walknlight
New member
@johnacola First off, congrats! Your results are truly inspiring! And don't worry about turning 30, the best is really, honestly and truly, yet to come. I turned 45 last year and I have never felt better in my whole life and am in the best shape I have ever been in.
We have very similar stats, I am 5'2", 111#. I share this because I think you can slowly start to increase your maintenance calories above 1500-1600. It is a super slow process, but I am quasi recomping quasi cutting at almost 1800. I lift 4x per week and do LISS cardio 2x. I also work a desk job, so no extra activity, just some random walks around the block to break up the day or after dinner to get out of the house.
Anyway, I started 12 weeks ago at 114#, calories around 1650. Every 2-3 weeks, I bumped up 50 calories, let my body get used to it and then make another small bump. I am ultimately down 3#, but my body is completely changing shape, which is why I am basically recomping, but I am obviously in a slight deficit because the scale does trend down, albeit slowly.
My main goal is fat loss as I carry a lot more fat on my body than you do. But I am making really good progress with the slow increase in calories and I can feel that I am also gaining muscle because I am able to use higher weights. I wanted to share this because I think it is possible for you to have a higher maintenance calorie allotment. I have a long history of chronic dieting so part of this process for me has been metabolic repair (which I actually started in Oct. 2019).
We have very similar stats, I am 5'2", 111#. I share this because I think you can slowly start to increase your maintenance calories above 1500-1600. It is a super slow process, but I am quasi recomping quasi cutting at almost 1800. I lift 4x per week and do LISS cardio 2x. I also work a desk job, so no extra activity, just some random walks around the block to break up the day or after dinner to get out of the house.
Anyway, I started 12 weeks ago at 114#, calories around 1650. Every 2-3 weeks, I bumped up 50 calories, let my body get used to it and then make another small bump. I am ultimately down 3#, but my body is completely changing shape, which is why I am basically recomping, but I am obviously in a slight deficit because the scale does trend down, albeit slowly.
My main goal is fat loss as I carry a lot more fat on my body than you do. But I am making really good progress with the slow increase in calories and I can feel that I am also gaining muscle because I am able to use higher weights. I wanted to share this because I think it is possible for you to have a higher maintenance calorie allotment. I have a long history of chronic dieting so part of this process for me has been metabolic repair (which I actually started in Oct. 2019).