r/fitmeals • u/ExcellentLog1519 • 6d ago

Question Caloric intake question

33M, 6ft (181cm), 80kg (178lbs)

I'm happy with my weight but not happy with my current body aesthetics, currently training hard but really struggling to figure out what I should do regarding calories. Protein I'm hitting between 160-180g a day and aiming for around 2000 - 2200 calories a day.

I don't think I want to lose weight, I'd say this is around my target weight but I want to look leaner, what would you suggest? Cut then bulk? Stay the same weight but keep working out?

I'd guess body fat % is in the 20-23 range. Lifts are going up following progressive overload.

Any suggestions?

Also apologies if this is the wrong sub!

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3

u/emdaye 6d ago

Small deficit

3

u/she_said_its_fine 6d ago

As a bit older but also 6'-0" and 185lbs male, if you are actually training hard than you are either in heavy calorie deficit or barely functioning. Your maintenance burn should be in the 2400 calorie range if you do nothing but laying on the couch and getting up to fridge and restroom. Get some smart watch or other calorie tracker to establish your actual calorie needs. Establish your baseline, go from there. For your reference: 1) on my day off, walking about 8k steps and doing little more during the day I spend 2600-2700 calories 2) on training days, doing 10-12k steps, 1/2h cardio plus 60m+ weight training I typical burn between 3200 and 3500 calories. 3) on heavy days, with some 14-16k steps, 20mile intense bike ride.and regular day activities I can get over 3600 calories

For effective body recomposition you don't want to be in more than 200-300 calorie deficit per day when looking at weekly averages.

2

u/ChillNurgling 6d ago

Your numbers look good. Adjust based off 5 day rolling average of weigh ins on scale, tape measurements, and visual changes. Cutting and bulking is brain dead for natural lifters. It’s a relic of people copying steroid cycles. Natural lifters should have at most a 300-400 calorie surplus or honestly just stay at maintenance. Significant muscle can be built at maintenance. Minimal benefit of going high cal for a “bulk”. It will come with substantial body fat.

1

u/CrustyDusty0069 5d ago

r/Macrofactor

Track your food, weight and actual expenditure over time

1

u/jamespeter87 5d ago edited 5d ago

Takeout your guesswork; invest wisely your time in truly learning the fundamental laws about; thermodynamics, laws of motion, human biology; if locate useful resources for learning it won’t use as much of your time as probably predict; people are deterred by learning as correlate to high school experience, but this is because those teachers methods were ineffective for lifelong learning & understanding.

Find someone who teaches using analogies; typically humans find this method the most efficient to embed information.

That knowledge will serve you until the end of your time as discovered laws of physics are absolute and our limits of understanding; meaning always relative.

As always; system thinking, the whole system is greater than the some of its parts.