This site and forum is so damn practical. I love it. Personalized nutrition seems to be as much of an art form as it does science. Context is everything. You seem to put up with dumb or unanswerable questions regularly (mine included, of course), so thank you for hanging in there.
Hitting macros is still a work in progress. Everything is trending in the right direction, thankfully (fiber going up, protein trending toward goal, fat trending toward goal, sugar going down, etc.). I feel like my compliance is 90%, and I am gaining a lot of momentum with better choices in all aspects.
36 y/o M, 6’1", 245 lbs,
13 lbs lost over 7-8 weeks
Waist from 46" to 43.25" in 7-8 weeks
Early novice LP training (week 3-4)
Current macros for fat loss:
220P, 245C, 66F
2,458 kcal
At the end of many days (after three meals and one protein shake), I find myself well below my macros/caloric goal (nearly equally low in P, C and F…once in a while F is met). If my aim is to lose weight, do I really need those extra calories/macros if I’m not hungry? Is this an issue of being consistent? Recovery? Etc.?
If I’m having a MPS event at 6am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm, do I really need the extra calories given my goals? Any elaboration would be helpful even though this is primarily a hypothetical situation of sorts.
I think that there is a give and take here when it comes to hitting the calories regularly vs. undereating on occasion.
On the plus side, you’d probably lose weight faster with a greater calorie deficit, though you’d probably lose more lean body mass too. At best, you’d gain less LBM than if you were eating more calories.
I would not expect any significant difference in training outcomes either way.
You might consider just having a protein shake even if you’re not hungry to keep total protein intake high.
Admittedly, as a highly fluffy person, the general numbers I have in my head for an ideal weight would be somewhere between 200-210 (with body fat in 15-17%). This is purely speculative and my best guess for when my waistline will hit the 34-36" mark.
I have a feeling that you’d suggest I weigh more than that after all is said and done (I’m between 6’1" and 6’2"). The struggle is that I’m in my late 30s, and I don’t see myself becoming a competitor (or pulling more than 500 lbs). Following that logic, as a fluffy 245, am I just being impatient by not trying to hold on to all of my lean body mass, or is it reasonable to say that I will likely need to lose some anyway to get to a healthy size?
Havings said all of that above, I wonder if I’m already below what you’d recommend for calories anyhow? At 2458, I’m for sure below your recommended 11.43 kcal starting point in TBAB. I think some of the restriction came from dropping protein. You recommended capping at 220 or 250, but I never added back those calories anywhere (from the original 315 g Protein). At 2458, I’m probably at a 300-400 deficit already, so I can appreciate that I might really be shorting myself if I’m not even close to that. Often times, I’m coming in around 2100.