Calories

Impossible to answer question without more information. What are you goals? What are you doing at the gym? 2500 is not the average expenditure, that's more like the average consumption (leading to excess calories and fat americans). Have you been losing weight, or gaining weight until now? You need to estimate your basal metabolic rate with some intelligence, then estimate how many calories you're already taking in, how much the exercises you'll be doing will burn, etc etc.

I thought the average American make consumed well over 3000 calories...

Eason, are you a trainer? I mean when you're not working at the gay b- okay enough of that. In any case, I'll poach this one for myself. -I weigh ~223. I've been consistently 220 since last september. -I hit the gym pretty much never during the school year and spend all my "free" time in the library or at work. -I'm intenting solely to lose weight. My legs are developed enough via skiing. If I'm adding muscle anywhere it's my back. -I've been shooting at 500+ calories burned daily on a treadmill (or, every second day, something lower impact like elliptical, as I have prior knee injuries). Takes about 45 minutes doing intervals. I do this 5 days per week, breaking thursday and saturday. That cal number is solely based on what shows up on the machine's screen. -I have to work nights, and therefore need some energy to get through the evenings. I've found myself being pretty tired during some of these shifts. -I eat mostly at work... usually salads or wraps. We're a pub, so I don't have too many healthy options, but there are a few. Any recommendations as to my routine (something different I could be doing to drop weight more efficiently), the sort of caloric intake I should be looking at, and what kinds of things I should be eating to supplement the routine?

1800 calories/day with at least 100g of protein.

Yeah I'm a trainer, NSCA-CPT and CSCS, majored in exercise physiology. First, don't go by the calories the machines give you, they're wrong by 20-30%, conservatively. In general, just do cardio as hard and as long as you are able to and you can't go wrong. If I had 1 hour a day at the gym, 5 days a week, in your position, here's what I would do: Mon/Wed/Fri: 30 minutes HIIT, dual action elliptical, treadmill, versaclimber, stepmill, whatever. Keep your heart rate high (but safe) and get to sweating. Next 25 minutes, do a machine weight circuit, 20 reps per machine. You shouldn't be able to do more than 1 or 2 reps after the 20. This will help keep your lean muscle mass as you're on a calorie deficit (hopefully). Spend the last 5 minutes on core. Tuesday/Thursday/ or Saturday/Sunday: 45-60 minutes cardio/HIIT at the gym, no weights. 15 minutes stretching afterwards, hold each stretch for 60 seconds. I don't know how big you are, but I'd say 1800-2000 kcal/day would be a good ceiling for you. Just make sure that you're eating lots of protein to help with your recovery, getting 8 hours of sleep every night, drinking lots and lots of water, and not eating anything that triggers any food cravings or initiates more hunger. Keep your meals nice and proteiny with minimal simple carbs and you should find yourself full and not craving more.

That was incredibly helpful, thanks.

Eason,
What do you find is a good multiplier for BMR to get your target calories/day? I'm lifting 3x week and doing about 30 min of low-med intensity cardio 2-3x a week.

I read recently to set your target by multipling bodyweight x 16, and than I split up the calories as 1 gr/lb of weight (about 40% for me), carbs about 40%, fat 20%.

Any better suggestions?

JD: NP I'm not really familiar with those formulas to be honest, if you're pretty serious then I would actually talk to a dietician about it rather than use trial and error with online calculators. I only know what works for me out of personal experience, it's hardly exact when it comes to gaining weight other than "eat big to be big".

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calrmr.htm

Go with the RMR. This explains why the BMR is not always a good measuring stick.

^^^^ Wow, dumb article.

BMR and RMR mean the same thing for most people.

And BMR is more accurate, not RMR.

I don't think it's that dumb, the harris-benedict equation does tend to overestimate BMR in most people today. But then the real issue isn't really BMR vs RMR, it's finding an accurate equation to reflect metabolic rate values.

It doesn't overestimate metabolic rate, people overestimate their activity multipliers.

RMR has a built in 'activity' multiplier -- diet-induced thermogenesis -- which makes it inherently more inaccurate.

The harris-benedict equation was formulated in 1919, and even at that time it's ability to accurately predict BMR wasn't that good, particularly in females. Test done in modern populations comparing the numbers calculated from the equation and those actually measured tend to show that it overestimates values. If you actually want to read about it, check out Nutrition Reviews, 2003, vol 64, no 4, page 143-151.

Why don't you post at least the abstract instead of sending me on a hunt to find it?

Besides, the Harris-Benedict equation was revised since its original calculation. Even then, the revision was minimal. Its year of publication has nothing to do with its accuracy, either.