Stronglifts calorie adjustment

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arabola
arabola Posts: 3 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I know that generally you are supposed to eat more while weight lifting - how much do you adjust your calorie goal in mfp on the stronglifts program? I'm a 208 lb female and my intake is marked at 1360, which seems low. I do stronglifts 3x a week.

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  • gymrat04mf
    gymrat04mf Posts: 51 Member
    edited July 2016
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    It all depends on what your goal is. If you eat "more" while weight lifting (I'm interpreting this as a calorie surplus) then you'll gain both muscle and fat. If you want to lose fat though, you need to be following a calorie deficit. Find your maintenance calories (however many calories you burn day to day which includes how much you're burning with exercises -- use a TDEE calculator), and eat 10-20% less calories less than that per day depending on how quickly you'd like to lose weight. Keep track of your weight changes and adjust accordingly.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited July 2016
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    arabola wrote: »
    I know that generally you are supposed to eat more while weight lifting - how much do you adjust your calorie goal in mfp on the stronglifts program? I'm a 208 lb female and my intake is marked at 1360, which seems low. I do stronglifts 3x a week.

    You could use the strength training entry in the cardio section of the exercise diary and maybe cut whatever number it comes up with in half.
    Or you could add 100 calories on lifting days.
    Or if your deficit is set to 2 lbs per week lower it to 1.
    Or you could use this lovely spreadsheet created by heybales to come up with a calorie goal to eat at everyday of the week: Just My TDEE and Deficit Please
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    I'm doing stronglifts too and according to MFP 45 minutes of strength training burns something just under 200 calories for me (I have no idea how accurate that is).

    Here's another calorie planner you may find useful (I was pleasantly surprised by how close it was to MFPs calorie targets)

    https://supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/
  • arabola
    arabola Posts: 3 Member
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    Thanks everybody!
  • rileyes
    rileyes Posts: 1,406 Member
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    My hunger raged when I started lifting (SL). It leveled out eventually as I started hydrating more. I usually drink a couple liters during my lifting sessions.

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