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Question about calorie intake for gaining muscle vs losing weight!

KarlyHK
KarlyHK Posts: 114 Member
edited November 13 in Social Groups
Hey y'all!
I've been on a low carb diet for about 6 months now. I've lost just under 17lbs! Woot!

Anyway, I typically eat 1000-1200 calories. I am 5'2" and weigh 117lbs. I think it's time to stop losing weight and time to build muscle and tone. Should I eat more than 1200 a day if I want to be gaining muscle now?

I tend to aim 50-75 carbs a day, 80-120 protein a day, and my fat intake... well I've never really paid much attention to how much fat I eat.

Anyway: do you have suggestions for what my intake of protein, fat, carbs, and calories should be daily if I am working out 3 times a week, in addition to being on my feet at my hospital job for 8 hours, 4 days a week?

I don't look at macros much. Mostly just look at my nutrient chart on this site. (Also I don't have MFP premium so I can't set goal macros)

Thanks in advance!
Karly

Replies

  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    As a free member, you can get somewhat close on macro goals by doing a custom goal. Enter your calories and then you can adjust each macro in increments of 5%.

    I would suggest starting by figuring out your maintenance calories and then coming up with a reasonable surplus (perhaps start with 250 calories per day, but others know more about bulking than me).

    Then, figure out your lean mass and aim for 1g of protein per day per lb. Set the protein macro goal as close as you can to getting that number of grams.

    Set the carb % to come out about right for your goal carbs.

    Adjust fat % so that these all come out to 100%.

    @Gallowmere1984 is probably the best source of knowledge for low carb bulking.
  • cstehansen
    cstehansen Posts: 1,984 Member
    If you are only looking at gaining muscle without gaining weight, you can just figure your maintenance calorie need. Your workout is where you will need to make the adjustments. I was able to drop about 5% body fat in 3 months while keeping weight in a very narrow range using maintenance calories which means I clearly added muscle and lost fat during that time.

    You don't need as much protein to do this as many people think. As @midwesterner85 said, 1g per lb is more than enough. For a sedentary person to maintain, they only need 0.6g per kg of lean body mass. 1g per lb of lead body mass would be nearly 4 times that. You can likely get away with less than that unless you are looking to be a body builder.
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
    If you want to go the low-carb bulk route, first, you absolutely will have to increase calories. You cannot generate muscle mass eating the same amount you've used to lose weight. A recomp is another option that, while slower, would minimize fat gained in the process.

    The reality is that, there are two universal truths to building muscle no matter what kind of diet outlay you want to use.
    1: calories are still king.
    2: protein is the prince, who only gave the king the crown so he could shoot it off his head.

    I generally start by figuring up calories. Honestly, you really need to have a good idea of what your maintenance level is, or to at least be within shooting distance of a good guess. Since you haven't provided that, we can do this in a way that would get you started, but will require tweaking as you go. I'll base all initial numbers off of maintenance for a recomp, and if you actually want to bulk, you'd just adjust the numbers up by whatever rate of gain you'd desire. Obviously, keep in mind, the faster you gain, the more of it will be fat.

    For your calories, I'd start with your bodyweight x14. So, 1638.

    Now, setting protein (since you didn't give me a bodyfat percentage to work with), I'd go for 1xbw, or 117g.

    For your carbs, I'll set the low range you mentioned, so 50g.

    Fat would make up the remainder. So, 117x4+50x4=668 from p&c, which leaves 970 kcal, so 970/9=107.7g fat, which could just be rounded up to 108g.
  • KarlyHK
    KarlyHK Posts: 114 Member
    I guess I need to go somewhere or buy something so I know how much body fat I have! Cause i dont know how much is fat lol!

    Thanks for all the advice so far!
    I dont know what maintenance calories are so I found it most helpful that someone gave me some general numbers!

    I've only been doing this diet and fitness thing for about 8 months so I'm not knowledgeable on everything.
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