How many calories should i eat to cut – Knowing how many calories to eat to cut weight is usually dependent on the amount of fat and muscle mass you want. To lose one pound in a week, you will need to burn 3,500 more calories than you take in. You can’t cut significant weight with dieting alone, so it’s also important to include exercise when planning your weight loss regimen. Keeping track of the calories you eat is an important part of successful weight loss. Here is a chart that shows how many calories you burn when exercising. Exercise + Calorie Tracking = Weight Loss
How Many Calories Should I Eat To Cut
We have enlisted the aid of Maximuscle Ambassador Sean Lerwill to help us comprehend the finer elements of cutting. Sean has a plethora of knowledge from his years of experience in the fitness business, and he gives his thoughts on how to cut for the Ibiza Challenge.
Someone has probably advised you that you need to go on a “cut” if you want to drop some body fat and get more “toned” or “ripped” for the summer. Have a look at this: What is Cutting? if you’re not sure what a cut is.
Your daily calorie intake when losing weight is the most crucial factor to get correctly. If you get this wrong, you’ll either be eating too much (so you won’t be cutting) or way too little, all of which can have extremely bad effects on your physical appearance, including muscle loss, hormone imbalances, and mental health. Don’t starve yourself; instead, reduce calories carefully in accordance with this page’s instructions. It does not last over time and simply results in eating disorders or other problems.
You must, above all, maintain consistency. Unless you are already fairly slender, cutting is not something you should undertake for a few days (visible six pack). Fat loss is a gradual process that takes commitment. Over the course of weeks and maybe months, you will need to regularly consume less calories than you actually need while continuing to engage in gradual, intense, well-planned training.
A plan is essential. In order to cut effectively, your strategy must include more than simply exercise; it must also be based on a scientifically developed formula that will allow you to determine how many calories you will need to drop fat while, more crucially, maintaining muscle.
There are several formulas available; while, some are better than others for people at the extreme ends of the scale—very little or quite large—trial and error has shown that many of them produce the same ballpark for the majority of people.
The following equation is provided because I have found it to be the most reliable and produces good results whether a person is CUTTING or BULKING.
The Harris–Benedict equations revised by Roza and Shizgal, 1984.
- Men: BMR* = 88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) – (5.677 x age in years)
- Women: BMR* = 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.098 x height in cm) – (4.330 x age in years)
*Basal Metabolic Rate
Both these equations also require an activity level estimate to provide the maintenance calories needed by an individual to maintain current weight.
| ACTIVITY LEVELS | |
| Little to no exercise | BMR x 1.2 |
| Light exercise (1-3 days per week) | BMR x 1.375 |
| Moderate exercise (3-5 days/week) | BMR x 1.55 |
| Heavy exercise (6-7 days/week) | BMR x 1.725 |
| Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts) | BMR x 1.9 |
The preceding may appear intimidating. You may be considering simply entering your information into a calorie tracker app. I would advise you to reconsider. You will get better outcomes and more accurate results from the calculation above. Mathematically speaking, it could take a little more work, but it’s worth it—nothing important is ever simple. The calorie counters frequently provide much too little calories, which might weary you and jeopardize your health.
Let’s take an average male and female and work through the formulas.
MALE:
Age 25, Weight 75 kg, Height 178 cm. He trains at the gym 3-4 days a week and goes for a longish run on the weekend.
BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 x 75) + (4.799 x 178) – (5.677 x 25)
BMR = 1805.434 kcal
His activity level is x 1.55
Maintenance Calories = 1805.434 x 1.55 = 2798.423 kcal
FEMALE:
Age 22, Weight 52 kg, Height 165 cm. She trains at the gym 3-4 days a week and does a crossfit class once a week.
BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 x 52) + (3.098 x 165) – (4.330 x 22)
BMR = 1344.347 kcal
Her activity level is x 1.55
Maintenance Calories = 1344.347 x 1.55 = 2083.738 kcal
But in both cases, this is simply their maintenance calorie intake or activity-adjusted intake. With their present age, weight, height, and lifestyle/activity level, they require what they need to maintain their current weight. Now that they will be engaging in resistance training and eating a sufficient quantity of protein, we must generate a calorie deficit to enable weight loss—hopefully largely fat loss—while maintaining their muscles. Also, they won’t be lowering calories foolishly. If the body temperature is too low, hard-earned muscle will be destroyed. Not how we do things around here. It is best to go gradually.
Why Cutting Calories Helps You Lose Weight
Reducing calories results in a calorie deficit, which means that you are consuming fewer calories than you are expelling through your metabolism and everyday activities. This calorie deficit helps you lose weight. Loss of tissue mass occurs when you eat fewer calories than you expend because your body cannot support all of its tissues. The majority of the tissues you lose are made up of muscle and fat mass.
As one pound of body weight equals 3,500 calories, many diet plans are centered on restricting your weekly calorie consumption by 3,500 calories or more in order to lose at least one pound of weight per week. The body is more complicated than a mathematical calculation, so weight reduction frequently does not proceed in this manner. It can progress more quickly or more slowly and is influenced by a number of things, including hormones and digestion.
Avoid Cutting Too Many Calories
As you reduce your caloric intake, your body will battle to maintain your weight. Although it may be annoying, your body’s physiological safeguards against weight loss have developed to help people avoid starving and survive periods of famine. This is less useful for many people trying to lose weight in the modern environment.
By triggering these natural mechanisms early on in a weight-loss endeavor, cutting too many calories can be counterproductive.
This involves changes in hormone levels, such as an increase in the hunger-inducing hormone ghrelin.
When you don’t eat enough to sustain movement, you can also find that you wind up moving your body less since you have less energy and feel exhausted. When this happens, you can end up burning fewer calories than you used to during the day, which causes your calorie deficit to shrink or even be eliminated, thereby slowing down or stalling weight loss.
How to Determine Your Calorie Needs
The 3,500 calorie calculation is a great beginning point even though it does not always accurately predict weight loss. The CDC advises losing 1 to 2 pounds each week in weight. A 500–1,000 calorie daily caloric deficit would be necessary to achieve this.
Many people find this degree of calorie reduction to be too excessive, and some experts advise never going below 1,400 calories per day.
It is best to talk to a qualified dietitian or physician about your optimum calorie reduction goal. You can use this calculator to estimate a calorie goal for weight loss that would be good for you, but bear in mind that this is merely a rough estimate and that your own requirements might vary.
Calories Needed for Bulking
In order to create a positive calorie balance, according to ACE, you must ingest more calories through your diet than you expend through physical activity. This is the reverse of what is required to lose weight. According to the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, you need to increase calories from all three macronutrient groups, including carbohydrates and fat, even though protein is typically the star macronutrient when it comes to gaining muscle.
Nevertheless, building muscle takes time, just like trying to reduce weight. According to Sanford Health, you should strive for a healthy weight increase of 1 to 2 pounds every week. You must consume about 2,000 to 2,500 calories more than your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is the quantity of calories you require to maintain your weight, in order to add 1 pound of lean muscle mass. On the other hand, gaining 1 pound of fat requires around 3,500 more calories every week.
Bulking Calories Formula
You must first ascertain your RMR in order to estimate how many more calories to consume. The American Academy of Sports Medicine recommends utilizing the Mifflin-St. Jeor method to determine your RMR even though you can use an online calorie calculator to do so. Just a little bit of math will do. These equations can be used to determine this number:
- Men: (10 × weight in kilograms) + (6.25 × height in centimeters) – (5 × age in years) + 5
- Women: (10 × weight in kilograms) + (6.25 × height in centimeters) – (5 × age in years) – 161
A male who is 35 years old, 185 pounds, and 6 feet tall has an RMR of 2,087 calories per day according to this formula. He’ll need to consume between 2,373 and 2,444 calories each day to bulk up without acquiring any extra fat, keeping in mind that it takes between 2,000 and 2,500 extra calories to gain 1 pound of lean muscle every week.
A 30-year-old lady weighing 145 pounds and standing 5 feet 5 inches tall would require 1,378 calories per day to maintain her weight. She would divide the additional 2,000 to 2,500 calories by seven days if she wanted to bulk up, which would indicate she needed to consume 1,663 to 1,735 calories daily to increase her muscle mass.
NASM emphasizes that it’s crucial to keep in mind that this calorie estimation is just that—an estimate. Your RMR will be affected by how much lean muscle you currently have, sometimes dramatically. See a specialist for indirect calorimetry, which monitors oxygen consumption rates to determine a more precise estimate of how many calories you burn each day, to get a more accurate RMR.
HOW MUCH YOU SHOULD BE EATING
Recognize that you must give the body more calories than it needs since this is the additional fuel required to build new lean muscular tissue. Most average male athletes can maintain their weight at about 18 calories per pound of bodyweight, so if you want to stimulate any major new growth, you’ll need to increase your calorie intake.
First off, when you expend the same number of calories that you consume, your body composition (the ratio of lean muscle to body fat) stays constant. Depending on your activity level, you must raise your overall calorie requirements by at least 3500 calories per week, or roughly 500 more calories per day, in order to safely and effectively grow muscle.
Even though you might despise it, keeping track of your calories is essential for both fat loss and weight gain. By focusing on lean muscle growth, you can avoid gaining excessive amounts of fat while increasing your muscle mass. A pound of muscle is added each week as a result. It’s crucial to realize that following a diet designed to help you grow muscle will also cause you to gain some fat. An average weight gain objective of one to two pounds per week should consist of 75% muscle and 25% fat.
THE 3,500 CALORIE RULE
3,500 calories equal one pound of fat, according to a common calculation. A 3,500 calorie shortfall or surplus does not, however, always equate to one pound of weight loss or growth. The 3,500 calorie guideline only applies to changes in body fat that result in gains or losses of one pound; it does not take other changes in body weight into account.
In other words, because other systems are impacted by changes in calorie intake, decreasing one pound of body fat does not necessarily translate into lowering one pound of overall weight. Because cutting back on carbohydrates also causes some water loss as you lose fat, you might lose more weight overall than just one pound of fat if you do.
CALORIE SURPLUS
A modest calorie surplus must be maintained over time in order to add a new pound of muscle. The majority of people are only able to add a couple pounds of real muscle per month. You won’t need quite as many calories as you believe if you’re growing muscle. Based on your ideal results, you actually require a tiny consistent surplus that you raise every few weeks. Building muscle and raising your metabolic rate take a lot of time and effort, but you can’t force the process to happen.
MEASURING MUSCLE GAIN
It’s critical to understand that weight increase on the scale does not necessarily translate to weight gain in muscle. In addition to taking measures of your chest, arms, and waist every four to six weeks, it is a good idea to measure your body fat % as well. This will assist in determining if the majority of your weight gain is made up of adipose tissue or lean muscle (fat).
Although there are many different types of fat tests, it’s crucial to employ the same test throughout your performance nutrition strategy. Moreover, get your body fat test performed by the same professional each time. Inaccurate measurements may be the result of varying the test and the tester.
Finally, in order to avoid sacrificing performance, muscle-gain objectives should be accomplished during the off-season. To give your body enough time to acclimate to your new weight and composition before you start competing, try to reach your desired weight about eight weeks before the start of the season.
WHEN TO BE EATING
Since you will be consuming a lot more calories, it is ideal to eat something every three to four hours when it comes to how frequently you should be eating. For instance, it may be challenging to consume 4000 calories if you only eat three times per day. Hence, if you split your intake into six meals per day, your muscles will receive a consistent supply of nutrients and you’ll feel stimulated after each one.
Prior to and after your training and workout activities, try to have some simple carbs and at least 20 to 30 grams of protein at each of these meals. You should provide your body with the right nutrition in the form of a high protein intake at this crucial time for muscular building. Try to eat largely whole, complex carbs four hours after a challenging workout. Below is a breakdown of the most important nutrient timing advice in bullet points:
- Eat every three or four hours, and aim for six small meals during the day
- Try not to just cram your calories into three big meals to avoid feeling sluggish
- Eat at least twenty grams of protein at each meal
- Eat simple carbohydrates directly before and after your training sessions
- Eat unprocessed complex carbs about four hours after an intense workout
ALSO CONSIDER YOUR LIQUID CALORIES
You also need to think about how many liquid calories you consume. Making high-calorie drinks with additional protein can help avoid the digestive issues some people experience when trying to eat whole foods with such a high caloric intake.
To increase your overall calorie intake, it is a good idea to combine milk, protein powder, Greek yogurt, frozen or fresh fruit, flaxseeds, or nut butter. This is a quick and simple technique to increase your calorie intake based on what your body requires.
It can be beneficial to consume a lot of other liquids throughout the day to stay hydrated, but you should constantly be mindful of how many calories each beverage contains to avoid ruining your diet with too many extra calories.