Calculating your caloric needs

[Reach]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

If you're trying to lose weight, keep it simple at your size and eat 2000 or less calories a day.

Track your weight, but I don't think you will have any problems in the 1500-2000 range and you should get results relatively quickly.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Alright, that sounds great.

Thanks, Reach.

[Nyokou]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Ehh I use SparkPeople and I think it's pretty accurate at determining the amount I should eat every day.

And I used this to determine my body fat percentage which also helped me find out my lbm: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/body-fat-calculator/

I always thought the amount of food I ate wasn't a big deal but after I started tracking my meals more regularly I noticed how much I was overeating all the time. But now I've gotten to the point where I eat just enough or sometimes not enough but I feel full for the day which is great. Drinking a lot of water throughout the day helps too.

tldr tracking calories is important

[blindhollander]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

I break everyrule in this formula >.> i barely eat a gorenola bar a day and im never hungry, and im 6'2,male,210,and do carpentry from 8am - 5 pm everyday :P

so it makes noooo sense xD

my calorie intake is to low :P

[SCWolf]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

i barely eat a gorenola bar a day and im never hungry

So what you're saying is you're dying

[Arch0wl]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

I break everyrule in this formula >.>

If what you're saying is your body somehow gets energy from a source that isn't the food you're eating, then it's going to get that energy from somewhere -- your fat stores, your muscle stores, whatever. If you "eat a granola bar a day" and nothing else while working manual labor from 8-5 and that's your meal for the day, you will not be 210lb for long.

It makes sense, you're just probably not accurately reporting what you're eating.

[blindhollander]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Today I ate a toasted piece of bread (no butter it anything)
And a chocolate "cliff" bar and that's it. Worked 8-4 and went on a run today :p

[~kitty~]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Absolutely. If anything it's easier, since they have less muscle, which means they will build muscle faster.

'hard gainers' are just people that don't eat enough food to bulk. They usually overestimate how much they eat because they often have small appetites.

Actually you're oversimplifying the matter. There are limits to these things, and your genetics play an important role on your muscle growth. Myostatin levels differs from person to person, so how much your muscles can grow really depends on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin

edit:

I break everyrule in this formula >.> i barely eat a gorenola bar a day and im never hungry, and im 6'2,male,210,and do carpentry from 8am - 5 pm everyday :P

so it makes noooo sense xD

my calorie intake is to low :P

Depending on how long you have been doing this, I believe you're either lying or you have a serious case of malnutrition. It's not just about the calorie formula, but also getting the essential nutrition your body needs to function. You can last many days without food, but if you do something like this long enough you'll essentially be killing your own body (literally).

[SCWolf]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

I highly doubt anyone on this forum has Myostatin levels that would seriously inhibit muscular hypertrophy.

[~kitty~]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

I highly doubt anyone on this forum has Myostatin levels that would seriously inhibit muscular hypertrophy.

It's not about anyone on this forum or having levels that would seriously inhibit muscle growth, but the fact is that some people naturally have lower levels of Myostatin than others, and therefore have an easier time building muscles than others. It's not so simple for everyone. That's my point.

[Arch0wl]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Actually you're oversimplifying the matter. There are limits to these things, and your genetics play an important role on your muscle growth. Myostatin levels differs from person to person, so how much your muscles can grow really depends on that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin

I don't think any of the fitness regulars here don't know what myostatin is. Saying "myostatin levels differ from person to person" does not specify the amount of variation, so in itself this does not impact much.

[~kitty~]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

ah yea, thats what i thinking... so its bullshit when people say that its harder for skinny people to build muscle

I don't think any of the fitness regulars here don't know what myostatin is. Saying "myostatin levels differ from person to person" does not specify the amount of variation, so in itself this does not impact much.

Reach was replying to this guy saying "absolutely." It's not about the people here, but about the idea that it's BS that it's harder for skinny people to build muscle. Some people are skinny because their myostatin levels are much higher than normal. There will clearly be people who say it's harder to build muscle because they're skinny but not really understand, but that assumption cannot just be made right off the bat.

[SCWolf]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

I'm loling

[Arch0wl]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

Some people are skinny because their myostatin levels are much higher than normal. There will clearly be people who say it's harder to build muscle because they're skinny but not really understand, but that assumption cannot just be made right off the bat.

You've made this clear, but the significance of what you're saying is wholly dependent on the degree to which myostatin varies in most people. If people with excess or deficient myostatin are extreme abnormalities, it makes little practical purpose to say that Reach's advice isn't applicable to them, since advice like this tends to be made with most or possibly even the vast majority of cases in mind.

[~kitty~]

Re: Calculating your caloric needs

You've made this clear, but the significance of what you're saying is wholly dependent on the degree to which myostatin varies in most people. If people with excess or deficient myostatin are extreme abnormalities, it makes little practical purpose to say that Reach's advice isn't applicable to them, since advice like this tends to be made with most or possibly even the vast majority of cases in mind.

They don't really need to be extreme abnormalities, given the wording. All that was said was that it was "harder" and not necessarily impossible. Everyone has varying levels, and the levels don't actually have to be extreme to have noticeable effects on your muscle growth.

Also, I was not discrediting Reach's "advice" (if you could really call it that?). I was calling it an oversimplification of muscle growth.

'hard gainers' are just people that don't eat enough food to bulk. They usually overestimate how much they eat because they often have small appetites.

While it may be true in some cases, it's not always going to be the case. You don't need an extreme example of excess myostatin levels for a person to find themselves having a harder time building muscles than others. The "effort" being mentioned here is not measured by anything concrete but by a relative measure.

Even all things considered on the variance levels of myostatin levels, it doesn't matter the number of people. Simply put, the quote doesn't cover it all.