Abnormal Calorie intake (long-ish read)

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello, will try to keep it short. I am 21 years old 183cm tall and this is me at 103kg Imgur: The magic of the Internet (was 98 but took creatine and bloated) and sadly I consider myself fat, granted, this is not the best lighting and angle but still, you can see it needs to be reduced. Strength wise my big 3 total is at 470kg (S:150 B:120 D:200). Reason I am creating this is because I am trying to figure out whether my intake is abnormal or not. I train x4 a week only weights and I eat 2300 calories for fat loss, this way I am losing about 2-2.5kg a month. These calories are with an average step count of 2000 steps a day and every time I walk as an exercise I eat the calories burned (for 5kms it says 350kcal). You can see I am not really moving a lot apart from resistance training but still feel like my food intake is low. I don’t want it to drop it lower, my macro ratio is ideally 45C, 35P, 20F. I plan on losing until 95kg while on creatine using this deficit and then eating at 2800 for 2-3 weeks then go back to 2300 for the rest of weight loss. I created a program that allowed me to match my previous performance in a matter of 45 days while being on a 500-700 caloric deficit and the program looked like this:

Bench 5x5 RPE 7-8
OHP 5x6-10
Pendlay Rows 5x8-10
Curls 5x10 + Dropset

Squat 5x5 RPE 7-8
Power Cleans 8x2
Inverted Rows 3x Amrap

Bench 5x5 RPE 7-8
Incline bench 3x8-10 RPE7-8
Strict Rows 5x8-10
Curls 5x10 + Dropset

Deadlift 3x5-3-1 RPE 7-8
Squat 5x5 RPE 7-8
Rows 5x10

This proggressed me with a rate of 5lb each workout but it stopped so I made it that I proggress only on 1 day and make a 75%1RM 5x5 the other, adding weekly on lower body and at two weeks on upper body.

a)Is my intake too low?
b)if yes, is it normal regarding my needs or should I consult a doctor?
c)will eating at maintenance for 3 weeks after I reach 95kg enough for me to keep dropping?
d)when my intermediate programming stops proggressing, what to do?

2

LAGman91,

Thanks for the post. A few thoughts:

  1. Not at all. If it was lower, you’d lose weight faster and maybe lose a bit more muscle mass than you otherwise would.
  2. See above. I think you’d benefit from being more physically active.
  3. By definition, yes.
  4. I’d switch to The Bridge now and then pick one of our templates after that based on your goals.

-Jordan

3

In a nutshell, even for my weight and strength level, as I really don’t move the calories do make sense? And in case I move I remind you I eat most of it back (5km walk I eat +300 kcal)

4

I think you’re asking me if it seems like you’re eating too few Calories for your stats and the answer to that is no. I would also not “eat back” the Calories you estimate being used during activity.