Diets - Macros and Calories, what do you really need?

xibinim said:
Thanks for the quick reply :)

I plan to do 3x1 hour sessions; two cycling/running aiming for the fat burn MHR and unsure about weights as I have rarely done them in the past.
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Be careful with your expectations, here. Why? Because the body uses its energy stores in a rather basic manner:

Starting off GLYCOLYTIC/ANAEROBIC

- ATP that is stored in cells (very small amounts, but very easy to use by the contractile tissues);
- Creatine (buffers ADP back to ATP for equally rapid re-use);
- Glycogen (carb stores in cells themselves, quickly converted to ATP);
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- Protein (yup - it's harder to use than glycogen, but still relatively easy for the body to crack open for energy generation);
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- Fat is (generally) hard for your body to actually do very much with because it's so complex in terms of its chemical structure (and - as a result, energy dense) and the biochemistry required to use fat to replenish ATP is actually pretty slow by the above standards. Imagine trying to get a steak out of a live cow, and you get the idea (kill it, gut it, skin it, chop it up, etc.), vs. eating some beef jerky out of a pack.. one takes a fair old while, the other is pretty instant.

What am I saying? MHR (mean heart rate?) is a very bad indicator of whether or not you're burning fat. Yes, more cardio does align the body to burn more fat, but this is simply because the body gets used to long, low-level activity and produces more oxidative (fat-burning) mitochondrial apparatus to account for this. This effectively means that whilst your body is getting better at burning fat, it also gets more efficient at it (burns it more slowly).

Resistance training will put your body under significantly greater stress over a shorter period of time, meaning you'll burn through your residual energy stores more effectively. Why? Because the anaerobic contractions associated with resistance exercise don't just use the energy immediately available, but built up an energy deficit over time... and that energy deficit has to be replenished for up to 36hrs (generally speaking) post-exercise. Cardio (aerobic) exercise does this, too, to a degree, but it's not as significant.

Read the GymRats OP to get an idea about resistance training, because it is just as - if not more - important than cardio for weightloss.

If you are DESPERATE to do cardio, work yourself into a high intensity interval training scheme after a couple of weeks' gym time (to give your body time to adjust before you hit it with HIIT) as this is - again - more efficient than steady state cardio in terms of both 'energy consumption ' but also in terms of the health gains. Plus it is less dull. :D

Either way, well done on your new venture. :)
 
Wow - thanks for that. Happy to try resistance, I just know much about it so never really ventured. I've tried 2 running machine sessions since my post, having a rest day today and will do some resistance at the weekend and look into what you've said in more details. Thanks again :)
 
Noob question but what percentage breakdown of protein, carbs and fat should I be aiming for in my diet?

Myfitnesspal has defaulted to 20,50 & 30 respectively. Is this about right?
 
Depends on your goal.

For dieting atm research seems to indicate for a strength training athlete:
protein - 1-1.4g per lb of lean body mass (not total bw)
fat - 20-30% of calories
carbs - the rest

This is a base to work off. Obviously you can bump fat up at the expense of carbs but it's a balance between having enough that food isn't bland but not so much you sacrifice too many carbs any your training suffers.

For maintaining/surplus protein can go down to 0.8-1lb per lb of lbm.
 
1g/lb of bodyweight for protein is absolutely plenty (unassisted). Contrary to what many others here and elsewhere will tell you I'm sure.

I personally prefer 0.7/0.8g/lb.
Fats I vary between 60-80g total for the day and the remainder of calories come from carbs.
 
I'm probably going to actually do some bulking in a few months :eek:

The issue I have is that although I'm happy to reduce my cycling a little (and up my lifting as appropriate) I don't want to give it up completely or reduce it to the point where I lose a lot of cycling fitness. This means that I'll probably be burning up to 1000 kcal most days by cycling.

Combined with me being 6'1'' and presumably needing to eat above my TDEE I'm a bit concerned that I'm going to be looking at 3500-3750 kcal required to bulk.

That's going to be a struggle to consume regularly if I'm honest, even with my pretty ridiculous appetite. Even if I manage it, is the cycling basically going to ruin my chances of bulking? I don't mind if it is slowed down a little and I kind of feel like this is a silly thing to worry about but I thought I'd try to see what people thought.

edit: I guess this could be an excuse to start making lots and lots of awesome cakes/deserts as per BennyC style :D
 
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Somnambulist said:
Just throw some liquid proton/carb cals in, it's not like it'll have any adverse effect if the vast majority of your diet is nutricious/whole/unprocessed/bro/voluminous and satiating.
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Yeah, I'll probably do that. So you don't think that doing 20-30 miles of cycling per day will impact my bulking/gains as long as I eat and rest enough?
 
3750kcals, pah I could do that in 2 meals :p

With the cycling as you say it will probably just mean you need to eat that bit more which isn't a bad thing.

Providing you are getting sufficient rest at the moment the increase in calories will only aid this :)
 
Well..If I went back to eating Dominos and the like all the time I'm sure I could manage a 3000 kcal dinner easily enough :p But eating healthier and cutting means I guess I'm in the habit of eating lower kcal stuff.

I'll be paying more attention to my rest whilst bulking (it's something I'm pretty bad for skipping at the moment, though really only in terms of only giving my legs one rest day per week..and that's active rest). I'm glad to hear that it's quite likely I'll be okay despite the cycling anyhow :)
 
FrenchTart said:
I'm probably going to actually do some bulking in a few months :eek:

The issue I have is that although I'm happy to reduce my cycling a little (and up my lifting as appropriate) I don't want to give it up completely or reduce it to the point where I lose a lot of cycling fitness. This means that I'll probably be burning up to 1000 kcal most days by cycling.

Combined with me being 6'1'' and presumably needing to eat above my TDEE I'm a bit concerned that I'm going to be looking at 3500-3750 kcal required to bulk.

That's going to be a struggle to consume regularly if I'm honest, even with my pretty ridiculous appetite. Even if I manage it, is the cycling basically going to ruin my chances of bulking? I don't mind if it is slowed down a little and I kind of feel like this is a silly thing to worry about but I thought I'd try to see what people thought.

edit: I guess this could be an excuse to start making lots and lots of awesome cakes/deserts as per BennyC style :D
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You don't need to start eating low quality food to get the calories in.

It will be very easy to consume that calorie intake using good healthy sources of fats (oily fish, nut butters, eggs etc). Fats having 9 cals per gram as opposed to 4 cals protein/carbs.

Obviously with cycling you would really be favouring carbohydrates for performance but for weight management/gain then initially getting the calories in is will be what matters.

If you struggle with large meals spreading your food throughout the day would be wise until you become 'conditioned' :p for them.

There is no harm with being flexible in your diet and enjoying the foods you love in moderation, I just wouldn't use needing to eat near 4k cals a day as an excuse to ignore your micro nutrient intake :)
 
Cheers for your input :)

I guess despite how I worded my initial post my main worries were that I'd be eating a ton more food and not really making muscle gains due to the large amount of cardio. Perhaps it's a fear borne of broscience stuff I've read though.

You're absolutely right that I can still eat decent food and match the kcal requirements. There will be days when I do stuff like the below where I'll probably have to hit pretty ridiculous amounts of kcal though. As it's using a (virtual, but fairly accurate) power meter the kcal burned in this turbo session is supposedly fairly accurate.

http://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/rides/1374101-Galena

Combine that with 20+ miles of cycling to work and potentially also going to the gym am I best literally making up all of those calories to see a gain in lean mass or am I at best going to maintain my current mass?
 
Glaucus said:
Pfftt could easily eat 4000kcal with healthy eating :(.
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I actually find the opposite. As soon as I go much above 2.5k the temptation is to fill my extra kcal with beer :/

Glaucus said:
I'm having the opposite issue, if trying to stick to 1800 ish.
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1800 is my net target at the moment. I often do 1000-1500 worth of exercise per day though so I get to eat a lot more. On my rest days I really struggle to stick to an actual 1800 intake but luckily usually I'm slightly under my goal on the non-rest days so it evens out.
 
At the end of the day if you have a calorie surplus then your body has excess energy to either store, repair the body with or build new tissue.

On a much smaller scale it's a bit like people who just start exercising and then reward themselves with a takeaway regularly after and wonder why they are gaining weight.

I would think that once your desire for solid food has been met to get the remainder of your calories, predominantly carbs for cycling, from drinks would be the easiest and less grueling way for you.

Edit: force feeding yourself to the point of discomfort regularly with large volumes of food isn't a) healthy long term (for your stomach & guts) b) how you really want to spend your evening c) probably going to result in almost constant digestion so positioning yourself for cycling might lead to indigestion.

What do pro cyclists do? As didn't Wiggo consume near 8k cals at one point?
 
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It's something I've not looked into to be honest as previously I've been focussing on trying to maintain strength (in regards to lifting) whilst losing weight and improving my cardio fitness. I do still often eat 2.5-3k kcal per day at the moment, which feels like a lot, so the idea of increasing that substantially was a little daunting.

Good ideas though. I'll have a look at pro cyclist diets.
 
Awesome thread Steedie.

Since I don't know my BF% I've went with the first option:

Weight - 105kg
Height - 184cm
Age - 22

Came out with around 2200 cals, so as I want to cut I've put that down to 1800 cals. That sounding okay or have I missed something blindingly obvious? :)
 
Well I've read the OP (a few days ago) and wouldn't mind some pointers! Forgive the essay :p

I'm 27, 5ft 10in and ~73-75kg. According to some scales during a work EHS day a few months back my body fat % is 17.5 (the accuracy of said scales is up for debate).

Second calc. puts me at 1689 (about 100 less than the first calc.).

Activity level.
My job is variable. Some days (like today) I can spend much of it shovelling up the charred remains of a wall or floor. Most days it's largely office based with a potential for lots of wandering around or working around the lab setting up which is mostly just a lot of moving around.
For exercise, Mondays I typically go bouldering at 6pm-ish and do (what seems to me at least) a fairly intense circuit training session 8-9pm.
Tuesdays are usually a rest day.
Wednesdays I go bouldering straight after work and can be down there any time from 3-4hours (including stretching time at the end).
Thursdays, another day of slacking off. I am looking into possibly doing Yoga in the future.
Fridays, a shorter 30-60 minute bouldering session mostly warming up for the circuit training 7-8.
Saturdays, bouldering ~1-2pm until maybe 5-6pm (with break for tea and cake :D).
Sundays, I've been going bouldering for 2-4 hours a lot lately otherwise it would be slacking off.
Anyone who has ever climbed with a group of people regularly probably knows that most of a climbing session can involve standing around and chatting and not much actual climbing :o
I took that to mean probably the upper end of 'Lightly Active' so 1.4x meaning 2364.

My background (if it helps) is along the lines of, never done much sports or paid a great deal of attention to what I eat and had steadily gained weight to 85-90kg. I started bouldering about 2 years ago and when the climbing wall started doing circuit training sessions (first once a week then a few months later twice a week) what must've been 9 months or so ago I've lost weight down to what I am now.
Since starting the circuit training I've noticeably become a bit broader chest/shoulder wise but nothing much has changed as far as my waist (most of my fat seems to be around my middle).

As I'm sure people can appreciate, strength vs weight is obviously pretty important in climbing. The circuit training sessions can be pretty intense and result in some very nice sore spots (particularly when doing antagonist muscles).
I've been using whey protein shakes (usually with water sometimes milk) immediately after every climbing/circuit session while I'm stretching just to help recovery.

I wouldn't mind some advice on how best to structure what I should be aiming for with carbs/fat/protein and when is best to eat what. It isn't an area I know particularly well at all, nor is my cooking knowledge. If possible I would like to gradually lose a bit more weight but without sacrificing the potential to gain strength from climbing and circuit training nor without sacrificing how fast I could recover from said sessions.
 
First off, you don't need to worry about nutrient timing to the degree you are now. If you eat enough protein during the day you'll be fine and will gain very little (probably nothing) from timing a protein shake for immediately after your bouldering session.

Secondly, before you get too bogged down with planning what your intake should be I would highly recommend that you start logging your food into the likes of MyFitnessPal. Make sure you're as accurate as possible - weighing food initially if you're unsure (as time progresses and your knowledge of things improves you will need to do this less and less).

Once you have been logging your intake for a while you can start to look at trends in your diet that could be improved. You'll probably want to move to something around 100g of protein per day with the rest split amongst fat and carbs...but for now don't get too worried about it. The numbers will seem (and be) fairly arbitrary until you have more of an idea of the numbers for what you're eating right now.
 
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