Should I up my calories?

tomcornhole
tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
edited January 20 in Food and Nutrition
Got a BodPod today and the results were good (BF% down from 22.1% to 16.8%, LBM stayed the same). The PT there recommended that I up my calories as I am approaching my goal weight (CW: 188 lbs, GW: 185 lbs). My TDEE is 2,700 and my BMR is 1,844. I target 1920 cal / day and that has resulted in an average 1.56 lbs / week weight loss over the past 10 weeks. I do not eat back exercise (3-5 hours / week with 3 days of heavy lifting).

I think she's right, but I also think I should ride this downward trend until I start risking the loss of LBM. If it ain't broke, I don't think I should fix it until I stall somewhere or start losing LBM or burn out.

Thoughts?

Replies

  • katy_trail
    katy_trail Posts: 1,992 Member
    if your bmr and tdee numbers are correct then you are shooting for a calorie goal of only about 100 calories over bmr.
    I would think you might just get more tired without enough calories because of the heavy lifting.
    You don't feel that way?

    (i'm all for heavy lifting, every other post is about someone lifting something or squats lol)
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    You are a sage. I do feel that I am beating up my body since starting the barbell lifting 2 weeks ago (Starting Strength). Before that, I was using my multi-station machine and just maintaing strength and felt fine. Since SS, I feel beat to hell. Maybe I'll put SS on hold and go back to the machine until I hit a stall. It worked for over a year at maintaing LBM.
  • JoanB5
    JoanB5 Posts: 610 Member
    One person I saw added 100 calories per every 1% BF lost toward their goal. This makes sense in a way, though the last "five" can be hard to lose. I was thinking it might transition your body toward your maintenance calories so that when you get to goal, you aren't suddenly needing to add tons of "new" calories to your system to maintain all at one time. Could shock it into producing fat rather than giving your body time to adjust to it as your new maintenance eating and metabolism. I'm like you...it is hard to do until you are at goal, but the idea has merit.
  • whierd
    whierd Posts: 14,025 Member
    I would personally go for the TDEE -20% Method. That would put you at roughly 2,160 before exercise. Then eat back most of your exercise calories. As you approach your GW, you should start transitioning to near-GW maintenance mode.
  • katy_trail
    katy_trail Posts: 1,992 Member
    you've been doing this a long time, if you haven't had one, you may also need a short diet break of a week or so.
    theres lots of info of how to do that in the eat more to weigh less forum/group, to prevent a stall, or help you feel less 'beat up'

    then again, initially you probably felt a lot of water retention, hopefully that's better now.
    my muscles had a 1/2 inch difference with the retention, so it is significant.
    but once you're used to the HL it won't be so dramatic I think.
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    Maybe I'll go for the 2,160 target and see what happens. I hate to change the calories too soon as I want to see where this ends up. I set 185 as a goal weight because that's what I weighed when I got married 24 years ago. Now that I am getting there fast while maintaining LBM, I'm rethinking that goal weight. Should I decide or should I let my body decide? If it keeps tracking down to 180 lbs, as long as I can maintain LBM, I'm ok with that.
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    you've been doing this a long time, if you haven't had one, you may also need a short diet break of a week or so.

    I've been doing this long enough that I no longer consider this a diet. The diet part is easy peasy. I have no desire to go back to what I was doing. But I am amenable to eating more of what I normally eat. Or maybe add milk back into my daily routine. That would add 200 cal / day easy.
  • katy_trail
    katy_trail Posts: 1,992 Member
    sounds like a good goal, try to ease into it, and see how you feel :)
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
    I decided to slowly start upping my caloric goals. Starting by increasing from 1920 / day to 2000 / day. And I'm going to add milk back into my diet. Seems everything I read says milk is good for strength training.

    Thank you for all the inputs.
  • katy_trail
    katy_trail Posts: 1,992 Member
    Rippletoe suggests a gallon a day.
    milk does a body good.
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