Need to clear confusion on calorie intake, please help!

Well at your height/weight 1200 is not maitenance unless you are laying on a sofa alllll day long, which based on your profile that's not happening.

To gain muslce you need to eat over maitenance. Depending on your exercise maitenance could be 1600-2300....when I checked on IIFYM (my preferred site) it said your maitenance was 1700 based on exercise 3x a week...so to gain you eat over that. There is no set # of calories to eat to gain it's what you are comfortable with.

I personally have never done a bulk (and probably never will) but I considered it and looked into it...my personal opinion if I were to do a bulk it would be a slow one. Probably 250 over my maitenance (but I am a patient) person.

As for your ratio's that is purely subjective. Some recommend 40/30/30...and it's good most of the time...I believe mine at set at the same at the moment just recently changed from 50/25/25...

You want to find you TDEE and slowly move up your calories to around 300-450 range above that. If you've been cutting for a while I would add 100-200 cals every week or so until you hit maintenance then 200 calories per week until you hit the calorie surplus you wish to have.

When you are on a bulk, you want to get your carbs up to around 40-50%. Protein is important, but is over emphasized on a bulk. Protein is more important on a cut to preserve muscle.

StacysMom55 wrote: »

Ok, so I am starting again with my lifting.. but instead of going into it wrong like the first time (long story, lol) I need to KNOW how many calories I need!

Right now I weigh 112, 5'2'' -- I want to gain muscle mass.

I know my daily calorie intake is about 1250-- do I add 500 calories to that for gaining?

I keep getting info from all types of calculaters and I am confused.. another says 1250 is my daily intake but to stay the same weight I am supposed to be eating 2016 so to gain I add 500 calories to that which would be 2516? I have np, figuring out a way to eat them.. but how much is the question.. and what should be my ratio?

Have you tracked yourself at this calorie intake for at least 3 - 4 weeks?
And if so, did you gain, lose or stay the same with weight?
If you were losing, then you were in deficit, so you will need to find out what maintenance is and then bump your calories by about 200 - 300 to start with.

If you did not gain or lose weight, then you were at maintenance.....so go to about 1500 and see how you do at that for a couple of weeks....then tweak your numbers if needed.

If you were gaining, then you were already in surplus. (highly doubt it at 1250 cals)