Setting Maintenance Calories

[fairbjosh]

For the past 4 years I’ve been eating pretty low calories, I guess you can say I have somewhat of an eating disorder. I was pretty overweight (not extreme) and got down to pretty lean. Over this time I can’t seem to bring myself to eat at calorie maintenance or even a surplus, right I consume around 1600-1800 calories a day.

My PLAN is to add 100 calories a week into my diet until I hit around maintenance calories and hoping to try and go in a calorie surplus. I need help calculating my maintenance calories.

I’m 35 6’0 195
Office job lift 4x week Using compound lifts. I do 20 minutes of cardio which consist of a row machine which according to the machine I burn around 330-370 per session.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[hardyboysare]

This is what I do:-

https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-lo...-gaining.html/

Basically estimate your maintenance using an online calculator or X your weight by using 14-16 cal/lb then deduct 10% for good measure.

Run with that and monitor your weight increases overtime. Therefore for you around:-

2500 - 2800 calories to start off with and then add calories from there. Makes it a tad quicker then just adding week to week which may take a few months to find your maintenance.

I also believe sitting at maintenance calories for a while as well in order to balance hormones and truly workout your maintenance calories. Not to mention you can still build muscle at near maintenance as the caloric surplus needed to cause growth is not actually that high.

https://bodyrecomposition.com/muscle...ain-math.html/

https://3dmusclejourney.com/programming-a-lean-bulk/

[fairbjosh]

This is what I do:-

https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-lo...-gaining.html/

Basically estimate your maintenance using an online calculator or X your weight by using 14-16 cal/lb then deduct 10% for good measure.

Run with that and monitor your weight increases overtime. Therefore for you around:-

2500 - 2800 calories to start off with and then add calories from there. Makes it a tad quicker then just adding week to week which may take a few months to find your maintenance.

I also believe sitting at maintenance calories for a while as well in order to balance hormones and truly workout your maintenance calories. Not to mention you can still build muscle at maintenance as the caloric surplus needed to cause growth is not actually that high.

https://bodyrecomposition.com/muscle...ain-math.html/

Very much appreciated. The problem is I’ve tried to just jump straight to maintenance in the past and my weight just explodes so I just stop and this is me using the bottom end of the spectrum for maintenance, that’s why I was thinking of gradually increasing the calories to let my body adapt.

[hardyboysare]

Very much appreciated. The problem is I’ve tried to just jump straight to maintenance in the past and my weight just explodes so I just stop and this is me using the bottom end of the spectrum for maintenance, that’s why I was thinking of gradually increasing the calories to let my body adapt.

Fair enough you can do the reverse diet. The weight increase you are gaining is just water weight, glycogen and general substance. Reverse dieting can help sometimes with controlling weight gain and help mentally with limited rapid weight gain.

I can't imagine that your maintenance is at 2500 or below calories I personally think you are just wanting to maintain the lean look consistently which can be difficult even when eating a maintenance due to the water retention of carbs mainly. I would say its probably near the upper range of 2800-3000 once your water weight has stabilised (probably a tad more as you have more lean mass then me).

Mine is in that area and our stats aren't massively different (currently 185-188lbs 6ft 2 and 29 years). Whenever I bulk I am unable to maintain my leanness either so I generally just ignore it. I know I haven't gained a massive amount of fat if my weight hasn't rapidly increased after the first 2-3 weeks once eating at maintenance/ small surplus, its all mind tricks IMO.

[AdamWW]

For the past 4 years I’ve been eating pretty low calories, I guess you can say I have somewhat of an eating disorder. I was pretty overweight (not extreme) and got down to pretty lean. Over this time I can’t seem to bring myself to eat at calorie maintenance or even a surplus, right I consume around 1600-1800 calories a day.

My PLAN is to add 100 calories a week into my diet until I hit around maintenance calories and hoping to try and go in a calorie surplus. I need help calculating my maintenance calories.

I’m 35 6’0 195
Office job lift 4x week Using compound lifts. I do 20 minutes of cardio which consist of a row machine which according to the machine I burn around 330-370 per session.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I responded to your question in the ED thread.

But, I am genuinely in shock you could eat 1600-1800 calories and survive.

I am your height, probably less active, and I weigh almost 60lb less than you, and yet I consume 2x what you are on a daily basis if not more... and we're basically the same age.

How do you manage energy to live, think, and train?

As I said in my response in the ED thread... stop weighing yourself, stop controlling your intake, start living... if I had your stats, i'd be eating 4k+ a day most likely.