500 under maintance question

[Transcendancy]

Hypothetical question: say a guy is 120 and bulks to 160 an wants to cut, does he eat 500 under maintance of 160 or 500 under the weight he wants to maintain? Or does his caloric intake change as he loses weight? Ex: loses 10 pounds and eat 500 under what it takes to maintain 150, ect

thanks in advance

[BB4239]

-500 Cals is a good number to follow for an efficient BF loss without over stressing your body to use other sources to produce energy in order for you to function.

Basically,

A 200 lb person may maintain at 3000 Cals, so in order to drop BF, he eats 2500.. (-1 lb/week). But the leaner he gets, his maintenance Cals changes to being lower. Unless he simultaneously increases lean body mass to make up the difference.

Generally that's how it works, but there are other factors that can change that number.

[Nick Helm]

I would say that you should be eating about the amount of calories that you need to maintain your weight, or maybe just slightly less. Make a larger part of your caloric deficit by adding cardio. This will allow you to still get the nutrients that your body needs, and at the same time lose fat without feeling like you are starving. For instance, if you only dropped your calories by 250, and burned 500 cal four times a week doing cardio, you will have created a deficit similar to the one that you would have if you only modified your diet by 500/day, but you will burn more fat, and you will be healthier.

[MajorTwang]

Hypothetical question: say a guy is 120 and bulks to 160 an wants to cut, does he eat 500 under maintance of 160 or 500 under the weight he wants to maintain? Or does his caloric intake change as he loses weight? Ex: loses 10 pounds and eat 500 under what it takes to maintain 150, ect

thanks in advance

Someone who bulks from 120 to 160 will find their maintenance calorie requirement change quite a bit. You should always work with your calorie requirements now - not in some hypothetical state at some point in the future.

I would also agree with Nick - rather than drop intake by 500, you are MUCH better dropping it by 250 and increasing output by 250. The human body is VERY good at reducing it's metabolic rate to cope with restrictions in calories - it's something that has been hardwired into out physiology by millions of years of natural selection weeding out individuals who can't cope with starvation.

[Transcendancy]

Thanks for the input dudes

[Tommy W.]

as you lean out you want to run a smaller defecit.

A defecit of 30 cals per lb. of bodyfat is a good rule of thumb for a max defecit. So you can see as you lose fat the cals actually go up. This has always worked well for me in the past.