Maintenance or Deficit?

J_Dragonfly

Hi all! I am almost a month in to NROL4W, and so far I've had good results. I've lost nearly four total inches, one of which was from my waist. I've also steadily been increasing my weights during each workout and am getting stronger. Plus, I feel good!

So far, I've been eating at maintenance, precisely as suggested in the book. And, for the first time ever, I've been tracking macros and not just calories. Hitting my daily protein macro is still tough, but I'm getting lots more consistent!

Right now, I'm debating whether to cut up to 300 cals per day, while continuing to cycle more cals on lifting days, per Lou's suggestion for calorie-management (pg 71). My reasoning is that I really want to lose fat, and would be happy to either retain or have a small increase in lean body mass. (Basically, if I retain my 111 lbs of lean body mass and decrease my body fat percentage to the "Lean" category during NROL4W, I'd be happy.)

My question is this: Did you cut cals according to the -300 deficit Lou suggests? If so, did it slow your strength training progress? Would you do anything different if you had it to do over?

Thanks!
Jamie

lcuconley

congrats on your progress so far!!!

basically, your body is either adding weight (anabolic state) or shedding weight (catabolic state). If you ARE lifting, when you eat above maintenance, you can add both muscle and fat. If you are NOT lifting, when you eat below maintenance, you will probably lose both fat and muscle.

If your goal is fat loss, but not necessarily weight loss, what you want is the holy grail of "body recomposition". The tried-and-true way to get this is to go through various cutting and bulking phases. If you are losing inches right now at what you consider to be maintenance, it sounds like you are losing fat and I would continue what you are doing. If you cut cals, you will likely lose fat more quickly, but you will have a harder time gaining muscle.

If I misread your post and you are looking for overall weightloss, definitely cut those 300 cals.

phizzylizzy

That is good advice. I'm 4 weeks into the program, about to wrap Stage 1. I have tracked faithfully and adhered pretty closely to the macros, though it usually ends up looking like 42% carbs, 26% protein and 32% fat. Still working on it, obviously! I used several calculators to figure out my TDEE and landed somewhere between 1900-2300 calories, fluctuating on workout days as needed. I'll admit I have gone over my calories more than once in this month, but eat 2200 calories/day averaged over the 4 weeks.

I jumped on the scale the other day out of curiosity on progress, even though I'm waiting till the end of the Stage for "official" numbers, and realized I have lost 0 pounds since I began the program 4/1. According to the tape measure I've lost a few inches - maybe 3-4 over my whole body. I started this program because I want to both lose weight AND seriously tone up before my November wedding. Ultimately I'm ok with not losing significant pounds but I would like to lose 5-10 within the next 6 months. I'm torn between eating at the deficit recommended by the book (1670 calories for me) - I just have no idea how to get my protein in at calories so low! Right now I'm basically eating maintenance, and was hoping for some results on the scale and maybe even more with the tape measure like the book suggested....but it looks like I'll need to shift over to deficit if I want to lose.

Duh. Guess I just needed to write that out.

Beeps2011

The only thing that I would do differently through NROL4W would be to eat less than what I was eating.

The calculations in the book, for me, were just TOO MUCH FOOD. I GAINED WEIGHT on the program - which really just means I was ingesting TOO MANY CALORIES.

When I dialed back my calories, and kept weight-training (NROL4Abs, NROL4Life, Venus, etc.), the fat came off, my muscles clearly show, and I'm right where I want to be!