In place of a road map!

Ok...so I feel like a idiot posting this, but here goes, I think I'm starting to understand this, I have a bad habit of over thinking and confusing the obvious, i just need to know that I am on at least the right track.

Consuming so many more calories is scary, but I understand the concept of doing so.

A little background, My wife and i have been here for over 2 months, we eat clean, have eaten well under our daily calories each day, and have only done cardio, and 5 times a week at 45 min sessions. We have over 80 lobs of weight loss combined. Including muscle and fat We wanted a quick loss and we got it, but at the obvious expense of lean muscle. Long story short we have wised up, which has led us to this thread. Sttrength trining now 3 days per week and shorter more intense cardio 3 x per week.

I just want to clarify the stats I have calculated etc... sorry again for my stupidity and over complication... Hopefully someone can confirm for me...Hopefully I am on the right track... :ohwell:

STATS:
Age 36
HT: 5'11"
WT: 193.6 ---- goal 180lbs
BF:28.1%

Goal - Drop body Fat, increase Lean muscle mass


My BMR is 1735
TDEE is 2858 - mod active - crazy number

TDEE+20% = 3429 - this is a crazier number that I cant wrap my head around...wow... That seems just way to much

SO hopefully i understand the basic concept here....

Ok... so Im not eat below 1735, I understand that fine.

Confusion sets in with total daily amount to eat... is it as simple as 3429 cals per day case closed? Or is the amount somewhere between 3429 and 1735, that being the 2858 cals?

Supposing I eat TDEE 3459- assuming i burn 500 cals thats 2929 total daily. I do not have to eat back any thing and all is well? So if I just aimed to hit 3400 cals daily, even with exercise that I do daily I shouldn't have to worry about eating anything back anything correct? OR should I be using the TDEE less the 20% - which would put me a 2858, even so I would always be well over my BMR with exercise daily, as i will never be doing more than say 1000 cals per day exercise...Keeping in mind that I set my goal weight for 180, i should be losing body fat, while eating this much...seems crazy, enter my confusion....

Should I be aiming for somwhere between BMR and TDEE???

Please any advice is greatly appreciated....

Best post on the forums....

Thank you very very much.


Scotty

Bump to digest properly later!!

Ok...so I feel like a idiot posting this, but here goes, I think I'm starting to understand this, I have a bad habit of over thinking and confusing the obvious, i just need to know that I am on at least the right track.

Consuming so many more calories is scary, but I understand the concept of doing so.

A little background, My wife and i have been here for over 2 months, we eat clean, have eaten well under our daily calories each day, and have only done cardio, and 5 times a week at 45 min sessions. We have over 80 lobs of weight loss combined. Including muscle and fat We wanted a quick loss and we got it, but at the obvious expense of lean muscle. Long story short we have wised up, which has led us to this thread. Sttrength trining now 3 days per week and shorter more intense cardio 3 x per week.

I just want to clarify the stats I have calculated etc... sorry again for my stupidity and over complication... Hopefully someone can confirm for me...Hopefully I am on the right track... :ohwell:

STATS:
Age 36
HT: 5'11"
WT: 193.6 ---- goal 180lbs
BF:28.1%

Goal - Drop body Fat, increase Lean muscle mass


My BMR is 1735
TDEE is 2858 - mod active - crazy number

TDEE+20% = 3429 - this is a crazier number that I cant wrap my head around...wow... That seems just way to much

SO hopefully i understand the basic concept here....

Ok... so Im not eat below 1735, I understand that fine.

Confusion sets in with total daily amount to eat... is it as simple as 3429 cals per day case closed? Or is the amount somewhere between 3429 and 1735, that being the 2858 cals?

Supposing I eat TDEE 3459- assuming i burn 500 cals thats 2929 total daily. I do not have to eat back any thing and all is well? So if I just aimed to hit 3400 cals daily, even with exercise that I do daily I shouldn't have to worry about eating anything back anything correct? OR should I be using the TDEE less the 20% - which would put me a 2858, even so I would always be well over my BMR with exercise daily, as i will never be doing more than say 1000 cals per day exercise...Keeping in mind that I set my goal weight for 180, i should be losing body fat, while eating this much...seems crazy, enter my confusion....

Should I be aiming for somwhere between BMR and TDEE???

Please any advice is greatly appreciated....

Best post on the forums....

Thank you very very much.


Scotty

You pretty much have it right. Assuming you used the fit2fat calculator tool, your deficit and exercise is baked into the 2,858 number - so you should be eating as near to this as possible.

Ok...so I feel like a idiot posting this, but here goes, I think I'm starting to understand this, I have a bad habit of over thinking and confusing the obvious, i just need to know that I am on at least the right track.

Consuming so many more calories is scary, but I understand the concept of doing so.

A little background, My wife and i have been here for over 2 months, we eat clean, have eaten well under our daily calories each day, and have only done cardio, and 5 times a week at 45 min sessions. We have over 80 lobs of weight loss combined. Including muscle and fat We wanted a quick loss and we got it, but at the obvious expense of lean muscle. Long story short we have wised up, which has led us to this thread. Sttrength trining now 3 days per week and shorter more intense cardio 3 x per week.

I just want to clarify the stats I have calculated etc... sorry again for my stupidity and over complication... Hopefully someone can confirm for me...Hopefully I am on the right track... :ohwell:

STATS:
Age 36
HT: 5'11"
WT: 193.6 ---- goal 180lbs
BF:28.1%

Goal - Drop body Fat, increase Lean muscle mass


My BMR is 1735
TDEE is 2858 - mod active - crazy number

TDEE+20% = 3429 - this is a crazier number that I cant wrap my head around...wow... That seems just way to much

SO hopefully i understand the basic concept here....

Ok... so Im not eat below 1735, I understand that fine.

Confusion sets in with total daily amount to eat... is it as simple as 3429 cals per day case closed? Or is the amount somewhere between 3429 and 1735, that being the 2858 cals?

Supposing I eat TDEE 3459- assuming i burn 500 cals thats 2929 total daily. I do not have to eat back any thing and all is well? So if I just aimed to hit 3400 cals daily, even with exercise that I do daily I shouldn't have to worry about eating anything back anything correct? OR should I be using the TDEE less the 20% - which would put me a 2858, even so I would always be well over my BMR with exercise daily, as i will never be doing more than say 1000 cals per day exercise...Keeping in mind that I set my goal weight for 180, i should be losing body fat, while eating this much...seems crazy, enter my confusion....

Should I be aiming for somwhere between BMR and TDEE???

Please any advice is greatly appreciated....

Best post on the forums....

Thank you very very much.


Scotty

You pretty much have it right. Assuming you used the fit2fat calculator tool, your deficit and exercise is baked into the 2,858 number - so you should be eating as near to this as possible.

Yeah , i should have mentioned i used the F2F calculations!

Cool... I was hoping i was on the right path... Man that seems like so much food...considering all i have really been eating for the last 3 months is 1200-1400 cals per day and not even eating my exercise cals back.. not even coming close to my BMR...eeeeks.... Although, the wife and myself enjoy a Friday night off from clean eating...lol - we do dinner out and a few snacks/drinks that night. Then its back to normal. Have to allow yourself every now and then, or we would go nutty.

I am going to start slowly adding calories until I get up to around the 2800 mark, thinking 200-300 per day is a reasonable addition to start?

I have also changed my macros to 30% for both protein and fat... although 214g of protein is going to be very hard to attain I think. I noticed that Dan recommends 1g per lbs of lean muscle mass, which would make it 139g of protein, I'm going to start there and see how it goes.

I understand its a total balancing act, so armed with this new information I'm going to give it a shot, and tweak it as I go along.

Noticed that when I set this up in MFP it gave me a caloric def of -208 and a -0.4 weight loss (= weight gain) Assuming I work as hard as I have been (doing cardio - wont worry about burning muscle), and lift heavy on my strength training days, I shouldn't be worried about gaining body fat, I assuming the net gain should and will be lean muscle, assuming a proper diet, which I have been following for 3 months now!! Just have to up the amount and such I take it?

Is this reasonable to assume and a good starting point?

Thanks again