Are My Calculations Correct? page

[AFK]

Hi All,

This is my first post on the forum, so if there's a relevant sticky I missed or if this is the wrong place to post, please let me know.

So, I did my calculations for my Macronutrient Plan the other night and this is what I came up with, based on Ken Korg's profile. I should add then I noticed that Kelly Korg was a lot more physically active than Ken. I am also more physically active than Ken, but I'm male, so I'm wondering if that would effect the calculations?

Anyway, here are my calculations, based on Ken:

My Basal Metabolic Rate: 1721 calories/day

Activity Factor: 947

Total Avg Daily Calorie Expend: 1721+947= 2668 calories/day

Body Fat %: 21.9% (measured last month, need to measure again, I know)

175lbs x 0.88 = 154 lbs lean body mass


Moderate activity:

154 lean bm x 0.7g/lb protein intake= 108 grams avg daily protein intake

Goal: lose 8 lbs/month= minus 932 calories/day

Target calorie intake:

2268 calories/day minus 932 calories/day= 1336 calories/day

Target protein: 108g/day (432 calories)

Target carbs: 75g/day (300 calories)

Target fat: 171g/day (1536 calories)

Total Target Calories/Day: 2268


I'm not sure I quite understand the last part. Are my calculations correct? Thanks for your help.

[noodletoy]

you're shooting for 1330 cals per day? you will starve to death. or is 2200?

those calculators are not all that reliable and regardless of caloric intakes, WHAT you eat also matters. so too does the KIND of activity you perform each day and week. how are you defining "moderate" activity?

i'd start out around 2000 cals per day and see what happens. you don't seem overweight, so losing 8 pounds per month might be doable, but is pretty aggressive.

[sbhikes]

2268 calories/day minus 932 calories/day= 1336 calories/day

Why did you subtract the calories you burn with exercise? You should just subtract 500 from 2268. That should get you a pound a week of weight loss, according to CW anyway.

[AFK]

Thanks for your reply nt.

Math isn't my strongest suit, but I'm going off of the calculations for Ken Korg in The Primal Blueprint. I can't give a page cite as kindle wipes out the pagination.

No, I'm not shooting for 1330 calories/day, my target according to that section of the book and as best I understand it, should be 2268 calories a day. However, I was kind of puzzled by the last set of calculations from Target Protein on down.

I have been doing P90X Phase One for two weeks plus one 1.5 hour session of martial arts at moderate intensity (maybe burning 700 calories a session). I've stopped doing P90X and plan on starting Mark's prescriptions for paleo exercise: 3 hours of moderate aerobic/wk, 45 minutes of strength training/week, etc.

I'd like to get to an athletic range of body fat, say 13%, the upper end of the range for men. At 175lbs, that would mean I would have to lose another 23 lbs, right? I realize that I'm not going to do this overnight, so maybe over three to six months? Wait, P90X was three months and that's extreme, so maybe six months or so....?

[noodletoy]

never mind formulas from other people. if i were you, i'd journal a few days of what you eat. see where you're at. you may be eating more than you realize.

cut 300-500 cals from that. lowering carbs will help too.

150 pounds at your height seems kinda skinny to me unless you have a very slight frame, (you're a dude, right?) so i'd focus more on leaning out than actively trying to lose weight.

[AFK]

thanks sb.

I see...actually, I just calculated goal weight to body fat, and I see that I'm closer than I thought. Assuming I'm close to last months body fat of 22%, if I wanted to get to 13% body fat that would mean:

175lbs x 0.13= 23 pounds body fat.

137 lbs lean body mass now + 23 pounds body fat= 160 lbs goal weight.

So, I could conceivably reach my goal in four months with 500 calories a day less.

Then, the next question is how this translates into the calculations above.

I still don't understand the breakdowns from Target Protein, down.

Gotta run to work. Will reply later. Thanks.

[Annlee]

I approach it a little differently

1. what's my target lean body mass (more properly, non-fat mass)?
2. what's my target fat percentage?
3. therefore, what's my non-fat body percentage?
4. #1/#3 = body mass (weight)

Now compare 1 and 4 to where I am today (with #1 estimated, since I don't have a truly accurate measure of today's non-fat mass). That tells me what I need to change.

Example:

1. what's my target lean body mass (more properly, non-fat mass)? - 100#
2. what's my target fat percentage? - 12%
3. therefore, what's my non-fat body percentage? - 88%
4. #1/#3 = body mass (weight) - 100/88% = 113.6 or ~ 114# (and 14# of fat is present)

I use CRON-o-Meter, others use FitDay, SparkPeople, etc. You can input parameters and track quite well there. You may wish to customize things for your goals. But you will have to experiment because rules of thumb - like the Ken Korg example - are nothing more than a good starting point.

[Lewis]

Are my calculations correct?

No, because you've got a transcription error in there.

I don't know that I accept that you can work it out quite like that, but assuming that you can ...

You calculate that you need 2668 Kcal per day, but when you copy that figure out again lower down, you double the 2 instead of the 6. You put 2268.

I think something like 2600 kcal would be fine for an adult male in a non-physical job. I doubt 2300 kcal would be.

I think Mark intends the calculations in the book more for explanatory purposes than as a guide to eat by calculating and counting everything. If you know roughly how much protein you want:

from 154 x 0.7 to 154 x 1 = approx 110 to 150 grams per day

and you know to control your carbs, that's enough.


Split that 110 to 150 into three. You want something like 35 to 50 grams protein per meal. The lower end is probably enough, as you surmise. Get a handle on what that means in food terms from a chart of protein in foods:

Protein - High-Protein Foods and Amount of Protein in Each Food

Carbs are easy. If you wish to eat low-carb, as you indicated, just stick to non-starchy vegetables and don't overdo the fruit.

The rest is fat -- olive oil on your salad, butter on your cooked vegetables, avocados, nuts, coconut milk, etc.

So then you just go by feel. You "eat to satiety" as we say in the primal/paleo community. You don't go hungry, but if you feel you've had enough don't force yourself to eat more than you want. No need to weigh and measure everything: and if one had to do that, the human race would never have managed before kitchen scales were invented. Your body's a self-regulating system -- so long as you haven't actually broken it.

[KeihBarro]

I was kind of puzzled by the last set of calculations from Target Protein on down

[tfarny]

Doing this math, correctly or not, will not help you to lose any weight because your BMR is unknown unless you've been experimented on. Metabolism varies tremendously among people of similar weights for a variety of reasons.

What you should do is just eat like Mark recommends, and not as much as you used to overall, don't snack, etc., and see how the weight loss goes. Spend your "geeking out time" learning about different types of kale and collards (or squat technique) instead of doing math.