas that I have now, possibly less prominent, but weighed 20lbs less. My lifts were much heavier and I was doing so more consistently than I am at the moment. I never had my BF% taken then, but I seriously don't look much different even with more weight on me now. So what, I gained an eff-ton of muscle without trying? Or maybe I was much thinner then and my memory is warped.

Your memory might be warped but age also changes our bodies - I thoguht I was so fat in highschool (thanks *kitten* parents!) and I still remember looking at my "fat" thighs and "fat" belly and I weighed FORTY pounds less than I do now. And I think I look as good now (except in the belly) than I did before - but its probably not true as forty pounds is a LOT. I probably will look better at 150 age 29 than I did at 135 age 17 though. Bodies do shift.

psuLemon

That is not necessarily high based on the body composition of the person involved. Same height with different frames (the width of the pelvic girdle impacting waist and hip size) and muscle makeup can produce drastically different weights.

This is what drives me crazy about people focusing on some number on the scale. While body composition, endurance, strength, stamina, and blood work are all fairly consistent measurements of fitness, they can appear radically different when applied to individuals due to the myriad of variables. It is about you being a fit and healthy you, not the same weight as someone else.

I will get out of the pulpit now and we can pass the plate around.

I'm not living and dying by the scale, I care mostly about what I look and feel like. Thing is, in college (when I was lifting 3 days a week, conditioning 3 and playing 3-4 hours of softball a day) I weighed around 165. Still had the same trouble areas that I have now, possibly less prominent, but weighed 20lbs less. My lifts were much heavier and I was doing so more consistently than I am at the moment. I never had my BF% taken then, but I seriously don't look much different even with more weight on me now. So what, I gained an eff-ton of muscle without trying? Or maybe I was much thinner then and my memory is warped.

As somewhat stated before, stuff like bone structure (and bone density) and your chest plays a huge factor. Keep in mind that even when you do a skin fold test, you are averaging over several parts of your body. For example, I have 8.5% body fat in my arms, 16% in my belly, 10% in my hips, 10% in my thighs, 10% in my hips, etc... and I have 10.5 or 11% total body fat. So if you store all your weight in one area, it can be deceiving. My friend is the same height as me and about the same body fat, but weighs 30 lbs less and has 4" less in the waist as me.

psuLemon

yeah I thought that sounded pretty low because this is what I eat:

Age: 29
Sex: F
Body Fat : 29% (maybe its lower now...but probably not! I'm down 2lbs though since I measured)
Daily Calories: 1680 -- but I fluctuate daily between about 1500 and 1950 and I am a little unscientific about the calorie counting since I eat out mostly so its reliant on what restaurants post and guesstimation about how much of it I eat, general idea of how much 4 ounces of meat is etc.

I was eating a lot less for a while - staying under 1450 and not only was I find it hard to stay that low but it was exhausting me. I felt tired and had some terrible workouts for a few weeks. After I upped it I had to retrain my body to eat the extra - I'd feel like I wasn't very hungry and I'd eat because I knew I should - and NOW my body seems to be very accurate in letting me know when I need more. I'm at about 1430 right now nad getting hunger signals so having a scoop and a half of protein powder and that will set me AND my protein macro for the day.

BF Goal (optional): 18-20% I don't know what its going to look like yet.

I think this is an interesting project and I'm excited to see the data but don't we scientifically know that a pound of muscle burns more than a pound of fat? So the answer will be yes - someone who weighs the same as me (175) and is 35% body fat will have a lower BMR. Whcih is why the Katch Mcardle formula that this calculator uses exists. http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

All I am trying to do is provide another data point for people to make that decision on how to lose weight. I always say, if you want to look like an athlete you need to train like one. I can show them the math (and trust me I do) but many don't believe it. So if I show them what others have done and how they got there, I am hoping to pursuade them to be more open. Besides, i am a financial guy so I love numbers and spreadsheets to help prove a point, lol. So far i have collected on 75 people and hoping to get 100. I also need to find time in my crazy schedule to truely analyze and write. Thank god from some upcoming holidays.


Thank you for providing the data.

tinytearsie

Due to the overwhelming amount of threads on eatin vs not eating exercise calories back, I want to do an informational thread on how many calories people eat vs their total body fat. I then will put this into an excel spreadsheet and do some analysis (yes, I am an excel dork).

The objective is to test the theory, that people with really low body fat have to consume a huge amount of calories to maintain or continue to change their body composition.

Below is the format. If you would like to respond but prefer not to post information publically, feel free to send me a private message.

Age: 29
Sex: M
Body Fat : 12%
Daily Calories: 2600

BF Goal (optional): 8%


I would like to thank those who participate. On a side note, below is my approach to calculating my caloric needs for the day. Just for information.

Here is my perception on the matter. I actually use this site just to track my calories. I use a different method to determine how many calories I should be eating and suggest it to many. According to this website, if you use their calculations, if you workout and burn 300 calories, than you should eat an extra 300 calories that day because the site has already built in a deficit for you. The more you have to lose the bigger an acceptable deficit is but the closer your goal is, the smaller your deficit should be. This is because the more muscle you have, the lower the body fat, the more fuel you body needs to sustains it's functions. Also, a deficit is should never been more than 1000 calories a day (which would allow for 2 lbs per week loss) but it more acceptable to do 1 lb a week or 500 calorie deficit. Additionally, a woman should eat not less than 1200 net calories. This is the amount of calories after you workout. So if you burn 500 calories, you need at least 1700 calories; men should be no less than 1500-1700 after workout calories from my research. Also, a large part of these calories should be driven by protein based sources. The ammino acids in the protein is what stimulates muscle growth. The more muscle your body has, the more calories you burn at rest.

My approach looks at Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); BMR is the amount of calories you would burn if you slept 24 hours, for me, my BMR is 2000 calories. I then mutliply it by my Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE); how many calories I should eat to make up for daily activities (walking, working out, etc) to get a total number of calories. Because I do a program like p90x, I multiply my 2000 calories by 1.725 which equals 3400 calories. This amount of calories is the amount I need to eat to maintain weight. I back off 500 caloires as my deficit and eat 3000 calories in a day. This is the website I use.


http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

I then go into a custom setup under my goals and set my daily intake for 3000 calories (well I will starting sunday, right now it's 2800 because I haven't officially started p90x until sunday). Additionally, to follow the p90x food guide, I set up custom ratio's. I do 45% of carbs, 35% of protein and 20% for fats. As I progress, I will lower protein and increase carbs. This method has worked for me and others I have worked with on the site. MFP just makes it simple for anyone to come on and lose weight. I take more of a scientific approach to weight loss. When I started I was 210 & 18% body fat. Now I am 189 and 12% body fat and hoping to break single digits within 3 months.

Cliff notes: if you go by the sites calculations, you absolutely should eat back your workout calories as they preload the deficit. If you go by the more scientific method, you don't have to worry about it, it's already figured in your number.

Good luck everyone.

psuLemon

I'm not living and dying by the scale, I care mostly about what I look and feel like. Thing is, in college (when I was lifting 3 days a week, conditioning 3 and playing 3-4 hours of softball a day) I weighed around 165. Still had the same trouble areas that I have now, possibly less prominent, but weighed 20lbs less. My lifts were much heavier and I was doing so more consistently than I am at the moment. I never had my BF% taken then, but I seriously don't look much different even with more weight on me now. So what, I gained an eff-ton of muscle without trying? Or maybe I was much thinner then and my memory is warped.

I was thinking of this more last night, keep in mind you can also increase muscle mass (LBM) without decreasing body fat. So remember, 10% body fat doesn't always look the same.

psuLemon

Weekend bump!

cgavin77

Happy Friday!

Age: 33 (until next week)
Female
Weight: 108
Height: 5'2
Body fat %: 22.3 (U.S. Navy Circumference Method)
Calories: -1410 (set by MFP for 'maintenence'. Ok with weight at the moment looking to lower my BF% mostly. I eat back about 1/2 my exercise cals-150-250ish- if I am hungry )
Goal bf%: 18-20%

Havent been able to lose inches OR lower my BF for a few months now.... Seems like Im at a stand still!
Not sure what the problem is.

jem728

bump

psuLemon

Happy Friday!

Age: 33 (until next week)
Female
Weight: 108
Height: 5'2
Body fat %: 22.3 (U.S. Navy Circumference Method)
Calories: -1410 (set by MFP for 'maintenence'. Ok with weight at the moment looking to lower my BF% mostly. I eat back about 1/2 my exercise cals-150-250ish- if I am hungry )
Goal bf%: 18-20%

Havent been able to lose inches OR lower my BF for a few months now.... Seems like Im at a stand still!
Not sure what the problem is.

Thanks for the info.

There could be several reasons why you can't lose any inches. If you want, hit me up and we can look at some things and maybe get that to change. I am in the same phase as you and have had some luck lately.

akjmart2002

Age: 34.9
Male
Weight: 204 as of this morning
Height: 71 inches
BF% 24.2 calced via Withings scale this morning
Calories: Today I need 3252 maintenance calories, Net 2502 for a 750 deficit.
Goal BF%: 12%
Goal Weight: <172

I take a body composition and weight measurement every morning via the Withings scale, then use the Katch-Mcardle equation to figure my maintenance calories for a given day. My workouts are almost always 500-1500 calories, 6 days per week, focusing on cardio and strength/endurance development. I calculate my caloric burn via a HRM, only recording when my HR is over 120 BPM.

I appear to be losing lean mass a little faster than BF, though this could just be measurement noise. 1 week ago my BF% was measured at 22.2% with an overall weight of 206.5. Things seem to fluxuate quite a bit. I suspect that my problems with consuming enough lean protein during the day as well as maintaining a steady daily net (vs an overall weekly net) is to blame.

I have so far plotted all of this data for 1 month exactly. My start weight was approximately 209-210, though I have doubts about that accuracy. So far my overall weight loss trend is roughly matching my predicted loss of 0.21 lbs per day.

I am interested to see what conclusions you might draw from this sampling of others' metrics. Cheers.

psuLemon

Age: 34.9
Male
Weight: 204 as of this morning
Height: 71 inches
BF% 24.2 calced via Withings scale this morning
Calories: Today I need 3252 maintenance calories, Net 2502 for a 750 deficit.
Goal BF%: 12%
Goal Weight: <172

I take a body composition and weight measurement every morning via the Withings scale, then use the Katch-Mcardle equation to figure my maintenance calories for a given day. My workouts are almost always 500-1500 calories, 6 days per week, focusing on cardio and strength/endurance development. I calculate my caloric burn via a HRM, only recording when my HR is over 120 BPM.

I appear to be losing lean mass a little faster than BF, though this could just be measurement noise. 1 week ago my BF% was measured at 22.2% with an overall weight of 206.5. Things seem to fluxuate quite a bit. I suspect that my problems with consuming enough lean protein during the day as well as maintaining a steady daily net (vs an overall weekly net) is to blame.

I have so far plotted all of this data for 1 month exactly. My start weight was approximately 209-210, though I have doubts about that accuracy. So far my overall weight loss trend is roughly matching my predicted loss of 0.21 lbs per day.

I am interested to see what conclusions you might draw from this sampling of others' metrics. Cheers.

One piece of advice, if you can, I woudl sugget picking up some body fat calipers (much more accurate). Any who, it really depends what your goal is. Are you concerned with weight lose or muscle mass? I have found it's very difficult to maintain lean body mass when you create larger deficits over 500 calories (just from personal experience). If you see yourself, in the long run, caring more about muscle definition and maintain/gaining lean muscle mass, it might be suggested to decrease your deficit to 500 calories. In fact, that is what I did and I have the same lean muscle mass now @ 11% body fat as I did when I started at 18% body fat.

Also, as noted before, when you use a scale to measure your body fat it can be off. My scale says I am 18% body fat but I know for a fact that I am 11%. So my calories would be short by 200 calories. If that same logic applies, you would have another 200 calorie deficit which would create almost a 1000 calorie deficit which would make it difficult to measure caloric needs.

Some thoughts to ponder.

Sublog

Body fat calipers aren't that accurate. Mine has me at 10~ body fat. Which I am closer to 13-14%.

Specific Caliper Problems

Despite giving values very close to that of hydrostatic weighing, calipers have their own set of problems on top of the body density issues I discussed above.

One of these is the assumption that skin thickness is the same among individuals and always constant. While the differences tend to be small (a millimeter here or there), when you’re measuring a lot of sites, and dealing with someone who is pretty lean, a one millimeter difference can throw off the estimation. Putting some values to it, a one millimeter difference over 10 sites turns out to be significant and can change the body fat estimate by about 1.5%. While this is fairly irrelevant for fatter individuals, it can become relevant when folks get lean.

The next issue I sort of dealt with in the previous article and that has to do with where body fat is carried and the number of sites measured. As I mentioned in Measuring Body Composition Part 2, equations which use fewer sites (one common one is pec, abdominal, and thigh for men) can drastically under-estimate true body fat percentage if someone carries a lot of fat in an unmeasured site (upper back is a common place for males).

Often individuals are losing body fat in unmeasured places but this won’t show up with a 3 site measurement and it will look like the diet isn’t working. As I noted in that article, taking more measurements can get around this but also requires a partner who knows what they are doing; as well, more sites gives them more chances to mess up. So it’s always a trade-off.

Additionally, visceral fat (the stuff found in and around the gut) isn’t even measured by calipers, although methods such as DEXA (or even the waist to hip ratio) can track changes there. By many methods, a loss of visceral fat will actually show up as a loss of lean body mass although it’s not. Someone losing visceral fat early in a diet may think that their diet really isn’t working when it actually is.

And of course, there are also the other issues endemic to caliper technique that I mentioned in Measuring Body Composition Part 2; you need a trained operator, they have to know how to pull a proper consistent skinfold, etc. One thing I didn’t mention is that large skinfolds (as are often seen in the female thigh) can be damn near impossible to measure accurately.

See this for more info

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/problems-with-measuring-body-composition.html

psuLemon

Bump

trelm249

2 week update

Age: 41
Weight: 261
Height: 5'7
Sex: M
Body Fat : 34.1%
Daily Calories: average 1850

Sidesteal

Current weight: 182
Goal weight: N/A -- letting the mirror tell me when to stop cutting.
Height: 5'11"
Bodyfat% In the neighborhood of 12 to 13%, avi current.

Nutritional intake:
Kcal: 2250 with some wiggle room. I will go as low as 2000 (seldom) and as high as about 2450, additional comments below.
Pro: 180g MIN
Fat: 65g MIN ave/week
Cho: wherever it ends up based on above minimums

Notes/comments: I used Katsch-McArdle and had to largely guess for activity since I lift with somewhat high volume but I also sit here and post/read forums which doesn't exactly burn calories!

I closely monitor progress and as needed I prepare to adjust my diet. I recently added in 1 day/week where I don't track intake. Not necessarily a cheat, I just don't track it for the mental break. I do not always hit my fat macro but I do monitor it over the course of a few days. If I'm under a few times in a row, I'll take a day where I hit around 100g to balance it out.

psuLemon

Thanks everyone.


Sublog, i understand the fluctuatiins in bodyfat. In fact i know people that fluctuate ~2% depending on the time of year. I will say, even with fluctation, its a more accurate measure for caloric needs as compared to weight and inches. For example, when i use weight to calculate my caloric needs it suggest 2200 calories while katch mcardle suggest 2600. Over the last 6 months i have determined i do need 2600 to maintain lbm and for weight loss.

joseph9

Updating my post from 9/6/11.

Then:

Age: 42
Sex: M
Body Fat : 23% (Probably closer to 21% -- taken first thing in the morning with a BEI scale).
Daily Calories: 1554

BF Goal (optional): 10-15%

Today:
Age:42
Sex:M
Body Fat: 18.1% (probably closer to 16-17% -- taken first thing in morning with BEI scale)
Daily Calories: 1865 net, 2105 gross (last 28 day average, net is after deducting cardio exercise calories, gross is total calories consumed)

LorinaLynn

On 07/06/11....

I'm game. I don't know my true body fat percentage, so I'll go by the U.S. Navy Circumference Method found here: http://www.scientificpsychic.com/fitness/diet.html

Age: 39
Weight: 132
Height: 5'5
Sex: F
Body Fat : 20.3%
Daily Calories: 1500 + most of my exercise calories Mon-Fri, but I don't log on weekends.

BF Goal (optional): I think I'm pretty much there! Maybe 18%, if I can lose it from my thighs without getting bony on top.

Update as of 10/21/11

Age: 39
Weight: 125.5
Height: 5'5
Sex: F
Body Fat : 18.5%
Daily Calories: Between 1800-2200 (on a brief vacation from logging at the moment)

At goal and maintaining now.

joseph9

Nicely done, Lorina!

psuLemon

Thanks everyone. I will record when i get home from travel. Please keep it coming.

psuLemon

20 More people needed for this. Almost done collecting.

Ssocrrbabe

Age: 29
Sex: F
Body Fat : 29.9%
Daily Calories: 1200 NET, Around 1700 gross
BF Goal (optional): 22%

Erica0718

Bump to do when off work :-)

psuLemon

Age: 29
Sex: F
Body Fat : 29.9%
Daily Calories: 1200 NET, Around 1700 gross
BF Goal (optional): 22%

Can I get your weight too?

steffiejoe

Here you go

Age: 42
Weight: 143.6
Height: 5'6 1/2
Sex: F
Body Fat : 29.8%
Daily Calories: 1500

BF Goal (optional): 18%-20%