**Ideal Calorie and Exercise for 18 year old Guy????**

MarkEdwardEllul
MarkEdwardEllul Posts: 21
in Food and Nutrition
Dear all,

What's the real ideal calorie intake for a 18 year old male?

I was on a 2000 calorie intake one (calculated through my fitness pal) - but only managed to eat my way to 1800 calories. However I think I need to eat more because

1) - I am getting dizzy
2) - I am doing the Insanity workouts which burn calories like butter
3) - I am about to have a very demanding summer job which involves me practically running all over the country - (No car, no bike - still 18)

These are my specs:

18 years old, 183cm height, 181 pounds

I plan to drop another 10 pounds of fat but at the same time I really need to bulk right around the same amount of muscle.

Now with insanity it's pretty hard to make because it's all pure cardio T.T

So what do you bodybuilder guys/gals suggest??

Thanks all :)

Replies

  • MarkEdwardEllul
    MarkEdwardEllul Posts: 21
    Bump
  • JackWolfgangLloyd
    JackWolfgangLloyd Posts: 6
    Your body has two stores of energy; glycogen and fat. Glycogen supplies around half an hours energy and in laymans terms, is 'carbs'. After this thirty minutes of exercise, your body starts to take energy from your fat stores to power your movement.
    Try cardiovascular exercises first thing in the morning, after your coffee but before you eat anything. You have a very low supply of glycogen before you eat, so you start burning fat earlier in your cardio workout.
    Try your weights/muscle building workouts later in the day, so your calories are guided towards muscle synthesis, rather than put into storage.
    To stimulate muscle growth easier, whilst losing fat, use more full-body exercises, the main nine are; deadlifts, bench press, bar-curls, tricep extension, squats, bent-over rows, military press, chin-ups, and dips.
    Try to take up a sport you enjoy, to play once a week. It's much more effect than these cardio, fat-burning workouts, as it's fun so you do it for longer. I played football (soccer for you americans) for 2 and a half hours the other day. That's around 2 hours of fat burning! Whereas in most cardio 'workouts', I get bored 10 minutes in.
  • dgoradia
    dgoradia Posts: 109 Member
    Pluging your stats into some basic BMR calc:
    BMR: ~1900 kcals
    Adjusted: ~2200 kcals (sedentary)

    1. Eat more
    2. As your goals are to decrease fat and increase LBM, consider ditching Insanity and opt for compound movements using low volume and heavy weights (high intensity). Movements such as barbell squats, bench press and barbell deadlifts come to mind.
    3. Eat more

    P.S. I'm not a bodybuilder but if hypertrophy is your aim, then you may want to increase volume.

    Good luck.
  • MarkEdwardEllul
    MarkEdwardEllul Posts: 21
    @JackWolfgang

    So 'IF' I had to continue with insanity I would do that first thing in the morning - however a run at 6min/km for 30 mins for 5-6km is still good?

    Regarding the weights section - I have been a somewhat follower of Scott Herman (guy on youtube) and he has a somewhat good (I'm not sure) workout routine to increase muscle. The ones you mentioned are in there so big ups friend!

    I actually suck at football (we use the same word - I am Maltese :3). I was actually thinking somewhere on the lines of boxing, volleyball or rugby but football a big NO NO...

    Going to uni this October - plan to make the gym a norm - a life style

    @dgordia

    Coming back to insanity - it's just too strenuous to make throughout the year - I started it when I was making my college to uni exams and it is depleting...I actually feel I want to continue it to just say "Hey I did Insanity" - for the challenge. I'm in week 2 and well I can see improvements with the fat burning off but I had to take protein whey just to keep from burning muscle and not fat alone. It's just it's really based on pure cardio and no muscle work (well there is one upper body thing but it's not really up top).

    I am finding it hard to stomach whole foods every 2-3 hours - although I admit that's really a good way for a healthy lifestyle - hence the protein whey shakes...

    What do you mean by 'high intensity' - sorry for my ignorance but I have been at this for 4 years and it's just now that some things have started to make sense - It's really interesting when the dots start connecting!!

    Thanks all!!
  • dgoradia
    dgoradia Posts: 109 Member
    @dgordia

    Coming back to insanity - it's just too strenuous to make throughout the year - I started it when I was making my college to uni exams and it is depleting...I actually feel I want to continue it to just say "Hey I did Insanity" - for the challenge. I'm in week 2 and well I can see improvements with the fat burning off but I had to take protein whey just to keep from burning muscle and not fat alone. It's just it's really based on pure cardio and no muscle work (well there is one upper body thing but it's not really up top).

    I am finding it hard to stomach whole foods every 2-3 hours - although I admit that's really a good way for a healthy lifestyle - hence the protein whey shakes...

    What do you mean by 'high intensity' - sorry for my ignorance but I have been at this for 4 years and it's just now that some things have started to make sense - It's really interesting when the dots start connecting!!

    Thanks all!!

    To clarify, I'm not suggesting you continue insanity. I'm suggesting the contrary actually i.e. lift weights 3x/week. That it.

    You're 181lbs, how hard can it be to eat 2000 cals? I can do that in 1 meal... have longer gaps between meals, e.g. 3 meals @ ~670 kcals or 2 meals at 1000 kcals. Suck it up, it's not that difficult.

    By "high intensity" I mean HEAVY weights. Heavy enough to be able to only do 5 good reps.
  • MarkEdwardEllul
    MarkEdwardEllul Posts: 21
    Yea I did understand you - I continued on your opinion from my personal point :b

    I guess I really have to suck it up.

    I'll keep you updated!

    Thanks again!!
  • JackWolfgangLloyd
    JackWolfgangLloyd Posts: 6
    @JackWolfgang

    So 'IF' I had to continue with insanity I would do that first thing in the morning - however a run at 6min/km for 30 mins for 5-6km is still good?

    Regarding the weights section - I have been a somewhat follower of Scott Herman (guy on youtube) and he has a somewhat good (I'm not sure) workout routine to increase muscle. The ones you mentioned are in there so big ups friend!

    I actually suck at football (we use the same word - I am Maltese :3). I was actually thinking somewhere on the lines of boxing, volleyball or rugby but football a big NO NO...

    Going to uni this October - plan to make the gym a norm - a life style

    Yeah that's still good, as long as you're pushing yourself you should see gains! Oh alright cool, and well football's the only sport I'm decent at so I'm kind of limited lol.

    That's a good idea about uni though, since I started at uni and regular visits to the gym I've actually made some real gains.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Being that you're already going to be very active I'd stop doing the insanity and just focus on lifting. Keep cardio pretty light, if any at all. That is unless you can eat...

    I primarily lift...I'm 38 years old and do minimal cardio...pretty much walking and jog a few miles once or twice per week. Otherwise, I have a desk job so I don't even have a NEAT like you...and I'm old...and I maintain at around 2600-2700 calories. I need around 3000 to bulk.

    I'd imagine you'd need at least that to actually bulk muscle...probably more. When I was your age and very active and putting on muscle I was eating upwards of 4000 calories per day easy.
  • MarkEdwardEllul
    MarkEdwardEllul Posts: 21
    Yea - cardio is really not worth the time if you have shed the pounds of fat and at the same time have an active job.

    There is so much hype about cardio - it's like people just go straight to cardio without giving the most importance to diet...

    I got some very good tips that actually make sense from dgoradia - got a somewhat clear view about the simpleness of it all actually.

    Seems like lifting and intermittent fasting is the way that can actually work for me.

    4000 calories - that's quite a lot though seeing I will have a job that involves running around with students 7am to 1am everyday I will probably have to change my activity level to a higher number^^

    Thanks for the info!

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