Calories

Now we are going to count all of our macro-nutrients, but in theory, you don't need to. The reason why we are is because it fits simpler with most modern day counting systems. Most are in-fact, incorrect, for example protein is not 4 calories per gram, carbohydrates are not 4 calories per gram and fats are not 9 calories per gram. We simply use these figures because they make it easier to count. The protein is way off and the carbohydrates plus fats are just rounded to the nearest, different forms of macro-nutrients ie glucose digests at a different caloric intake to lactose and so on. This will complicate things for most and this is the reason why I stick to the 4-4-9 system even

though it is not actually accurate.

Caloric intake is set depending on your goal but it gets slightly adjusted depending on lifestyle, you see somebody who is extremely active or doing a high volume bodybuilding routine would require a different caloric intake to somebody who is sedentary. My general recommendation is:

Cutting – 8-12 calories per lb of bodyweight

Recomp / Maintain – 13-15 calories per lb of bodyweight

Bulk – 16+ calories per lb of bodyweight

From here I generally see how the person is doing after a week or so and adjust, for those losing weight for the first few weeks a few pounds is fine, after about two weeks anything more then 1 lb per week is not good, the reason you generally lose this amount quickly is due to water, glycogen etc. I would advise:

- Low BF% people = Eat enough calories to gain half a pound of weight per week (1 pound is too

much and you'll be gaining too much fat)

- Moderate BF% people = Eat enough calories to maintain your weight (you'll slowly lean out as

you replace fat weight with muscle weight)

- High BF% people = Eat enough calories to lose 1 pound per week (you'll lose scale weight overall

but you'll still be gaining muscle, you're simply losing fat faster than you're gaining muscle).

Over time you'll need to adjust caloric intake, either up or down depending on your goals as your metabolism will change, there's nothing wrong with your metabolism decreasing, it's a normal consequence of weight loss. I should probably mention that I'm talking about your resting metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn per day with zero activity).

There are only 2 things you need to concern yourself with:

1. Your body weight

2. Your strength

If your body weight is decreasing and your strength levels are being maintained or increasing then

you've got absolutely nothing to worry about.