Maintain weight - lose body fat

Age and activity level will have some bearing on how many cals you need. Your fat level is healthy enough if you are young, but I am guessing you want to look leaner? (Personally, I think your profile pic shows that you already look great. )

Yea women tend to carry fat on the legs and thighs.. and it is frustrating.. I will start losing muscle before the fat can leave there..grr. The only thing that worked for me was to build more muscle in those areas so when I cut the definition shows first.

But recomping may work for you and I would try that first. Just have to be patient and consistent.

In terms of your cals I say stick with it for a few weeks and see what your weight does, try taking daily weigh ins and use a trend app (Happy scale, Libra, etc) to see what is going on without getting freaked out with fluctuations (if you aren't already). You are very active right so that amount of cals is probably needed to fuel your workouts.

Oh I hear you about the lack of patience. I had to put it aside for the greater good.. I am just getting out of an 8 month bulk and now I am on to cutting soon.. so it will be almost a year by the time I finish this cycle.. but that's ok it's all about the journey not the destination (as cheeseball as that sounds!! ). Good luck!! And ps. You do look fantastic so keep doing what you are doing

gen39 wrote: »

Track your bodyweight daily for two weeks, as well as your calorie intake. From that information you can calculate your true TDEE, rather than relying on online calculators, which just give ballpark figures.

If you train and eat at maintenance calories, you can lose body fat and gain muscle (called a recomposition). But this is a very slow process and really only possible for beginners. After some time you will need to look to bulking / cutting phases to improve body composition.

why is a recomp only for beginners?

Can I join this thread? I like my weight where it is but I'm in the boat of wanting to tone and shape what I've got. I'm terrible with nutrition goals but the more I watch other people making theirs the more it spurs me to try.

abs1970 wrote: »

Just worked out my TDEE which is around 2,000. If I'm eating way less than this, I'm guessing I won't build muscle let alone lose body fat! Does anyone know if this sounds correct?

Did you work out your average TDEE from your own data? That's generally best if you have been logging consistently as it then adjusts for your logging inaccuracies.
In the trial and error will tell you your true calorie balance over time.

abs1970 wrote: »

@sijomial I worked it out on a website that someone gave me. I know, not the most accurate. Is there a better way to work it out?

Look back over your last 4 weeks of logging - add up all your calories eaten, add 3,500 for any lbs of weight lost in that time and then divide the total by 28.
That's your effective average TDEE and gives you a good start point to make any minor tweaks over the coming weeks.

sijomial wrote: »

gen39 wrote: »

If you train and eat at maintenance calories, you can lose body fat and gain muscle (called a recomposition). But this is a very slow process and really only possible for beginners. After some time you will need to look to bulking / cutting phases to improve body composition.

@gen39
Sorry but this is very inaccurate, I've been training since the early 1970's and recomp still works.
It's slow for me now as I'm near my training peak and I'm old and a bit broken (!) but it's definitely not slow for everyone.
Very few people actually need to do bulk/cut cycles. It's goal dependant and also personal preference.

I'm not saying recomp doesn't work. It does, and I did it for half a year when starting out. But whether it's actually time efficient compared to a lean gaining / cutting cycle is debatable. You said you've been training for 40 years. You're probably at or very close to your genetic potential for muscle growth... in which case, bulking and cutting vs a recomposition probably makes very little difference. Might as well eat at maintenance at that point.

Elite natural bodybuilders' stage weight barely changes ~1-2 lb over the course of several years for the same reason.

edit: When I say 'bulk', I'm not advocating a "eat everything you see" diet, which is a terrible idea. Just a small surplus above maintenance, 200-300 kcal. Now assuming a 50:50 ratio of muscle growth to fat gain, which seems to be the expected ratio for beginners, that means someone only needs to diet for 1/4 the time of the gaining phase to get rid of the fat gain while keeping most of the muscle - not bad at all imo.

sardelsa wrote: »

Now that you have a new picture wow I personally think you are a lot leaner than 20%. Where do you carry fat that you want to lose? Keep in mind the leaner you are the more stubborn it can be to lose the last of the fat. Also I found that recomping while I was very lean didn't really get me anywhere.

That's what I said! OP, if you want to lean out just a little more keep on doing what you are doing and slowly lose a couple more lbs while keeping your protein intake high. Don't worry about losing or gaining muscle. It sounds like you are really after more definition.