Question: Last week I read an article on your site (can't find it now) where I believe you stated individuals lost more weight and gained more muscle consuming 2200 calories (I believe that's correct), and yet you achieved such great results doing just the opposite. I realize you stated, "I do NOT recommend anyone follow my plan! I'm just telling you what I did. I made some mistakes during my transformation. They turned out to be learning experiences, but I would rather have avoided them", but which plan would you follow today if you were once again in the challenge?
Thanks for the assistance, and great work!!!
Answer: Thank you so much for your question and your kind words!
The 2200 calorie comment wasn't anything I wrote, but I would guess the idea behind it was that it is better not to restrict calories too much in order to be able to gain muscle while still losing fat.
I agree with that principle in general, but I would not put a calorie total (like 2200) with it because there is way too much variation among adult males. It all depends on where you are starting from and what your time frame is.
Are you at 15% body fat and want to get to 8% in 6 months? Or are you at 40% body fat and want to get to 10% in 12 weeks? Also, adult males range anywhere from 130 lbs (or even less) to 350 lbs (or even more)! We are all over the place, so there is no daily calorie number that fits us all.
So the place to start is estimating your Basal Metabolic Rate. Here is a BMR Calculator. Your BMR is how many calories you need each day just to stay the same weight you are, or another way to look at it is how many calories you burn just being alive and doing the activities you do each day.
Most people tend to over estimate their activity level, so be a little conservative when you select yours.
The minimum calorie deficit I recommend for losing fat is 500 calories daily, so you would take your BMR and subtract 500 to get your target calories per day. But that is just a starting point.
I have tried quite a large range of deficits myself, from a few hundred to around 2000 calories daily. People tend to freak out and say crazy things like 'OMG, you're starving yourself! Your body will shut down and your kidneys will fail!'
I find it amusing! However, I don't want to be flippant because you could damage your body if you don't have fat to lose! So if you're not fat, don't starve yourself! It's stupid!
But that's not us! We are talking about fat guys who have fat they want to lose! If you eat quality foods, like proteins, vegetables, healthy fats and oils each day and drink lots of water, you will not damage your body even with a very large calorie deficit. Your body will simply use your fat stores to makeup whatever deficit there is.
There have been numerous doctor supervised studies where obese subjects were fed only 600 calories daily for months at a time, with very healthy outcomes I might add. If it's OK for doctors to do that to their subjects, then why would 800, or 1000, or 1200 calories daily be so extreme? Remember, I'm talking about fat guys who've got fat to lose! Not lean or normal weight people!
Just to be clear, I don't recommend eating only 600 calories daily! That was just a reference point from studies I have read.
A rule of thumb I would use is not to go below 1000 calories daily on average. If you do a fasting day here or there where you drop below, that is OK. The 5/2 Diet has two days per week where you eat just 500 calories. Although I don't follow that plan, I think it is fine.
Sorry, I'm a little off track here. I am talking mainly about fat loss and your question was essentially what would I recommend to maintain, or even gain, muscle while losing fat. Or basically, what is the sweet spot where you are losing fat and still building muscle?
I am not a big guy. I am average height with an average frame. I started out 213 lbs and ended up 173 lbs.
My average BMR during my transformation was about 3023 calories daily, so I burned that many calories on average each day for 12 weeks.
Here is my approximate daily calorie intake during my 12 week transformation:
1800-1900 calories daily (~2 weeks)*
800-900 calories daily (~5 weeks)*
1400-1500 calories daily (~2 weeks)*
1300-1400 calories daily (~3 weeks)*
* I still had cheat meals every 7-10 days, even during the super low calorie weeks.
If I had it to do over again, I would skip the 5 weeks where I went really low calorie. I also went pretty low carb near the end of that 5 weeks, which was another mistake I would skip.
What I would recommend if I were starting over depends on the time frame. So here is what I would do with and without a time limit:
12 week time frame (contest mode):
I would do Intermittent Fasting with a daily calorie target of 1250. Remember, this is for my BMR. These numbers are relative and different for everyone.
If there is a 12 week time frame, there is just no way around the math. To lose 40+ lbs of fat in 12 weeks, you just can't eat much and you have to work your ass off.
I would eat as much protein, veggies, and healthy fats and oils as I could while staying under 1250 calories.
I would shoot for 160-190 grams of protein daily. I would drink approximately 1.5 gallons of water daily (including what I use to make protein shakes, coffee, and tea). I would also take vitamins and mineral supplements.
No time frame (no contest mode):
I would do Intermittent Fasting with a daily calorie target of maybe 1900. Remember, this is for my BMR. These numbers are relative and different for everyone.
I would probably not do as much cardio, so my average BMR would be less than 3023, maybe more like 2900.
I would eat as much protein, veggies, and healthy fats and oils as I could while staying under 1900 calories.
I would still shoot for 160-190 grams of protein daily. I would drink approximately 1.5 gallons of water daily (including what I use to make protein shakes, coffee, and tea). I would also take vitamins and mineral supplements.
This 1000 calorie daily deficit would still get me to the same place (46 lbs of fat lost), but it would be more like 5 or 6 months instead of 3 months. If not for the 12 week time frame of the contest, this is a much better way to go! I wouldn't suffer as much and I could have probably built more muscle through the process.
Conclusion:
So even though I didn't write the comment about the 2200 calories you mentioned in your question, I kind of agree with it. At least I agree with the part about building more muscle while still losing fat. I am not so sure about losing MORE fat with a higher calorie intake, though! That would be nice, wouldn't it!
I could be totally wrong, but I don't buy into the idea of 'eating more to lose more.' People like to talk about starvation mode as if it were this scary thing that is super easy to fall into and it causes us to gain weight if we eat too little, but I would guess most of us have never truly entered starvation mode in our lives! Fasting up to 24 hours increases metabolism! To truly enter starvation mode, you need to not eat for close to 3 days!
The human body is an unbelievably complex system! Fat loss can be a complicated process, and could be different for different people. I certainly don't have all all the answers! I don't mean to dismiss people who have made fat loss progress by upping their calorie intake.
I know for me and my transformation, simple straight-forward math explained everything. I lost 46 lbs of fat (~161,000 calories) and built about 4 lbs of muscle (~10,000 calories). So I needed a deficit of 151,000 calories total over 12 weeks, which is about 1800 calories per day. That is exactly what I did! I burned on average 3023 calories daily and I ate on average 1225 calories daily! It really couldn't be much simpler! It's grade-school math! For a more detailed look at the breakdown, see this Weekly Mailbag post.
OK, so basically I believe that calories consumed vs. calories used is the key to fat loss. However, I don't recommend going extremely low calorie! And for maintaining or gaining muscle mass, it is better to go slow and employ a calorie deficit of 500 to 1000.
As always, thank you for reading! Please feel free to ask questions or tell me I'm full of it in the comments section below!
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