Going below 1500 cals - acceptable in my situation?

[CheekyCuntt]

So I am 5'8, 18yo and 66kg male. I've gotten.back into lifting 2 and a half weeks ago after a one month break. However, throughout the year I was lifting inconsistently, didn't follow a program and didn't track cals and just half arsed it due to being in my final year of high school. I didn't see much muscle gain.

6 months ago I was at 75kg which was the result of a badly overdone and over time ive leaned down a lot but didn't track calories. I've been very sedentary for the past 6-7 months before I started lifting again 3 wks ago.

As of 3 weeks ago, I've been lifting 4x a week with about 90 minutes of cardio per week.

I'm trying to reach 12% body fat and I am right now approximately 18-20%. My goal is to become lean enough to lean bulk but not at the expense of muscle loss.


In order to find my maintenance calories I've taken the advice of fitness channels like sean nal - which is to track calories every day for a week and to find the average daily caloric intake - this should roughly be my maintenance calories.

I've done all this very carefully for the past week through using a food scale and myfitnesspal. A couple days I ate 1600-1700 cals but for most days this past week I've been eating 1300-1400 calories. At the start of the week, I weighed 66kg and now it is 66.1kg. My average daily caloric intake for the past week has been 1459 calories and yet I gained 0.1kg with no noticeable fat loss?

It seems like such a low maintenance level - yet, I haven't had any noticeable fat loss thus far for the past 2 and a half weeks. I started off at 66.5kg and now am at 66.1, but looking in the mirror, there just hasn't been progress.

My maintenance cals according to the tdee calculator website is 1800 (when I choose sedentary) and for the first 2 weeks, some days I've been eating 1600-1700, some.days I ate 1200. I've been tracking cals very carefully but no noticeable fat loss. When I select light activity, which is what I've been doing at the bare minimum for the last 2 and a half weeks, my maintenance is 2100, but upping my calories to above 1600 just hasn't worked for me thus far.

I'm getting in enough protein (0.8g per pound of bw roughly), I'm sleeping 8+ hours. I don't know what to do, can I lower calories to 1300 ish? When I up my calories to above 1600 calories, I immediately gain 0.2-0.5kg the next day and am more bloated in the stomach, I don't get it.

The first screenshot is me 2 and a half weeks ago, the second one is me currently. I asked around and people said that I was at 22% bf in the first ss, now I don't really know what it is. Both images are me relaxed with my belly out, when I flex I can see my six pack.

My lifts have been going up and my gym performance has been good but nutrition wise and losing fat, I'm lost. Any advice on what to do?

[DarthCholo]

Eat at maintenence and focus on gaining muscle weight. You still growing dude so just focus at hitting strength goals. Your young person metabolism should keep you from gaining significant fat.

[AdamWW]

Sounds like you're not giving things enough time and you're also weighing yourself infrequently which means you'll never know the average changes you're seeing. Just checking in ONCE a week is going to be hugely problematic for seeing scale changes.

Also, you're not going to look ripped in a couple weeks, you need to be patient.

You're already barely eating anything... ZERO chance you should cut calories lower....

1200 calories? Dude, how did you even get out of bed??

You're 18... and you don't have much muscle mass... why not focus on building strength?

[CheekyCuntt]

Sounds like you're not giving things enough time and you're also weighing yourself infrequently which means you'll never know the average changes you're seeing. Just checking in ONCE a week is going to be hugely problematic for seeing scale changes.

Also, you're not going to look ripped in a couple weeks, you need to be patient.

You're already barely eating anything... ZERO chance you should cut calories lower....

1200 calories? Dude, how did you even get out of bed??

You're 18... and you don't have much muscle mass... why not focus on building strength?

my lifts have been going up since I started again but that's because I wasn't really training properly this year.

The thing is that if I were to go on a lean bulk.now, by the end of it ill be fat again, assuming I'm at 20%. That's why I heard that if my goal is aesthetics, going down to 12% and then bulking up to like 18% would be ideal.

[AdamWW]

my lifts have been going up since I started again but that's because I wasn't really training properly this year.

The thing is that if I were to go on a lean bulk.now, by the end of it ill be fat again, assuming I'm at 20%. That's why I heard that if my goal is aesthetics, going down to 12% and then bulking up to like 18% would be ideal.

You don't look 20% to me, you look more like 17-18%.

However, my point is that you're barely eating anything... I mean you're eating what a stage-lean small female eats in a day... that isn't sustainable...

Your 'goal being aesthetics' is kind of a nebulous concept... almost everyone wants to gain muscle and maintain a fairly lean body... your issue right now is that you don't have much muscle mass.

I'm not saying you HAVE TO bulk, but eating less than 1500 calories? HELL no... even if I were you and trying to cut, i'd be eating like 2000 calories as a STARTING point...


I don't think you're tracking your bodyweight changes correctly or frequently enough... weight will change day to day, and just weighing in ONCE a week can throw things off massively... at the least I recommend every other day, if not EVERY day, to establish a meaningful rate of change at least in the beginning...

But if you're coming back after a time off, you might not lose ANY weight because you're building back muscle, glycogen, etc at the same time.

[CheekyCuntt]

You don't look 20% to me, you look more like 17-18%.

However, my point is that you're barely eating anything... I mean you're eating what a stage-lean small female eats in a day... that isn't sustainable...

Your 'goal being aesthetics' is kind of a nebulous concept... almost everyone wants to gain muscle and maintain a fairly lean body... your issue right now is that you don't have much muscle mass.

I'm not saying you HAVE TO bulk, but eating less than 1500 calories? HELL no... even if I were you and trying to cut, i'd be eating like 2000 calories as a STARTING point...


I don't think you're tracking your bodyweight changes correctly or frequently enough... weight will change day to day, and just weighing in ONCE a week can throw things off massively... at the least I recommend every other day, if not EVERY day, to establish a meaningful rate of change at least in the beginning...

But if you're coming back after a time off, you might not lose ANY weight because you're building back muscle, glycogen, etc at the same time.

makes sense, cheers mate

[AlexSays]

If you are determined to cut

You are not eating at 1400 calories daily and gaining weight. At your age, weight and gender that is all but a certainty in the laws of physics so:

- Either your weighing is wrong (wrong time of day, not often enough, inconsistent, see Adam's post above)

- Or your counting is wrong (the problem in 99% of all cases, weigh every piece of food that goes in your mouth including fruit, vegetables, the odd kit kat, oils, sauces etc. A handful of small monitoring slipups in a day can add up to literally 100s of calories)

I recommend you start tracking and weighing properly before anything else so you have a more reliable reference point. If it turns out you are eating 1400 calories a day then correcting your weighing should start to show fairly rapid and dramatic weight loss, in this case up your calories to a more sustainable level

If you correct your counting (which I imagine to be the problem) then take whatever your new maintenance is and deduct 5-800ish calories from it to create a steady and sustainable deficit

What I would do

If it were me however I would probably remain at your maintenance for a while to build up some strength and muscle, hopefully improving your body composition a little as you do. You don't really have enough of a frame at the moment to be worth cutting down to 12% if you are doing it for reasons of 'leanness' and you have too much fat to be thinking about a surplus. Personally I actually think you are over 20% bodyfat but estimates will vary.

[Tommy W.]

You're eating more than you think on a weekly basis. You need to tighten up your counting and tracking,