Calories for a construction worker?

bernniko

I do heavy Labour for a construction company (bricklaying,stone mason and pargings) and I work around40 hours a week split between6 days. Being a Labour means lifting all bricks/stone/cement to the workers, making cement (27shovels of sand, 30kg bag of cement and 27 full shovels of sand), constantly walking back and forth between workers. How much calories should I be taking in?

Im 6'1 with a muscular build and weighing at 180. Looking to get back to my summer weight of 165.

bernniko

Any help?

lambertj

Try this http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/

JenAiMarres

Set your mfp Activity level to active and see what mfp tells you, use it as a starting point and add or loose calories from there....my husband is a heavy eqiupment operator and is physical at work...he is trying to bulk and gain ...he consumes 5000 cals a day and the scale is barely moving upwards becuase he is so active at work. if you create a defecit you should loose easily...

BIGJIMMYU

Firstly I would set your account up for at least "active" if not more. With your height I would estimate 2300 cals per day with a bare minimum of 2000 to maintain muscle mass. Push for heavy protein.

bernniko

It says I need to consume 1900 calories a day which seems low. An average laborer takes like 15,000 steps on the job so it doesn't feel enough. What healthy snacks can I eat that's high in protein? I usually eat fruits as a snack but I never knew about the calories and cards in fruits so it scared me off of them

lambertj

This is what is shows at fat2fit for you:

Activity Level Daily Calories
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 2254
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2582
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2911
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 3240
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 3568

*I personally don't trust MFP's BMR calculators, they are too generic and too low in my opinion

BIGJIMMYU

I too need to keep my protein going on a busy work day. I eat almonds, beef jerky, sip at chocolate milk. Also, I get starkist low sodium tuna pouches and put pepper in them for taste. These are all snacks I can keep in my pocket or jacket for snacks on the go. Beef jerky rocks.

bernniko

With eating those high protein snacks do you think ill still make my goal of 2 pounds a week?

Sidesteal

With eating those high protein snacks do you think ill still make my goal of 2 pounds a week?

1) That intake is low given your job.
2) That goal of 2lb/week is way too fast unless you want to lose lean mass. Also, you might want to additionally reconsider 6'1 and 165 as that's going to be quite lanky, but that's your decision.


I'd start around the following with a goal of .5 to 1lb per week:

2500-2600 kcal
160g PRO minimum
65g FAT minimum

Remainder of calories can be spent on any distribution of P,F,C to personal preference. I would put most in carbs given your activity level.

Monitor for 3 to 4 weeks and adjust calorie intake up or down based on the pace at which you lose on that intake. If you have to reduce intake, do not reduce protein/fat from the above -- take these cals from CHO.

bernniko

I want to regain my last year's abs that's why