Post: #1

Something you guys may want to consider when creating your diet.

Calorie Calculators are bullshit.

You see a lot of ways to estimate caloric needs for weight gain or weight loss on the web, and they're not as useful as you'd think. They're a decent start, but really should just be used to create your rough draft.

The scale, mirror, bodyfat calipers and notepad should be your actual tools to figure out what is working and what is not.

You see, the whole 3500 calories equals a pound thing isnt true for everyone. Theres water storage, hormonal variations, glycogen loading, blah blah blah. Its a rough guideline. What you really need to do if you're serious about changing your physique via diet is actually write down what you eat, ACCURATELY, and keep an eye on how your weight moves and what the bodyfat calipers say. I don't use calipers and calculate bodyfat percentage, rather I just note if the measurement is getting bigger or smaller. Thats how you use it.

Different people will respond in different ways to different diets, I think that goes without saying but a lot of people look at the whole thing and think "Well if I just calculate my BMR and eat 200 calories under that I'll lose weight" and that might not be true for everyone. It might be true for him on one diet and not on another.

Based on what I'm eating I can grow on slowly on 4250 cals or actually lose weight on 4750 all based on food choices. Its the weirdest thing but it goes to show that the laws of thermodynamics don't really apply equally to everyone.

I have an obese female client who is 190 and won't lose any weight at all until her calories get down to the 900-1000 level. Using a basal metabolic rate calculator she should need quite a bit more than that just to maintain her weight, but thats just not the case. Her metabolism and thyroid shit is just that fucked up from years of abusing her body like its a fucking garbage dumpster. I've got another girl who's a powerlifter and at 160lbs she's pounding 4000 cals a day and has veins in her abs. I literally have to take her out to krispy kreme twice a week and pound chocolate milk and donuts just to keep her weight up or she starts missing lifts.

Anyway, long story short, keep track of your diet, the scale, the mirror and the calipers to make adjustments to your plan. If you're not making progress the way you want to, then SCREW WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW about diet, and start using self generated EVIDENCE to get where you want to go. The proof is in the pudding but half of you don't know what goes in the pudding and don't bother to taste it once its made.

Post: #2

They work well for me when I cut.

Obviously being consistent is the most difficult: planning, cooking, weighing, packing, eating...

so yea, Calorie Calculators are but one piece of a larger puzzle to help you hit your goals

Post: #3

That's because you haven't found a good one:

https://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/

Post: #4

OP, I'm going to need you to go ahead and post your redacted record sheets of your clients progresses, including those who failed against your advice, or your evidence of formal study.

Post: #5

OP is not entirely off the mark here. Those calculators are great tools to start off with, especially for someone just learning how to get their diet and portions under control. They do, however, quickly lose their relevance.

Calculating BMR and TDEE is a good first step for building a baseline, since you can't really know where you're going until you know where you are, but once someone has their basic dietary needs dialed in and their base level of fitness activity habitualized, it becomes more about paying attention to and guaging results based on appearance, size measurements, and activity level/type, then making the necessary adjustments to meet their extended goals.

That said, even without a specific type of calorie calculator, one could just as easily keep a food log for a couple weeks, and then do a little research and some basic math to figure out how much they are taking in. Then compare that with what they see in the mirror, decide if it is enough or too much, consider activity level, and adjust accordingly. Using this method, I wouldn't say the calculators themselves are bullshit, they just aren't necessary.

Post: #6

Macros definitely play a role depending on the person. When I was stuck at 185 a long while ago, I would lose weight on a high protein, high fat, low carb diet to the point where maintenance was around 4500 calories.

Switched to around 40% carbs stemming mainly from sweet potatoes and high fibre starches, and I started to slightly gain on 3500 calories, but when I finally moved to white rice as a carb source, I only needed 3000 calories per day to bulk.

Post: #7

What steelex is saying makes sense. I've known many "skinny" guys who totally got stuck when bulking. Usually they were doing keto or IF or something and the lack of carbs was just fucking shit up despite the fact that they were hitting 3000+ calories a day.

Post: #8

Some people just have radically different metabolisms. Weve all seen that kid who's skinny as a bone, and the one that's fat as hell, and they eat the same school lunches. Or a black guy whos just cut to shreds despite doing nothing, or fat landscapers who work out in the sun 14 hours a day.

The differences in metabolisms between a fat guy and a thin guy is often more than the difference in dietary intake.

Post: #9

Steelex is 100% right here. Manipulating your weight is easy yet everyone goes out of their way to overcomplicate it.

In the last five years I've done a 40lb cut, 20lb bulk, 20lb cut, and working on another bulk now and I don't count calories. I had one failed cut before my first successful big cut where I tried counting calories. The time wasted there is exhausting.

Weigh yourself at the same time every morning, add the numbers to a spreadsheet, and create a chart which graphs your rolling 7-day average of weight.

Graphs going up but you want to lose weight? Eat a bit less. And vice versa.

The key to this strategy is having a reasonably consistent diet day-to-day so that making small adjustments is straightforward.

Post: #10

100% agreed. After giving up on dirty bulking and turning to calorie counters as the holy grail, ive concluded that they are decent but sub-optimal. You must self-study your own body to see amazing results.

Post: #11

See also: fitbits are bullshit.

You dont need an electronic device to tell you you're working hard, you just know.

You can't trick your body into gains you havent earned by showing it your fitbit stats.