Activity factor and other diet questions

Hey guys, it's been a while.

A few years back I successfully lost some excess weight but never continued until I was shredded and instead entered into a drawn out, dirty bulk phase of my eating and training.

I've been dieting for the past few weeks as my eating habits were starting to go downhill and the mirror was telling me I could lose some kg's. This time I would like to get to a legitimate 10-11% b.f.

Anyway, I thought I had my BMR and TDEE all figured out but I'm now second guessing things and maybe overcomplicating things.

Harris-Benedict formula puts my BMR at about 1900, but depending on the activity factor, my TDEE comes in at 2665 if lightly active and 3004 if moderately active.

I'm lifting 5 days/week for ~40min/session, cardio for 30min a time 2-3 times per week. Desk job.

I've been eating about 500 under maintenance 6 out of 7 days, the other day being at maintenance or just over (high carb day).

My weight dropped a kilo in the first few days, then picked up 2 kilos a week later, then dropped again. I'm finishing day 14 and only 1/2kg down from my starting weight.

I am not drinking any alcohol. I am eating extremely clean and have not had a single cheat meal. All of my calorie intake is being tracked.

Avg macros have been as follows: Week 1: P242 C258 F98; Week 2: P285 C218 F63

I feel I should be losing 1/2 to 1kg a week. Where am I going wrong? I think I might need some help with my macro calcs.

Post the following, then someone might be able to assist you:

Age
Height
Weight

Diet

34
185cm
87kg

Diet differs slightly from day to day depending mainly on my protein source. I can give an example of what I had today:

M1: 50g Jungle Oats raw + 50g whey isolate
M2: 140g venison steak + 50g brown rice
M3: 150g chicken breast + 40g brown rice
GYM
M4 (shake after gym): 2 egg whites + 40g whey iso + 60g dextrose + 210ml 2& milk
M5: 2 x wholegrain tortillas (217 cal ea, F5; C34; P6 ea) + 200g chicken breast + 30g fat free cottage cheese
M6: 100g fat free cottage cheese + 50g whey iso

Here is a nice calculator to use

www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

I would suggest eat at 2000 cals a day and use activity to create the deficit. If you are still not losing then you are not measuring your cal's accurately, not counting everything that goes in your mouth or not being active enough. The most accurate method is to weigh your portions to calculate cal's.

Safehouse wrote: Hey guys, it's been a while.

A few years back I successfully lost some excess weight but never continued until I was shredded and instead entered into a drawn out, dirty bulk phase of my eating and training.

I've been dieting for the past few weeks as my eating habits were starting to go downhill and the mirror was telling me I could lose some kg's. This time I would like to get to a legitimate 10-11% b.f.

Anyway, I thought I had my BMR and TDEE all figured out but I'm now second guessing things and maybe overcomplicating things.

Harris-Benedict formula puts my BMR at about 1900, but depending on the activity factor, my TDEE comes in at 2665 if lightly active and 3004 if moderately active.

I'm lifting 5 days/week for ~40min/session, cardio for 30min a time 2-3 times per week. Desk job.

I've been eating about 500 under maintenance 6 out of 7 days, the other day being at maintenance or just over (high carb day).

My weight dropped a kilo in the first few days, then picked up 2 kilos a week later, then dropped again. I'm finishing day 14 and only 1/2kg down from my starting weight.

I am not drinking any alcohol. I am eating extremely clean and have not had a single cheat meal. All of my calorie intake is being tracked.

Avg macros have been as follows: Week 1: P242 C258 F98; Week 2: P285 C218 F63

I feel I should be losing 1/2 to 1kg a week. Where am I going wrong? I think I might need some help with my macro calcs.

ok a few things that I like to mention here. Try and not focus so much on the scale. I am currently on a body recomp diet which incorporates calorie cycling, in a similar manner to your diet, where for 5 days a week I am eating at a deficit and two days I run a calorie surplus. I have been on this diet for 6 weeks now and went up from 85kg to 88kh. However, my bodyfat has dropped from around 14% to around 11 and I am down from a size 36 waist to a more than comfortable 33. The issue being, is that I believe when basically doing a calorie cycling diet, a calorie surplus creates an environment where you can add some lean muscle mass, whilst dropping body fat at the same time. This obviously messes around with the scale and why I dont place to much emphasis on how much I weigh as opposed to what my muscle to fat ratio is.

Secondly, another issue which may be stunting to your fat loss, is the cottage cheese. When fat loss was also stymied for me in the initial few weeks of my diet, I responded my cutting out all dairy and within a week I could immediately see a significant difference.

Another issue is caloric timing. It seem that your are consuming carbs throughout the day. what i would do is possibly consume 25% of your total carb intake for the day upon waking up, 25% before gym and 50% of total carbs as my post workout meal. All other meals will be a combination of good fats (which seem to be missing from your meal breakdown) and lean protein and around 100g of green, fibrous veggies.

GSP, our UFC Pro fighter has it spot on!!
Ditch the scale! When you start eating "clean" you are also creating an anabolic environment for muscle growth, so as GSP said it, you are probably substituting some fat for lean muscle -

Then comes the eating CLEAN part. I HATE this word because every guy has his own definition of clean. Some think that eating clean is eating healthy, the answer is NO! Fruit and Yoghurts etc. might be healthy, but it is not clean!

To monitor progress, rather use a tape measure and photos.

According to your macros you are taking in 2883 calories a day which is fine. The amounts of food your posted is probably raw as it looks way too little for it to be the cooked weight.

GSP is right and I've experienced the same. The scale varies but at the end of the day the bf matters and what the mirror says. I would suggest eating all carbs earlier in the day for the first three meals, or carbs in meal 1, 2 and 4 or however and whenever your train. Do what GSP said, 25% waking up, 25% pre workout and 50% post workout. This will ensure that carbs aren't stored as fat. Now in DJ's legendary sticky he also said one should rather start out with less carbs and more protein as too much protein is less likely to be stored as fat than too much carbs, then just monitor progress and increase carbs. DJ also said 6 meals need to be divided like this: 3 are protein + carbs and 3 are protein + fats. Here's an idea of how I would approach the diet:

Meal 1

60 oats (raw) + 30g raisins
2 whole eggs + 4 egg whites

Meal 2

50g whey whey iso + 30g almonds

Meal 3 (pre-workout)

200g Chicken fillet (raw)
150g brown rice (cooked weight)
1 portion green veggies

Meal 4 (post-workout)

200g lean steak
250g brown rice
1 portion green veggies

Meal 5

200g chicken fillet
30g almonds
1 portion green veggies

Meal 6

50g whey iso + 20g almonds

If you don't like green veg then use mixed veg. This will give you roughly 2850 calories. P297|C180|F100

Just my 2c

Fatboy, thanks for your input. Trust me, my cals are being properly measured and the only thing I'm not calculating is the air I breathe or the water I drink. All food portions are weighed to the nearest gram, I'm very particular about that.

GSP, Point taken regarding the scale as I can see slight changes in how I look. I'll take cutting all dairy into consideration, but only as a last resort. I had a suspicion calorie timing might be brought up and I'm glad you did as I know very little on the subject. I'll adjust my diet accordingly.

The meal breakdown just happened to be what I ate yesterday - on other days I have been adding some good fats but could use extra suggestions as well.

DBatDBN, agree with your definition of CLEAN and believe my current diet fits that.

Wimmas, the amounts I posted were cooked weights. I'll make some adjustments to my diet as suggested. No problem with green veg, I do eat it but just didn't add any yesterday.

In Meals 2 & 6 what are you mixing your whey iso with? Water? The Tastic brown rice I'm using has 75g carbs per 100g, which means if I follow your suggestion of 400g per day, my carb count will be sky high at 300g for the rice alone (1300 cal). Are you sure your calcs are right?

Is it agreed then that I should still be aiming for ~500 under maintenance?

The plan is to add clen and yohimbine from week 4, by then I'd like to have my diet routine solid and 100% in place.

Thanks all for your advice and contributions!

Edit: Wimmas, I train after work at about 17.30/18:00. Are you suggesting I have Meals 4, 5, and 6 between 19.30 and 22.00?

My current meal timing in terms of the meals I originally posted are like so:

M1: 8.00

M2: 11.00

M3: 14.00 / 15.00

GYM: 17.30/18.00

M4: 19.00/19.30

M5: 20.00

M6: 21.00

The nutritional value on the brown rice packaging is raw weight. Check out these sites: nutritiondata.com, fatsecret.co.za/com, calorie-data.com to get more info regarding that. I prefer to eat carbs earlier in the day, I'm not sure how to approach your carb timing when training so late in the day, DJ will be able to tell you more about that.

Whey iso + water.

500 deficit is fine, if deficit is too high you'll start losing muscle, glycogen, water etc.

The brown, long grain, tastic rice I use have the following values when cooked:

100g = 111 Kcal, P3|C23|F1

One should be careful to not mistake raw values with cooked values, especially with rice. The weight changes A LOT when cooked.

I would reduce lifting to 3x a week, compound lifts & reduce meal frequency to like, 2pm, 5pm, 9pm.
If you're cutting slower than you would like, reduce intake slightly, BUT, track your bf%, not just your weight.

Wimmas wrote: The nutritional value on the brown rice packaging is raw weight. Check out these sites: nutritiondata.com, fatsecret.co.za/com, calorie-data.com to get more info regarding that. I prefer to eat carbs earlier in the day, I'm not sure how to approach your carb timing when training so late in the day, DJ will be able to tell you more about that.

Whey iso + water.

500 deficit is fine, if deficit is too high you'll start losing muscle, glycogen, water etc.

The brown, long grain, tastic rice I use have the following values when cooked:

100g = 111 Kcal, P3|C23|F1

One should be careful to not mistake raw values with cooked values, especially with rice. The weight changes A LOT when cooked.

I use the same rice and I cannot believe I overlooked the raw vs cooked value! Thanks for pointing that out.

Looks like I need to read up a bit on carb timing.

JFrost wrote: I would reduce lifting to 3x a week, compound lifts & reduce meal frequency to like, 2pm, 5pm, 9pm.
If you're cutting slower than you would like, reduce intake slightly, BUT, track your bf%, not just your weight.

Can you explain your thoughts?

JFrost wrote: I would reduce lifting to 3x a week, compound lifts & reduce meal frequency to like, 2pm, 5pm, 9pm.
If you're cutting slower than you would like, reduce intake slightly, BUT, track your bf%, not just your weight.

Got to stick with my current lifting program as it's working for me right now. I usually change things every 6 - 8 weeks anyway.

You saying I should eat only between 2 and 9pm? I'm not looking at doing IF/leangains right now, might consider it in the future.

I would like to track my bf%, but don't have the facility to do so.

Guess I'll have to trust the mirror.

Edit: Chapel, I think JFrost is referring to intermittent fasting. Not sure though. :S

Just as evidence, here's the value of brown rice, long grain, COOKED:

nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5707/2

Here it is RAW:

nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5706/2

In other words, you were eating far too little carbs.

Wimmas wrote: Just as evidence, here's the value of brown rice, long grain, COOKED:

nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5707/2

Here it is RAW:

nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5706/2

In other words, you were eating far too little carbs.

Thanks Wimmas, after reading your post earlier the first thing I did was check. No wonder I felt so shit during the first week.

I've adjusted my cal calcs and will up the carbs from tomorrow.

On the plus side, I'm feeling really healthy.

Update:

I've adjusted my diet and am also now paying more attention to calorie timing. I am raising my carb intake 1 - 2 times per week. I've been staying away from the scale, but decided to weight myself at the gym today.

3 weeks in and I'm UP a kilogram from where I started!

I'm tracking all calories and macros, training hard, cardio at least 4 times per week.

I don't feel like I'm getting the results I should be, considering all the effort I'm putting in.

Either I'm being impatient or my diet is not right.

how many calories are you consuming a day, also how long is your cardio sessions and how intense? maybe cut out another 100-200 calories from carbs and fats from the diet on low days and another 200calories on high days. increase cardio sessions to 5x a week and see hwo you go there... also are you weighing first thing in the morning after your morning bathroom session? as after training you will be full of water.

Thanks DJ, I adjust my calories per day depending on my activity level, so anything from 2200 to 3000 (I cover a lot of distance on the beach on Saturdays).

Averages were as follows: Wk1 = 2800; Wk2 = 2300; Wk3 = 2500.

My cardio sessions are 30 min and mostly HIIT on the stationary bike. I know the data on the equipment is not the most accurate but it reckons I'm burning over 400 cals in 30min.

Will cut further cals as you suggest and increase cardio to 5x a week.

I'm weighing as I get to the gym, at about 17.30/18.00, probably not ideal?

Safehouse wrote: Thanks DJ, I adjust my calories per day depending on my activity level, so anything from 2200 to 3000 (I cover a lot of distance on the beach on Saturdays).

Averages were as follows: Wk1 = 2800; Wk2 = 2300; Wk3 = 2500.

My cardio sessions are 30 min and mostly HIIT on the stationary bike. I know the data on the equipment is not the most accurate but it reckons I'm burning over 400 cals in 30min.

Will cut further cals as you suggest and increase cardio to 5x a week.

I'm weighing as I get to the gym, at about 17.30/18.00, probably not ideal?

400 cals in 30mins...me thinks not

use the treadmil or the stepper or cross trainer. anything that will have your body weight supported by your legs..it will make things more intense..I think you should do 2300 calories daily and then once a week go up to 2800 calories. do this on either back or legs days... if u aren't feeling flat and depleted before that day u have the higher calories then u haven't caned it hard enough, before I carb up I feel tired, drained and flat..if I don't I carry on training for a couple of days untill I feel pap...there are sometimes 10-14 days before I carb up. remember to train to failure. 16-20 sets per big muscle group like legs and back and chest... then 12-16 sets for arms chest and calves... rep range 8-10 reps but to failure with good form.

DJ wrote: use the treadmil or the stepper or cross trainer. anything that will have your body weight supported by your legs..it will make things more intense..I think you should do 2300 calories daily and then once a week go up to 2800 calories. do this on either back or legs days... if u aren't feeling flat and depleted before that day u have the higher calories then u haven't caned it hard enough, before I carb up I feel tired, drained and flat..if I don't I carry on training for a couple of days untill I feel pap...there are sometimes 10-14 days before I carb up. remember to train to failure. 16-20 sets per big muscle group like legs and back and chest... then 12-16 sets for arms chest and calves... rep range 8-10 reps but to failure with good form.

Thanks DJ, will switch away from the stationary bike and adjust my intake from tomorrow.

My training routine is already as you've suggested above.