Thread: How many calories?

So I started lifting in February 2020. Just started because someone asked me how much I could bench and I had no idea. I had been working out with dumbells for about 2 years off and on before that. So bought a barbell and some weights. Last year I focused on gaining strength. This year I want to lose the fat. Right now I'm 6 foot 1 and 315 pounds. Turning 36 in May just had a physical and they said im healthy. Ha. Wonder what you have to weigh before they call you fat these days. Ha. Anyways I just started tracking my calories. I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday. Eat whatever the wife makes for supper. Today I ate 2000 calories. I feel full and just finishing up my work out. Do you think that is to few calories? Thanks.

I'll tell you this, people are rarely correct with their calorie counting unless you're weighing every single thing that goes into your mouth down to the gram using a digital food scale. Even then there is a margin of error because food labels are really only accurate to within +/- 20%, which is a pretty wide margin. Also, 2000 is a very nice round number, and a daily intake rarely works out to a number like that so experience tells me that you're very likely just estimating/guessing and not actually tracking your intake.

Better way of doing it is tracking your calories religiously for at least 3 weeks, which means weighing every bit of cooking oil, sauce, salad dressing, condiments, non zero-calorie drinks, etc and then watching what your weight does over that amount of time. If you're losing about 1% of your bodyweight weekly then you're right in the sweet spot for weight loss.

You should (and will) feel hungry if you're in a sustained deficit for a while.