Daily Caloric Intake over 40

[cipha5]

Hello, can someone give me some insight regarding the total amount of daily calories I should be taking in? I'm 42 years old, 6'1" and I'm trying to drop 30 pounds but still maintaining and still building lean muscle (but not trying to bulk up). I've read numerous articles that it should be no more than 1800 calories daily and around 200-25g of protein but I'm also hearing from nutrionists that I should be taking in no less than 2700 calories or up to 3000 calories daily. My goal is to continue to build lean muscle over time, shed excess weight and this being my lifestyle meaning long term. Any advice, insight, personal experience would be very helpful! Thank you!

[air2fakie]

When in doubt, choose the average and adjust based on actual results vs. desired results.

[paulinkansas]

[smokinal]

-If you try to chase 2 different rabbits, you'll catch neither one-

You're not going to lose 30 lbs and gain any amount of muscle at the same time. 96% of the time, losing fat is the desired goal; I would set that as your goal.
You'll look far more muscular with less fat on you and you will have thought you gained muscle, just from the appearance of a lower BF%

Then, when you get to a desired leanness, increase your calories ever so slightly to barely start gaining weight every week.

As far as your calories, there is no set number that works for everyone. Find a free online TDEE calculator and remember, this is just a strating point. You need to weigh yourself 2-3 times per week, at the same time of day, on the same scale; wait 2 weeks for water to settle and then start taking readings and adjusting your cals so you are losing about 1-1.5lb per week.

And you haven't told us how much you weigh.

[cipha5]

-If you try to chase 2 different rabbits, you'll catch neither one-

You're not going to lose 30 lbs and gain any amount of muscle at the same time. 96% of the time, losing fat is the desired goal; I would set that as your goal.
You'll look far more muscular with less fat on you and you will have thought you gained muscle, just from the appearance of a lower BF%

Then, when you get to a desired leanness, increase your calories ever so slightly to barely start gaining weight every week.

As far as your calories, there is no set number that works for everyone. Find a free online TDEE calculator and remember, this is just a strating point. You need to weigh yourself 2-3 times per week, at the same time of day, on the same scale; wait 2 weeks for water to settle and then start taking readings and adjusting your cals so you are losing about 1-1.5lb per week.

And you haven't told us how much you weigh.

Thank you very much, this is really helpful! I weight 235 and trying to drop to 205. What you laid out makes complete sense to focus on one goal and then the other. I checked out the calendar and it says my maintenance calories are 2893 a day. If I'm trying to lose weight, what would you say should be my target daily caloric intake based on that and I do work out 6 times a week. Thank you!!

[Cantplankwell]

Hello, can someone give me some insight regarding the total amount of daily calories I should be taking in? I'm 42 years old, 6'1" and I'm trying to drop 30 pounds but still maintaining and still building lean muscle (but not trying to bulk up). I've read numerous articles that it should be no more than 1800 calories daily and around 200-25g of protein but I'm also hearing from nutrionists that I should be taking in no less than 2700 calories or up to 3000 calories daily. My goal is to continue to build lean muscle over time, shed excess weight and this being my lifestyle meaning long term. Any advice, insight, personal experience would be very helpful! Thank you!

There are more experienced folks than me for choosing programs...But I will add this nugget:

Read post #1 on the link below, This is a good place to start, its important to have a good handle on TDEE and what your consumption is, I can assure you the only way you can do a good job with this is analyze and weigh everything you eat, get a good bathroom scale and log your results, "Happy scale" is a good phone app to log your weigh ins. Some of the apps that guestimate your calories that you can put on your phone can be very inaccurate, I would suggest here that if you can't simply and easily figure out the calories of the items you are eating.... yourself...dont eat it. The simpler the items (meals) you are hopefully making yourself become, the easier it is to calculate the calories.

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=173439001

[mojojonz]

Hi there, post number 4 really nails i think.

I'm 39 and currently cutting. I aim for the 1.5lb- 2lb per week but taper this off closer to my goals.

Your tdee sounds about what I'd expect. At 230 odd pounds I'd suggest you cud start at say 2200 cal a day and see how you go for a few weeks. This cud be lower.

Measure everything, the milk in your coffee, your protein powder and ketchup that can all add up to 300cal a day easily, which may be a good chunk of your deficit.

As mentioned weigh yourself 2-3 times a week and I'd recommend counting all your calories everyday and get a excel log going . Smooth the Data and figure out exactly what's going on and what needs to be adjusted. Approximating calories when someone else cooks for is fine, just try be as accurate as you can. Errors in your readings won't drastically affect if your losing fat or not

Good luck.

[cipha5]

Hi there, post number 4 really nails i think.

I'm 39 and currently cutting. I aim for the 1.5lb- 2lb per week but taper this off closer to my goals.

Your tdee sounds about what I'd expect. At 230 odd pounds I'd suggest you cud start at say 2200 cal a day and see how you go for a few weeks. This cud be lower.

Measure everything, the milk in your coffee, your protein powder and ketchup that can all add up to 300cal a day easily, which may be a good chunk of your deficit.

As mentioned weigh yourself 2-3 times a week and I'd recommend counting all your calories everyday and get a excel log going . Smooth the Data and figure out exactly what's going on and what needs to be adjusted. Approximating calories when someone else cooks for is fine, just try be as accurate as you can. Errors in your readings won't drastically affect if your losing fat or not

Good luck.

Thank you!