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So I've been lifting and dieting for exactly a month now with a starting strength program and using mfp to keep track of calories. I've probably had about 3-4 days max of not sticking to my macros. My numbers have gone up significantly and I definitely look buffer, but I've maintained pretty much the exact same weight and around the same bodyfat % despite eating at a slight deficit. A lot of the calorie consumption calculators are confusing since on rest days I'm pretty much standing/sitting the whole time but I am lifting 3 times a week, so I'm not sure what to put for activity level. I'm wondering if I've actually been eating at maintenance the whole time despite thinking I'm eating 300 calories under. I still have a layer of fat that seemed to have stayed pretty much the same on top of the bulk.
Also, how much should I increase consumption on lift days? I've been told around 500 calories. I usually just do a standard 3-4 exercise strength training workout with very little cardio for warm up. Is there a way to calculate how many calories I'm actually burning? Thanks.
Edit: Currently 6 ft, 199 lbs as of yesterday. I use a handheld bf% device, which I set to athlete level activity, and at the beginning I was around 17-18%, now at around 15.5%. I've been eating 2100 ish calories per day, 2500 on lift days. According to mfp, my maintenance is 2400. My carb macro varies day by day, I don't keep good track, but I make sure to get at least 130g of protein, often more per day. Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables.
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If you've been diligent for a month and don't feel like you look any different (pictures are helpful) just adjust your calories down, at least on rest days. If you keep tracking the same, the further deficit should start to impact your bf%. Like you said it's possible you've been at maintenance despite cutting 300 cals from where you thought you need to. Just adjust again. The important thing is to give that a month again, you don't want to keep switching it up every week as you won't be able to account for all the variability.
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On July 04 2014 00:00 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So I've been lifting and dieting for exactly a month now with a starting strength program and using mfp to keep track of calories. I've probably had about 3-4 days max of not sticking to my macros. My numbers have gone up significantly and I definitely look buffer, but I've maintained pretty much the exact same weight and around the same bodyfat % despite eating at a slight deficit. A lot of the calorie consumption calculators are confusing since on rest days I'm pretty much standing/sitting the whole time but I am lifting 3 times a week, so I'm not sure what to put for activity level. I'm wondering if I've actually been eating at maintenance the whole time despite thinking I'm eating 300 calories under. I still have a layer of fat that seemed to have stayed pretty much the same on top of the bulk.
Also, how much should I increase consumption on lift days? I've been told around 500 calories. I usually just do a standard 3-4 exercise strength training workout with very little cardio for warm up. Is there a way to calculate how many calories I'm actually burning? Thanks.
Edit: Currently 6 ft, 199 lbs as of yesterday. I use a handheld bf% device, which I set to athlete level activity, and at the beginning I was around 17-18%, now at around 15.5%. I've been eating 2100 ish calories per day, 2500 on lift days. According to mfp, my maintenance is 2400. My carb macro varies day by day, I don't keep good track, but I make sure to get at least 130g of protein, often more per day. Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables.
If you've lost 3% bodyfat at 200 lbs thats 6 lbs of fat, and if you maintained the same weight that means you've put on 6 lbs of muscle, about 1.5 per week which is about the expected rate, so keep it up you're doing well.
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So does that mean it will take 2-3 more months for my bf to go down to about 10-11% ish?
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Body fat loss isn't linear so that's difficult to predict.
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On July 04 2014 00:58 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So does that mean it will take 2-3 more months for my bf to go down to about 10-11% ish?
Almost definitely yes longer than 2. Amateur bodybuilders (who've been doing this a lot longer than you and have much more muscle mass) often give themselves two months to go from 15 to 10%.
BMR calculators aren't always right for everyone. They're based on formulas, and you're a person, not a machine so the formula doesn't always fit right. If you don't think anything's changed, adjust down 300-500 calories and give that two weeks to a month to see if anything is different.
By handheld bodyfat device, I'm going to guess you mean a bioelectric impedance calculator. Those machines are all but useless - you can take a reading on them five times in the same day and get five different answers. Get a set of calipers or (better idea) just take a picture every two weeks and compare them.
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Zurich15358 Posts
Man tracking diet is annoying. If you get your intake from a variety of sources (eating out, work cafeteria, home cooked) it's either grossly inaccurate or insane micro management. Or both.
Still it's nice to have some data to base diet decision on.
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I'm starting to take whey gold and animal cuts, should I be on a multi-vitamin or something like animal pak too?
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multi vits are cool. No need to shell out for animal pak (i assume that it's a pre packaged assortment of vitamins sold by animal) unless you want to.
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United Kingdom1153 Posts
So I'm after what some of your favorite things to eat are so that there's stuff I can add into my own eating.
So I have done a whole load of spring cleaning over the least year with cutting out as much processed food as possible. The only things left are wholemeal wraps (soo convenient for work), some breaded chicken things (for emergencies), and scotch eggs (SOOO DELICIOUS). Other stuff on it's way out is white pasta, which will be traded for brown pasta when I can find some. Other examples are:
Swapped out potatoes for sweet potatoes / cauliflower mash instead.
Lots of fresh veg and grapes (most fruit too sweet)
Bread is gone.
Last tub of ice cream was finished yesterday and is not coming back.
If / when fish fingers & breaded chicken things in the freezer get eaten they aren't coming back (they've been there 2 months already, might never disappear).
What do you love to eat that's also awesome for you?
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Can someone explain to me why bread and past are considered bad ? (I'm seriously asking, don't take this as trolling or being provocative  ). I'm from Italy, so pasta and bread are both quite fundamental in my everyday diet (and it never occurred to me that those could be bad.. a dish of pasta with a good dressing -tomato sauce well prepared- seems healthy.. ?)
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One meal does not a diet make.
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On October 27 2014 01:54 VHbb wrote:Can someone explain to me why bread and past are considered bad ? (I'm seriously asking, don't take this as trolling or being provocative ). I'm from Italy, so pasta and bread are both quite fundamental in my everyday diet (and it never occurred to me that those could be bad.. a dish of pasta with a good dressing -tomato sauce well prepared- seems healthy.. ?)
It's fine in moderation and if your body doesn't react poorly with it. Some people have a hard time digesting gluten products. There's also generally better sources of nutrition that are less processed than pasta/bread.
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Zurich15358 Posts
On October 27 2014 01:54 VHbb wrote:Can someone explain to me why bread and past are considered bad ? (I'm seriously asking, don't take this as trolling or being provocative ). I'm from Italy, so pasta and bread are both quite fundamental in my everyday diet (and it never occurred to me that those could be bad.. a dish of pasta with a good dressing -tomato sauce well prepared- seems healthy.. ?)
In addition to what others have said I would suggest to you to just try different diets. In my student years I basically also lived off pasta and bread, and pizza. I cut all that almost completely from my diet (except for some bread) and I just feel a lot better when I am eating clean like that.
For example last week I was in Italy and eating pasta every day made me feel really gross. Just give it a try.
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I eat tons of pasta and bread. I don't care what anyone says, never in my life am i eating another bowl of oats or brown rice, a year of that was enough. I'm on 4-4.5k calories a day, you know how much goddamn oats and brown rice it takes to hit my carbs? A fuckton is how much.
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4,5k Calories? Good god, are you a professional bodybuilder? Or maybe even a real weight lifter?
I get nauseated even thinking about that...
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On October 30 2014 01:14 SixStrings wrote:
4,5k Calories? Good god, are you a professional bodybuilder? Or maybe even a real weight lifter?
I get nauseated even thinking about that...
I'm fairly big (123kg at 18ish% bf, 195cm), lift 6 times a week, fairly physically demanding part-time job, and do a bit of cardio. It adds up quick. I'm not a bodybuilder or even super strong though 
I do not enjoy eating this much, but I don't make them gainz otherwise. Gotta get those. Want to compete at powerlifting (first meet planned) and I want to be comfortably middle of the pack in the unrestricted weight class, still a bit light weight for that.
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I had to eat close to 4k daily to put on weight at 77kg
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Oh, I think I eat about a thousand, maybe 1,2k, plus another 500 from alcohol.
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Bulking for me is like 5-6k, fucking chore. I probably average 3-4k these days.
On October 30 2014 04:12 SixStrings wrote:
Oh, I think I eat about a thousand, maybe 1,2k, plus another 500 from alcohol.
theres no way...a thousand is about maintenance for an 80 pound girl that lies in bed all day.
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EPT
