Need some macro-nutrient advice

[ruthyoerg]

I'm not seeing the gains or progress I'm hoping for, and I'm also not shedding a few kilos I want to drop. I'm guessing my diet is getting in the way.

I'm in my mid-50s, ~71kg, and have been hitting the gym for the past 2.5yrs doing a PPL routine.

According to bodybuilding.com's protein calculator I need 180g of protein per day, which I'm hitting pretty regularly.

Also according to bodybuilding.com, if I'm maintaining my current level (not bulk or cut) I should also be having 240g of carbs and 80g of fats for a total of 2400 cals (numbers extrapolated from the 180g protein and the relative macro ratios).

I've been trying to drop a few kilos for the past couple of months, but it's been slow going. My diet generally looks like this:

• Breakfast is oats (40g), sultanas (40g), light greek yoghurt (125g), and a drizzle of honey (10g).
• Lunch is tuna (120g) or basa and brown rice (100g).
• Post workout is WPI (30g), creatine and l-glutamine, and a whole egg.
• Dinner is steamed or roast chicken (200g) and steamed veggies (200g).
• Snacks etc includes a couple of bananas, and a chocolate casein (to bump up my protein) before bed.

Total of 1910 cals from 229 grams of carbs, 179 of protein, and 31 of fats.

Does that look about right, or am I doing something fundamentally stupid? I often see others (the usual youtube channels or other redditors) whose numbers seem far higher, even on a cut.

edit: added a couple of links.

 

[talita]

@ruthyoerg You're 71 kg so weight loss is expected to be slow. I would expect a maximum loss rate of 500g a week on the average for weight loss at this level, and due to water this means that some weeks will be gains and other weeks bigger losses, with a general trend across weeks of -500g.

Use a weight-smoothing app called Libra (for Android) or Happy Scale (for iPhone). One of these apps will help you see the trends more clearly with less of the volatile data noise of water.

1900 ㎉ is a high number for someone 71kg for weight loss. I maintain a higher weight at that calorie level. (I have to, I have an intestinal situation that requires a higher BF% be maintained.)

TDEE Calculator
Imperial
Metric

SEX (guessed)

M

AGE

55

HEIGHT (guessed)
67" or 5'7"
170 cm

WEIGHT
156.5 lb
71 kg

BMI

24.6

Mifflin-St Jeor BMR

1503 cal/kcal

Pre-exercise TDEE (BMR*1.25)

1881 cal/kcal

I guessed in a few places but this should be close enough.

What I do is take 10% for good workout sessions and add that to the TDEE, so +181 on a workout day. Likewise, a totally lazy day is probably -10%. So your range is 1881 +/- 10% and you should subtract about 500 from that to lose 500g a week. However, guys shouldn't eat less than 1500 so if you're a guy, 1500 is your floor.

See if you can edge down your calories a bit.

180g of protein is a whole lot. Your RDI for protein is 56.8g for 71 kg times 0.8g. Add a generous 50% to that since you're working out for muscle repair/growth and 85g average ought to be fine. I prefer not to supplement what I can reach in food so maybe you can delete or decrease some of the supplements.

[sup][sup]♂56[/sup][/sup] [sup][sup]5'11[sup][sup]/179㎝[/sup][/sup][/sup][/sup] [sup][sup]SW:298℔[sup][sup]/135㎏[/sup][/sup][/sup][/sup] [sup][sup]CW:183℔[sup][sup]/83㎏[/sup][/sup][/sup][/sup] [sup][sup][3Y AMA],[/sup][/sup] [sup][sup][1Y recap][/sup][/sup] [sup][sup]CICO+🏋+TOPS[/sup][/sup]

 

[ruthyoerg]

@talita Thanks for the detailed response.

Why would weight-loss be slow due to the 71kg?

Back in 2015 I lost 31kg (from 88 to 57) over a ten month period. A little on the low side, but thought what the heck. I did it by sitting around 1500 cals, but without doing any fitness/weightlifting.

My mistake was in early 2017 as I started at the gym. Very naive, upped my calories without any thought to what was a reasonable figure, ended up at 73kg. Since then I've put on a bunch of muscle but haven't really shifted weight. Maybe much of the bodyfat has been replaced by muscle, hence the weight staying fairly static. But after 2.5yrs I expected to see more results than I have.

 

[talita]

@ruthyoerg

Why would weight-loss be slow due to the 71kg?

Because of the reduced difference between our TDEE and our BMR, partly due to reduced muscle mass and partly due to having less body mass for our muscles to move.

When we're a lot more overweight, we can achieve bigger average caloric deficits.

Maybe much of the bodyfat has been replaced by muscle, hence the weight staying fairly static.

If this is true, your neck and waist measurements will be smaller even though your weight is the same. Your clothing that was tight before will be right or loose now, even though your weight is the same.

But after 2.5yrs I expected to see more results than I have.

If you mean "see" literally, our brain may not let us see it due to how slowly we change and because our mind tends to superimpose what it expects to see in front of what it actually sees. If this is true for us, our friends may be calling us slim but when we look in the mirror we see a lot of fatness.

 

[manatus22]

@ruthyoerg The two usual culprits are either that you’re getting more calories than you think you are (weighing badly, having some liquid calories you don’t track, etc) or that your TDEE is actually lower than you think it is. Are you weighing in at the same time every day to get a rolling average? If your weight is trending downwards it’s not an issue but if it’s not or you want to lose weight faster then you’ll need to eat less than you currently are.

 

[a3yan]

@ruthyoerg As we age, we generally get less carb tolerant. I'm also in my mid-50s and have found that a diet higher in healthy fats (avacado, olive oil, etc) and much lower carbohydrate works best for me for both staying quite lean as well as training recovery.

If you're not seeing the results you want, perhaps experimenting with slowly reducing the carbs and increasing the fats would be worthwhile.

 

[inneed87]

@ruthyoerg I like to use www.examine.com for protein recommendations, they have quite a range to cover most, if not all fitness goals. I have nothing else to add, like others have commented you may need to reduce calories to get the results you want.

r/fitness had a tdee spreadsheet going around that worked really well. I don't know if it's still available. It calculates your daily wt and cal intake and averages out what your tdee is so you have a better idea of calorie goals. It does take about 4 weeks of data to work. It's much better than a generic tdee calculator. It also uses your age and measurements for body fat %. Once my data stabilized and I got my shit together, I was able to get to goal weight fairly easily. I also based my wt loss on protein & calories. As long as I was in my protein & calorie goal range I didn't worry as much about carbs & fat, that made things a bit easier and worked itself out. Good luck.

 

[andrewm12]

@ruthyoerg You likely don’t need as much protein as that site says. This site goes into the actual science of how much you need: https://mennohenselmans.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-protein-intake-for-bodybuilders/

Also all those macro calculators are pretty much bro science. There is no optimal carb/fat ratio for growing muscle or loosing weight. You need adequate protein to grow muscle and for satiety and after that then just find the right carb to fat ratio that works for you. As another commenter states your body may not do as well on higher carb. I know mine doesn’t. After switching to a low carb whole food Paleo approach my body shedded the extra weight, my blood pressure improved and I gained more energy.

 

[gwsany]

@ruthyoerg Keep in mind these tdee calculators are just estimates and are often quite inaccurate since it simply cant take account properly for person-specific things like metabolism, hormones, general activity level and workout intensity.

Simply put: since you arent losing weight on 1900cal, it means the calories are too high for you to lose and 1900 is actually your real TDEE for your current activity level.

Try eating like 300cal less. Macro ratios are fine for muscle building/preservation on a cur so keep the protein high and reduce some carbs and fats to get there.