PowerliftingToWin Presents:
EatingToWin
NOTICE!
Israel Narvaez is not a medical doctor, licensed
nutritionist, or registered dietician and the information
contained herein should not be taken as medical advice.
These are only recommendations. These
recommendations should NOT be taken as medical
advice, nor are they intended to diagnose, treat, cure or
prevent any health problem. Recommendations by Israel
Narvaez are not intended to replace the advice of a
physician or health professional. Please consult your
physician or a health professional before beginning any
diet or exercise program.
This book may not be reproduced or recorded in any form without
express written permission from the author.
Table of Contents
Foreword ... 6
Introduction ... 7
About PowerliftingToWin ... 7
Introducing EatingToWin ... 11
About the Author ... 11
Chapter 1: The Context of “EatingToWin” ... 14
Chapter 2: Performance Enhancement ... 16
Eat to Win ... 16
Chapter 3: Weight Class Management ... 20
Weight Classes ... 20
Picking Your Weight Class ... 20
Chapter 4: Body Fat Management ... 25
Why We Have to Manage Body Fat ... 25
Cutting and Bulking ... 27
Measuring Body Fat ... 31
Body Fat, Weight Class, and Competition ... 34
Overall Recommendations for Managing Weight ... 34
Chapter 5: Weight Cut Management ... 36
EatingToWin Recap ... 36
Weight Cutting... 36
Weight Cutting in the Competitive Context ... 38
Chapter 6: Putting The Big Picture Together ... 40
Summary: The “Why” of EatingToWin ... 40
EatingToWin ... 40
Chapter 7: The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance ... 41
The Fundamentals of Nutrition ... 41
Chapter 8: Energy Balance... 42
Calories are King ... 42
The Correct Caloric Intake ... 43
Proper Rates of Weight Gain and Weight Loss ... 45
Weight Loss Rates ... 46
Making Caloric Adjustments ... 47
My Personal Caloric Adjustment Rules ... 49
Chapter 9: Macronutrition... 50
Macros ... 50
Protein... 51
Fat ... 54
Carbohydrates ... 55
The Relative Importance of Energy Balance and Macronutrition ... 57
Chapter 10: Meal Frequency ... 58
Meal Frequency ... 58
Meal Frequency Recommendations ... 59
Chapter 11: Nutrient Timing ... 60
Carbohydrate Timing ... 60
Setting Up “High Carb Days” ... 62
Summary: EatingToWin “High Carb Days” ... 63
Fat Timing ... 63
Protein Timing ... 64
The Relative Importance of Nutrient Timing and Meal Frequency ... 64
Chapter 12: Micronutrition ... 65
Does “Eating Healthy” Matter? ... 65
Practical Micronutrition Recommendations... 66
Relative Importance of Micronutrition ... 68
Chapter 13: Supplementation ... 69
Do Supplements Matter? ... 69
Supplements with Strong Support ... 70
Supplements with Weaker Support ... 77
Chapter 14: The EatingToWin Nutrition System Summary... 81
Chapter 15: An Example of the EatingToWin System... 84
Chapter 16: How to Cut Water Weight ... 88
Water Intake Manipulation ... 88
Sodium Manipulation ... 89
Carbohydrate Intake Manipulation ... 90
Supplements ... 92
Supplement Template ... 94
Dehydration Tactics ... 94
Sauna Protocol ... 96
The EatingToWin Weight Cutting Protocol ... 96
Chapter 17: Frequently Asked Questions ... 99
Foreword
Optimal Training is Holistic
While I personally believe that any approach to powerlifting that pretends to be optimal must be holistic in nature, please understand that this book is only going to cover nutrition. Again, I personally believe that addressing programming, technique, psychology, supplementation, and a variety of other variables are absolutely mandatory in constructing a truly optimal plan for any individual. That said, this is not an all-encompassing resource.
If You Want More than Nutriton…
If you’d like more information on the aforementioned topics, please visit PowerliftingToWin.com. The content on PowerliftingToWin.com is of equal quality to what you’ll find in this book. With everything I do, I endeavor to ensure it lives up to the PowerliftingToWin namesake. I believe you’ll find that to be the case as well. If, in particular, you’d like more information on Powerlifting Programming, check out our previous book: ProgrammingToWin.
Alternatively, if you’d like a customized, personalized training package which covers programming, nutrition, technique, psychology and more, all specifically tailored to your personal needs, please
contact me for more information about my coaching services.
Thank YOU for Your Time and Consideration
Finally, I’d like to thank you for downloading EatingToWin. I have full faith that you will find the contents herein especially worthy of your time and consideration. As I have said elsewhere, PowerliftingToWin’s information is free and always will be. If you find this content to be of particular value to you personally, please consider making a donation to support the continued of PowerliftingToWin.
I believe in freedom of information and I believe in the goodness of people. As such, I trust that those of you who are in a position to make a contribution will do so if you find the material worthy.
Likewise, I am incredibly happy that those of you who are not in a position to make a contribution can still enjoy this content freely. I take great pride in that fact. If you can’t show monetary support, but you’d still like to show your appreciation for my work, please consider sharing this information with your lifting friends. I cannot overstate the enormous impact that Facebook shares, forum posts, and the
YouTube community at large have had on the growth and success of PowerliftingToWin. Without all of your social media love, this project would have died a long time ago. If you want to see it keep going, sharing the information with as many people as possible is even more valuable for the survival of
I Owe Everything To YouTube
I know I haven’t been as active on YouTube as I have in the past, but the reality remains the same: without YouTube PowerliftingToWin never would have come into existence. YouTube provided both the inspiration for this project and the required social momentum to get the project out there for people to actually see. Thanks so much for the support YouTube!
Long live the Tubes!
Have a nice day my friends,
Izzy Narvaez
www.PowerliftingToWin.com
Introduction
About PowerliftingToWin
PowerliftingToWin Is A Movement
PowerliftingToWin is a rebellion against the idea that maximal strength at all costs is the entire point of the sport of powerlifting. The point of any sport is competition. Competition exists to determine who the best athlete truly is. While strength is the largest component of what determines the best powerlifter, it is not the only component.
Powerlifting and Stereotypes
Far too often the average bystander conflates powerlifting with tremendously huge, tremendously fat men who both wear gear, including strange squat suits and bench shirts, and who take gear including anabolic steroids, growth hormone, and a variety of other performance enhancing drugs. While this is certainly one form of powerlifting, and an attractive form to many people, far too often the average bystander isn’t aware of the myriad of competitive options that powerlifting offers.
The reality of the situation is that the world’s largest powerlifting organization is the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF). The IPF has nearly 100,000 member athletes. Of more importance, the IPF is a drug-free organization that supports a large deal of “raw” lifters (those who train without special suits and shirts). Unbeknownst to many, these natural, raw lifters are tremendous athletes who are, for the most part, healthy, strong, and relatively lean. You don’t have to be fat or take drugs to participate in powerlifting.
Photo: www.powerlifting-ipf.com
Meaningful Powerlifting Competition
Not only that, but the IPF is the only organization in the world that consistently offers meaningful competition across all genders and age groups. That’s right: the IPF supports the sport’s largest, by far, women’s and master’s divisions. Anybody of any age, race, creed, or sex can compete for meaningful national and world championships in the IPF.
In fact, the IPF was recently invited to partake in the World Games in 2008. This offered athletes the opportunity to win Gold medals for their country – an experience simply unavailable to any other organization or any other type of powerlifter. Further still, the IPF hosts a World Championship every single year. IPF Worlds is the only legitimate, unified world championship in the sport of powerlifting today. While the contest allows only drug-tested lifters, there is virtually no argument in the
powerlifting community as to whom the best drug-tested, raw lifters are: they are the IPF World Champions. Every other form of powerlifting is so splintered and scattered that you’ll almost never get to see the best athletes go head to head.
Mike Tuchscherer brings home the gold for the USA! Photo: jtsstrength.com
What’s my point in all of this? PowerliftingToWin exists to promote the sport as a real sport and not merely as a gimmick to show off maximal strength. With the IPF, YOU, regardless of your demographics, have the opportunity to win a gold medal in a meaningful world championship. With the IPF, YOU,
regardless of your demographics, can set meaningful state, national, and world records. With the IPF,
YOU, regardless of your demographics, have access to serious competition to test your mettle as an
athlete.
This Book Is For Athletes
And that is exactly the idea that PowerliftingToWin promotes: powerlifters are athletes. As such, the information presented in the following book will be coming from a frame of reference that targets athletes who are doing their best to compete and win. Even if you choose to compete outside of the IPF, and regardless of whether you are currently competitive at a local level, state level, regional level, national level, or even international level, PowerliftingToWin is about providing strategies and practices that maximize your opportunities for success as an athlete. PowerliftingToWin is not necessarily about getting huge or maximizing your strength at all costs; PowerliftingToWin is about… powerlifting… to… win. You are an athlete and this resource is dedicated to helping you improve as much as is possible at the actual sport of powerlifting.
IPF World’s:
Here Randy Zhou (left), Brett Gibbs (middle), and Jonnie Candito (right) represent the 83kg Juniors at IPF World’s. Photo: Courtesy of Jonnie Candito
Getting Started with Competition
To find out more about the IPF, visit their website. If you’d like information on finding a powerlifting meet near you, PowerliftingWatch is a fantastic resource.
Introducing EatingToWin
What is EatingToWin?
EatingToWin is the second installment in a series of mini eBooks that PowerliftingToWin has been producing. In the first installment, ProgrammingToWin, we took a look at what I consider to be optimal programmatic practices for your first few years in the sport. While programming is certainly a massively important aspect of powerlifting, nutrition is probably equally important. Which is more important? Well, which is the more important bodily organ: your brain or your heart? Both. Both? Exactly.
While I do not claim to be the world’s foremost authority on nutrition, I do claim that nutrition is simply not as dauntingly complicated as some would have you believe. I’ve made a tremendous amount of mistakes, nutritionally speaking, at least in part due to the misinformation surrounding nutrition in the powerlifting community.
With EatingToWin, I simply endeavor to provide you with a simple, easy-to-use framework that will allow you to make steady, consistent nutritional progress alongside your lifting program. I want to help beginners avoid the traps of becoming needlessly fat and/or being too paranoid to add any weight whatsoever. I want you to walk away from this reading with a big picture understanding of what you’re trying to do with powerlifting nutrition and how you’re going to go about doing it.
About the Author
My Background
For those who aren’t already somewhat familiar with me, my name is Izzy Narvaez. I have been actively competing in Powerlifting for four years. My best lifts in competition are a 551lbs/250kg squat, a 320lbs/145kg bench, and a 535lbs/242.5kg deadlift. Although, at the time of this writing, I am pace to break all of my PRs in a meet I am participating in next weekend.
Izzy’s Squat PR:
Izzy Squats 551lbs/250kg
I am a former Starting Strength Certified coach, a former gym owner, and I have hands-on practical experience training dozens of novices through linear progression. Over the past year, I have also opened an online coaching practice that has allowed me to work with approximately fifty athletes from the complete beginner level all the way to those vying for National Championships in their respective countries.
My Experience
Frankly, although I coach athletes on a daily basis, I consider myself an athlete first and foremost. Most of my knowledge on the subject of nutrition was essentially born of necessity. I had to figure out how to make myself more competitive. I had to figure out how to cut weight in order to maximize my chances to win. In other words, virtually everything I’m recommending here I’ve put into practice both on myself and on dozens of clients.
Perhaps like many of you, when I initially started powerlifting, I was counseled to eat everything in sight. This worked very well for strength gains, but, unfortunately, of course, it works even better for fat accumulation. Being an athlete, having the dedication to lose the weight wasn’t really the challenge. The challenge was figuring out how to lose the weight without dropping my hard earned strength. Far too many lifters in powerlifting are paranoid about losing strength while “cutting”.
Well, in this book, I’m going to reveal to you the EXACT strategies I used to GAIN STRENGTH while losing approximately 100lbs of body weight. I’m going to show you how I cut from 163lbs to 148lbs in a single day for a 24 hour weigh-in.
Look, I’m not going to hold anything back. EatingToWin is a compilation of all the best strategies, ideas, and concepts that I’ve borrowed, developed, and put into practice during my time in powerlifting. The ideas in this book have been drawn from some of the top coaches in the world who I’ve had the privilege of working with personally. The ideas in this book have been tested on myself and dozens of my clients. In other words, to the best of my personal knowledge and experience, which is of course limited (as is anyone’s), these are the optimal nutritional practices that will help drive your training to the next level.
Chapter 1: The Context of “EatingToWin”
Introduction
Nutrition in and of itself is a subject with vast and near limitless depth. When writing any snippet, article, essay, or book about nutrition, first and foremost, one must define scope. The reality is that optimal nutrition is highly contextual. What is your age, gender, activity level, medical status, and what are your goals? These are only a few of the myriad questions that must be asked, and answered, in order for an optimal nutrition strategy to be developed. As a powerlifting coach, catering nutritional plans to each individual is a key component of my job.
However, in the case of this book, because I have neither the inclination nor the ability to cover the broad spectrum of optimal nutrition for all populations, please understand that the information
contained in this book is explicitly aimed at powerlifters. And not just any powerlifter, but the
powerlifter who seeks to optimize his nutrition specifically for competitive purposes.
Powerlifting World Record Holders Dan Green and Jesse Norris understand the importance of maximizing nutrition for powerlifting success.
Ultimately, the best diet in the world is completely worthless if you cannot adhere to its protocols based on your current life circumstances. Again, because I cannot possibly accommodate all the various possible life circumstances, this book is going to be written to a caricature of the hardcore competitive
powerlifter. I am going to assume that you have no compliance problems with any of the protocols
presented. In other words, I am going to assume, whether it is realistic or not, that your nutrition is one of the top priorities in your life and that you are willing to sacrifice where necessary in terms of your economics, social life, and overall willingness to discipline yourself
EatingToWin: The Goal
With all that said, EatingToWin is going to attempt to present you a practical, workable approach to optimizing your nutrition throughout your competitive career as a powerlifter. The book is designed to
guide you all the way to the advanced stages where, realistically, you’ll begin to need a highly individualized approach for optimal results. At that point, you might want to consider a coach. Before we can start laying down the groundwork for HOW to go about optimizing your nutrition for powerlifting, we have to establish WHAT exactly it is that we are trying to do and WHY we are trying to do it.
First of all, the primary point of ANY sport-related activity for the powerlifter should be simple: increase your chance to win. Nutrition is no different.
A powerlifter can increase his chances to win through nutrition in two primary ways:
1) Performance Enhancement 2) Weight Class Management
Chapter 2: Performance Enhancement
Eat to Win
Our relationship with food can often be a complex mixture of social, emotional, and biological needs. While I couldn’t even begin to cover the immensity of the previous statement, for the powerlifter, this relationship is theoretically simplified. The point of nutrition is to increase their performance in the gym and on the platform while maximizing their placing at any given meet.
For a powerlifter, food is fuel. With this simple fact established, the question then becomes what precisely are the optimal types and amounts of fuel to optimize performance for the powerlifter. Well, as many lifters intuitively know, or at least quickly figure out, for the most part, the more fuel, the better. Now there are certainly limitations to this idea, but, without delving too deep into specifics at this point, the more a powerlifter eats, the better they’re going to perform.
Why We Want a Caloric Surplus
While there are countless reasons this is the case, in my opinion, perhaps the most important is that eating more tends to put you in a caloric surplus. Simply stated, a caloric surplus is when you consume more energy than you burn off during the day; a caloric surplus is when you consume more calories than you expend.
When you’re in a caloric surplus, your body has all the necessary energy it needs to maintain all
important bodily functions, repair damaged tissues, build new tissues using the surplus material, and, to top it all off, store the rest of the excess energy for a rainy day.
From a powerlifter’s perspective, a caloric surplus is ideal because the surplus allows the powerlifter to synthesize new muscle proteins and repair damage caused by previous workouts along with a host of other benefits. Because of the recovery benefits of a surplus, a powerlifter can train more frequently and with more overall training volume. Because of the increase in new muscle tissues (and other positive adaptations), the powerlifter can lift more weight as well.
The increased frequency of training, alongside the additional training volume, increase both the rate at which adaptation can occur AND the size of each new adaptation. The more you train, the more frequently the body is forced to adapt. The more stress-recovery-adaptation cycles the body is put through, the larger the cumulative adaptation will be. For more on the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle, and other training related issues, check out ProgrammingToWin.
Stress—>Recovery—>Adaptation. This is how your performance increases over time. Photo: Practical Programming 3rd Edition, Mark Rippetoe, Aasgaard Co. 2014.
You see, there is a positive feedback loop from training while in a caloric surplus. Because of the increase in training frequency and training volume, the powerlifter increases their neuromuscular efficiency and builds more muscle. Due to these positive adaptations, the next time the powerlifter goes to lift, they’ll be able to handle more weight and do more volume. As a result, they’ll build even more muscle and become even more efficient. Guess what happens next workout? That’s right! The positive feedback loop is in full effect.
More Fuel Means More Mileage: Eat More to Train More
Beyond the physiological changes that take place from training while in a caloric surplus, at an even simpler level, as we’ve already stated, the more food you’re eating, the more energy substrate you have in your system while training.
In simple terms, the more fuel you have in the car, the longer you can drive the car. Training works the same way. When you’re eating more food, you can train longer and harder.
Of particular importance is your carbohydrate intake. You see, dietary carbohydrates tend to be stored in the body as glycogen.
For strength athletes, glycogen is of enormous importance to training quality. Glycogen is used to help create ATP (adrenosinetriphosphate) which is used, at a molecular level, to fuel anaerobic activity (among other things). If you run out of glycogen during intense activity, your ability to quickly regenerate ATP is severely compromised.
Here is an oversimplified version of how you fuel Anaerobic activity. Photo: http://www.fsps.muni.cz/
What this all means is that you won’t be able to do as many reps per set, you won’t be able to do as many sets total, and, often, you won’t be able to train with the same overall intensity.
Additionally, you have to keep in mind that, in order to store each gram of glycogen, the body must also store approximately 3-4g of water. When your glycogen stores are full, you’re going to carry several additional pounds of water in your muscles. While the performance benefit behind this isn’t as significant as adding new muscle tissue, the increased size improves your leverage under the bar allowing you to lift more weight. This is similar to the positive cellular hydration benefits of the supplement creatine.
From a physiological perspective, as a powerlifter, there are direct and indirect performance benefits, both in terms peak power production and the ability to sustain more training in general, to keeping glycogen stores as full as possible.
The picture on the left is with full glycogen storage and the picture on the right is only partial glycogen depletion. Even the visual difference is noticeable let alone the cellular difference.
Chapter 3: Weight Class Management
Weight Classes
Now, after hearing the above information, you may be wondering why a powerlifter wouldn’t want to just stay in a caloric surplus all year. The answer lies in the fact that powerlifting is a weight class sport and weight class sports require weight management.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of weight classes, they are essentially just a competitive practice used to increase fairness.
Here are the current weight classes in powerlifting:
Let’s say that you’re a 182lbs athlete. As you can see, in most federations, you’re above the 181lbs weight class limit. That means you’re technically in the 198lbs weight class. You’ll be competing against athletes who weighed between ~182lbs and 198lbs.
If you’re an IPF athlete, you’ll be just under the limit for the 183lbs weight class and you’ll be competing against athletes who weighed between at ~164lbs and 183lbs.
Picking Your Weight Class
Of course, intuitively, the next question to ask is how do I know which weight class is right for me? To answer this question, we need to take a brief detour to talk about what actually contributes to your overall strength in powerlifting. Now, this is actually an insanely long list of factors: 1) neuromuscular efficiency, 2) neuromuscular coordination, 3) muscle insertion points along the tendons, 4) muscle
cross-sectional area, 5) training specificity, and a whole host of other factors that generally fall under the umbrella of general genetic aptitude.
Given the above complexity in determining someone’s aptitude for powerlifting, let’s keep our focus on the primary factor relating to nutrition: muscle cross-sectional area. That’s right, bro; the size of your muscles is one determinant of how much you can lift! Part of the point powerlifting nutrition, if you will recall, is to increase the size of your muscles.
The Bigger Athlete is usually the Stronger Athlete
Here is the critical takeaway: While all other things are never equal, assuming everything else about two athletes was exactly the same, whoever had the bigger muscles would lift more weight. Again, this is critical to keep in mind. Why? Well, there is one athlete in the world that has everything in common with you… you! Assuming your training is on point, the more muscle you add the stronger you will be. While you cannot directly compare to other athletes because of the complexity in determining what someone’s max strength on the powerlifts will be, you can maximize your chances by manipulating the variables that are under your control. Namely, you want to be in the weight class that allows you to carry the most muscle as a percentage of that weight class.
Let’s take a look at a few case studies to understand why.
Hypothetical “Case Study” Context: Understanding LBM
In order to make my next points more salient, we need to talk about the concept of LBM (Lean Body Mass). Simply put, LBM is all the non-fat mass of your body. This includes muscle, bone, blood, skin, organs, etc.
Lean body mass! Photo: builtlean.com
If we know an athlete’s body fat percentage, we can use their total weight to determine how much LBM they’re carrying. This can give us a very rough idea of how much muscle they carry. For example, if an athlete is 200lbs and 10% body fat, we know that they carry 180lbs of LBM.
In the following head-to-head match-ups of different athletes, I want you to try and predict who would be the winner in a powerlifting meet.
Hypothetical #1: The Fat Athlete vs. The Lean Athlete
Now, for most of you, it is probably obvious which athlete is going to win this contest. Both athletes are the same weight and the same height. Considering both athletes are likely to have similar leverages and ranges of motion, unless there are HUGE neurological discrepancies, the second athlete is going to dominate the first because he likely has far more muscle mass.
Being fat severely hurts your competitiveness. As such, you need to compete at a relatively lean body fat percentage in order to maximize your chances.
Hypothetical #2: Taller vs. Shorter Athlete
As you can see, in this instance, both athletes have the exact same body weight, body fat percentage, and LBM. However, you might have intuitively guessed that the shorter athlete was at an advantage here.
Usually, the advantage of a taller athlete over a smaller athlete is that they can carry more overall muscle mass. In most sports, the taller athlete isn’t just taller; they tend to weigh more and they tend to be bigger in general. When lifting weights, this usually more than makes up for the fact that the smaller athlete has shorter limbs and a shorter range of motion. This is why we have weight classes, after all. However, in this case, not only does the shorter lifter have a smaller range of motion, but he also clearly has more muscle mass too. Why? Even though the LBM is the same here, more of the taller athlete’s LBM is composed of skeleton mass, blood, organs, skin, etc. Because the shorter athlete has a smaller frame, more of his LBM is going to be composed of muscle.
The shorter athlete now has a range of motion advantage, a leverage advantage, and they also have more muscle. Unless the taller athlete is supremely gifted when it comes to the neurological side of the equation, he will most likely be dominated by the shorter athlete.
What this hypothetical reveals to us is that you need to try and maximize the amount of muscle you carry relative to your weight class. Even though the taller athlete is VERY lean, his lack of overall mass puts him at a disadvantage versus the shorter lifter. Just being lean isn’t enough.
Now, this isn’t totally his fault. It takes a lot of time to build a lot of muscle. However, what we can learn is that, in the long run, we want to try and gain enough muscle, while staying relatively lean, that we are one of the shortest athletes in our weight class.
Hypothetical #3: The Smaller Athlete vs. The Bigger Athlete
Now, this is perhaps our most interesting hypothetical yet. These two athletes are the same height, and they have the same body fat percentage, but they don’t weigh the same. In fact, this hypothetical is almost more interesting if you pretend that Athlete A and Athlete B are the same athlete – just at different points in their career.
Who is likely to be more competitive in their weight class: Athlete A or Athlete B? Well, if you’re following the logic and the example set in our second case study, you should be voting for Athlete B. Why? Because, again, he is carrying a higher percentage of muscle relative to the weight class limit. He is likely to possess a larger leverage, range of motion, and total muscle mass advantage over his
competitors than his former self does in the lighter weight class.
He’s more likely to be one of the shortest and one of the most “jacked” athletes in his weight class. He’ll be more likely be the athlete with the most muscle mass in the entire division. This gives him his best shot to win.
Case Study #4: Top of the Class vs. Bottom of the Class
This is an interesting example because although these athletes have almost the exact same stats, they wouldn’t compete against each other in a meet. Why? Well, they’re in separate weight classes. In all of our previous examples, the athlete with more muscle has the best chance to win. However, in this example, that is not the case.
Why? Well, because Athlete B is actually at the bottom of his weight class, he’s most likely at a major disadvantage versus the other athletes in his weight class. For example, even though he’s 10% body fat and has a lean body mass of 163.8, a 198lbs athlete with a body fat percentage of 17% is going to have a bit more muscle and still be in the same weight class (198*.83=164.3)! Imagine the advantage athletes who are at the weight class limit, but who AREN’T fat might have. For example, let’s consider 198lbs athlete with 10% body fat: 198*.9=178.2. In this case, despite being lean, despite having muscle, Athlete B still might have ~15lbs less muscle than someone at the top of his weight class.
Now, the conclusion to draw from this case study is by far the most nuanced yet. At first glance, it might appear that you don’t want to move up weight classes, ever. However, that isn’t quite correct because we’ve already noted, in Hypothetical #3, that if you CAN fill out to the top of a weight class, you’re going
to take your game to the next level. As we’ve seen in Hypothetical #4 though, in some cases, moving up weight classes too soon can be a mistake. We’re going to discuss the conundrum of getting caught “between weight classes” like this in more depth later, but, for now, just keep in mind that, if at all possible, it makes more sense to be at the top of your weight class rather than the bottom.
In sum, this is why we want to carry as much muscle as possible relative to the weight class limit. This is going to involve being lean, being one the shorter athletes in the weight class, AND making sure we’re weighing in at the top of the weight class.
This picture features three World Record Holder’s from Right to Left: Chris Duffin (220lbs/100kg), Zahir Khudayarov (275lbs/125kg), and Dan Green (242lbs/110kg). None of these competitors are much taller than ~5’9” or ~175cm.
Chapter 4: Body Fat Management
Why We Have to Manage Body Fat
Let’s take a few steps back and summarize where we’re at in our quest to understand how best to manage our nutrition in powerlifting.
First of all, we know it is highly desirable to be in a caloric surplus because this allows us to build more muscle, to recover more quickly from hard training, to have more fuel for high volume training sessions, and we can also keep our glycogen tanks on full.
We also know that, in order to maximize our competitiveness within a weight class, we need to stay lean and we need to carry as much muscle as possible as a percentage of the weight class limit. In practical terms, we’d like to be the shortest, most muscular guy at the top of weight class we’re competing in. So, with this information, you might be thinking, well, the equation is simple. We just want to stay in a caloric surplus all year long while only adding muscle and never adding any fat.
If only it were that easy.
The Importance of P-Ratio
“P-Ratio” (protein ratio) has to do with something called nutrient partitioning. As the name implies, and in overly simplified terms, the body partitions nutrients either towards protein synthesis or fat storage. There are numerous factors that determine what your actual P-Ratio is.
The most important factor, unfortunately, is just genetics. Some people are blessed when it comes to the ability to synthesize new muscle proteins. For these people the ratio will be skewed further towards protein synthesis than for other people even absent training or proper nutrition.
Here is the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger at only 16 years old. Some people are blessed.
However, EVERYONE can influence P-Ratio positively in three primary ways: 1) through their training, 2) through their nutrition and 3) through the use of drugs such as steroids. We aren’t going to discuss performance enhancing drugs, but I wanted to mention that fact for completeness and so that people understand muscle building is easier for the enhanced athlete.
Through hard training, you provide an adaptive stimulus to the body that promotes muscle growth. I mean, this is the basis of all weight training, right? When you lift weights, you get stronger and you build bigger muscles. It works. Training only skews the rather further towards protein, though.
If you optimize your nutrition, you can also skew the ratio towards protein. This primarily happens through ensuring an optimal dietary protein intake as well as an appropriate overall caloric intake. If you don’t eat enough protein or calories, you won’t maximize your muscle protein synthesis. On the other hand, if you eat too much, you’ll realize you can only build so much new muscle and the rest is simply stored as fat.
All this said, the main point I want to get across to you is this:
No matter what you do, whenever you gain weight, a certain ratio is going to be fat gain.
No matter what you do, whenever you lose weight, a certain ratio is going to be lean body mass loss.
Cutting and Bulking
Even with perfect nutrition and training, you’re still likely to gain anywhere from 30-60% fat per pound gained. In other words, you simply cannot stay in a caloric surplus forever without getting fat.
Eventually, it will happen. If you’re familiar with bodybuilding, this is why athletes traditionally have “cutting” and “bulking” periods.
Professional Bodybuilder Lee Priest taking the concept of cutting and bulking perhaps a bit too far.
Simply put, once the athlete reaches their maximal acceptable level of fatness, they initiate a diet or a weight loss period. This is called a “cut”. Athletes cut back down to a certain level of leanness that they’ve deemed appropriate and then they initiate a “bulk” or a weight gain period. The athlete then stays in a caloric surplus until they’ve reached that maximum level of fatness again. Guess what they do next? They cut.
The point of this whole cyclical process is that, each time you finish a full cutting and bulking cycle, you should be starting off with more muscle than you had last time. Although a certain percentage of weight gain is always fat, and a certain percentage of weight loss is always lean body mass, if you cut and bulk properly, you should be able to come out with net positive amounts of muscle after each cut and bulk cycle.
What Body Fat Levels Are Appropriate?
Of course the natural question to ask is what is the optimal body fat range for powerlifting? In other words, how do you know when to cut and bulk?
Example of various body fat percentages to give this section some context. Photo: builtlean.com
On the surface, you might think that the lowest body fat possible is going to be best. After all, the more muscle you carry as a percentage of the weight class, the bigger advantage you’re going to possess versus the competition.
However, all athletes start to experience performance problems when they get too lean. The body simply isn’t designed to deliver peak performances while you’re in the mid-single digits of body fat percentage. The only real question here is how lean is too lean?
Now, the problem with answering this particular question is that a significant amount of variation exists between athletes regarding the best body fat for them personally.
Functional Body Fat Range
You see, everyone has what you might call a “functional body fat range”. Inside this range, their
performance in the gym is relatively normal, their body tends to gain and lose weight with a reasonable P-ratio, and, in general, they are healthy and hormonally balanced. However, outside of this functional range, things start to get whacky.
For instance, if you get too fat, and go outside the top of this range, you’re going to experience worse and worse results in terms of your P-ratio. While there are many reasons this is the case, fat tends to be estrogenic; testosterone binds to it. The more fat you have, the worse your testosterone levels are going to be. This is going to have a direct impact on how well you synthesize new muscle tissue.
Similarly, when you’re too lean, performance tends to plummet in the gym. Although I dislike the term “starvation mode”, it isn’t that inaccurate of a descriptor in terms of what your body goes through when you drop below your functional body fat threshold. You’ll be hungry all the time, psychological intensity will drop in your workouts, overall energy will be down, and you’ll start to lose more muscle per pound of body weight lost. In other words, much like getting too fat, getting too lean also worsens P-ratio for a complex variety of reasons. Not least of which is the fact that catabolizing muscle just starts to be more and more efficient when your fat stores become very low.
Please keep in mind that these are overly simplified explanations for why P-ratio worsens at extreme levels of body fat (low or high).
So… What is the optimal level of body fat for powerlifting?
With all that said, your job, as a powerlifter, nutritionally speaking, is essentially to find and operate within your functional body fat range. For most athletes, a good estimate of this range is approximately
10-15% body fat for males and 18-23% for females. Once most athletes get too far below these levels,
performance problems accelerate and you start losing a bit too much muscle tissue for further dieting to be practical.
Examples of various body fat percentages for women Photo: builtlean.com
However, you must keep in mind that 10% will be too lean for some males and other men will be able to go as high as 18% without any ill effect. In order to be sure what your range actually is, you need to do several cut and bulk cycles. After each cutting period, note what body fat levels started to cause problems in terms of losing performance in the gym and also take note of where you seemed to start losing primarily muscle. From here, you can at least establish a reasonable minimum body fat level. Try not to cross below this threshold in the future.
Once you have a reasonable minimum established, try not to go more than 4-6% above this level. The reason for this is that you don’t want to put yourself in a position where, in order to get down to your competitive weight, you need to diet for 4-6 months or more. Most powerlifters compete every 3-6 months at a minimum. If you need 6 months just to get in competitive shape, you’re going to greatly limit your opportunities to get on the platform, gain experience, and test whether or not your training is actually working.
Measuring Body Fat
If you’re going to try and stay within specific body fat ranges, you need a way to measure your body fat. It is important to realize that there is no truly accurate method of measuring body fat except dissection. Raise your hand if you’re willing to die to get an “accurate” body fat measurement! No takers? Weird. While certain measurement systems are certainly more effective than others, all of them contain assumptions. Even the “gold standard” DEXA scan can be off by as much as 5% for particular individuals that fall outside the population a particular equation was developed for. 5% is our entire cutting and bulking range! Not only that, but you simply cannot take a DEXA scan every single week to make nutritional decisions.
DEXA scans are usually quite accurate, but you can’t use these on a regular basis which limits their utility for decision making purposes.
Ultimately, what we really need here is not accuracy but precision; we need something that is going to give us a reliable, repeatable measurement that we can then anchor to reality. To that end, I have two primary recommendations: take pictures and measure your waist around the belly button with a measuring tape.
In particular, you might consider a MyoTape because they click once you’ve pulled them to a certain level of tightness. This increases precision.
The MyoTape.
The Mirror Method
The first and most reliable indicator of body fat is the mirror method. We can contort the numbers in a lot of ways, but if you have a pot belly, you’re probably not at a low body fat. Likewise, if you have veins on your six pack, you’re most likely pretty damn lean. This picture does a great job of helping us get a visual estimate of our body fat percentage:
In order to document the mirror method, simply take a weekly picture with your abs flexed. You can easily do this alone in the bathroom. Pictures allow us to make an impartial visual estimate while keeping a weekly record. This information can help you make decisions about when it is time to cut and when it is time to bulk. Make a note in your training logs of when your performance starts to drop significantly in the gym while on a cut. Take a look at your current pictures to get a visual reference for what might be your leanness limit.
Waist Circumference Method
While your waist measurement may not yield an accurate body fat %, it definitely gives you the cold hard truth of the situation. If you’re a fully grown male of average height, and your waist is 35-36”+, you probably need to start losing weight. Likewise, if you’re a fully grown male of average height, and your waist is ~30”, you’re probably not carrying a ton of fat.
Obviously, waist measurement isn’t a perfect indicator, but it is one of those consistent, repeatable measurements that strongly correlates to body fat levels. If you notice that your performance in the gym starts cratering at a certain body fat level, check to see what your current waist measurement is. In the future, you can use this measurement as an indicator that you’re nearing your limits in terms of leanness.
One waist measurement method that I’m fond of is the Navy Method. Again, this isn’t a super accurate method, but it only requires your height, neck circumference, and waist circumference. Females will also need hip circumference.
How to measure using the Navy Method Photo: scientificpsychic.com
Rather than taking the numbers it spits out as your accurate body fat level down to the decimal, again, simply use these numbers as anchor points for when you cut and bulk. In the future, you can use these objective measurements to make these decisions rather than playing games with yourself in the mirror. With objective measurements, you can take some of the self-questioning and waffling out of your cutting and bulking choices.
Body Fat, Weight Class, and Competition
Let’s return to our hypothetical case study model to put this into the context of competition.
As you can see, out of these two athletes one weighs ~190lbs at 15% body fat and the other weighs ~195lbs at 15% body fat. If these athlete have a meet coming up in a few months, how do we determine what weight class each should compete in? In this case, we have to calculate what their body weight would be if they achieved their minimum acceptable body fat levels.
For athlete A, we can see that, if he reaches his minimum level of 10%, he can make the 181lbs weight class. As we’ve learned with past examples, he’s going to be more competitive in a weight class where a larger percentage of the weight he carries is muscle. Because he doesn’t have to drop below 10%, he’s unlikely to experience a significant performance drop from making this cut. Therefore his goal should definitely be to diet into this meet in order to be more competitive.
However, Athlete B is in a bit of a predicament. If he gets down to 10%, he’ll still be just north of 181lbs. He’d probably have to drop to somewhere closer to 8% body fat. If he does this, there is a serious risk he’ll experience significant performance decrease. As such, his goal should likely be to just fill out the 198lbs more effectively. For now, he’s in the somewhat dreaded position of being “stuck between classes”. We’ll learn how to avoid this in a future chapter.
The takeaway lesson here is that you want to compete in whatever weight class that you can without
going below your minimum acceptable body fat level. This is going to maximize the amount of muscle
you carry relative to the rest of your competitors in that weight class. You’ll have a better overall shot to win the class.
Overall Recommendations for Managing Weight
When your pictures and the Navy Method are putting you right around 10% for males and 18% for females, it is time to start bulking. When your pictures and the Navy Method are putting you around
15% for males and 23% for females, it is time to start cutting. Try to stay within this range. If necessary, modify the range to suit your individual needs by keeping track of your performance throughout your cutting and bulking cycles.
When considering an upcoming meet, ask yourself what weight class could you make if you hit your minimum acceptable body fat level? If you can drop a class through dieting, without getting too lean, do so. If you can’t drop a weight class without dropping below your minimum acceptable body fat, do your best to compete in the weight class you’re already in.
Chapter 5: Weight Cut Management
EatingToWin Recap
With the next piece of the puzzle now in place, let’s take another step back to analyze where we are so far in terms of the overall context for powerlifting nutrition.
1) We know that we want to spend as much time as possible in a caloric surplus in order to build new muscle tissue, be able to perform more training overall, recover from that training more effectively, and to keep our glycogen tanks on full which helps accomplish all the
aforementioned goals.
2) However, we also know that, in order to maximize our competitiveness, we want to be in the weight class where we can maximize the amount of muscle that we are carrying compared to our competitors. This both means being relatively lean and being one of the shorter competitors in our weight class.
3) It isn’t feasible to stay in a caloric surplus all year while staying relatively lean. As such, we must go through cutting (dieting) periods and bulking (gaining) periods. In general, males should cut when they hit ~15% body fat and bulk when they hit ~10%. In general, females should cut when they hit ~23% body and bulk when they hit ~18% body fat. We must manipulate our cutting periods so that, at competition time, we get into the lightest weight class possible without going below our minimum acceptable body fat level.
So, is this the final overview for weight management? Are all the pieces in place to help us decide which weight class is best for us at any given upcoming meet? No. Not yet. We haven’t talked about the long upheld practice of “cutting weight” for a meet.
Weight Cutting
Weight cutting is practiced by virtually all weight class athletes in all weight class sports. What is weight cutting, you ask? In essence, this is the practice of trying to weigh-in at less than the weight you’ll compete at.
You see, the weigh-in times for athletes are not at the start of the competition. In powerlifting, there are two common weigh-in practices. The first, which you’ll find in the IPF and its affiliates, is the two hour weigh-in. As the name implies, this means that you’ll weigh-in two hours before you begin to lift. However, most federations actually employ a 24-hour weigh-in. In other words, you don’t lift until a full day after you’ve weighed in.
Competitors take advantage of this to “cut weight”. By partially dehydrating themselves to various degrees (losing water weight), manipulating sodium intake (sodium influences how much water you’re holding), eliminating dietary carbohydrate intake for a time (glycogen requires water to be stored), and emptying their bowels (taking laxatives or consuming a liquid diet for a time), competitors can often lose a VERY significant amount of body weight for weigh-ins. They often gain most (or all) of this weight back by the time they actually have to get on the platform and lift. Note that none of this “weight” is muscle mass. This is all transient body weight consisting of fluids and material in the bowels/guts.
Two competitors sit in a sauna in order to dehydrate themselves to make weight.
Now, it is incredibly important to point out that many of these practices are not entirely safe. If you’re an
adolescent, cutting weight may impede your physical and sexual maturity. Regardless, if you do not know what you are doing, do not attempt to cut weight without the supervision of a licensed
professional.
How much weight can you cut?
Exactly how much weight you can cut for a meet depends on how long the weigh-in is. Generally speaking, the longer the weigh-in, the more weight you can cut.
For a two hour weigh-in, you can usually effectively cut 3-5% of your body weight. 5% tends to be pushing it, but some athletes manage this without too much of a negative impact on their performance. For a 24 hour weigh-in, some competitors cut as much as 15% body weight. In my opinion, this isn’t remotely safely. In fact, some high level competitors have put themselves in the hospital attempting such weight cuts. Anything more than 10% is probably asking for trouble if you’re not HIGHLY experienced. Do NOT try this type of weight cut alone!
Why does weigh-in time affect how much you can cut?
The reason that you can cut more weight for a 24-hour weigh-in primarily has to do with two factors: 1) how long it takes to rehydrate and 2) how long it takes to resynthesize glycogen. Most of the tactics discussed above revolve around the practice of temporarily losing water weight. In the end, most of these tactics involve some kind of dehydration in order to be effective.
Well, the reality of the situation is that you can only rehydrate so much in a given time frame. Because even minor dehydration has been shown to cause as much as a 10% drop in performance in some athletes, you’d be wise to limit your weight cutting to an amount where you can fully rehydrate before you compete.
For a 2-hour weigh-in, this isn’t nearly as much water. For a 24-hour weigh-in, some competitors are near the edge of death (I’m barely exaggerating) when they weigh-in. Because they have a full day to rehydrate, they’re often alright by the time the competition comes along.
The story is similar for glycogen resynthesis. Depending on the size of the athlete, you can only
resynthesize somewhere around 50-200g of carbs every 2-3 hours. The exact number is very hard for me to pin down, but the central point is that you can only refill those glycogen stores so fast. If you
completely deplete your glycogen stores, in order to lose all the associated water weight in the muscles, you can often drop a significant amount of additional weight. However, with a 2 hour weigh-in, you won’t have time to put it back on and the loss of glycogen will affect your leverages and your performance.
Weight Cutting in the Competitive Context
Remember our 195lbs athlete who was 15% body fat? To jog your memory, he couldn’t make the 181lbs weight class because he would have had to drop below 10% body fat in order to do so. However, using weight cutting practices, he’ll have no trouble whatsoever making 181lbs. In fact, let’s put up a basic chart looking at what body weight you’d have to be in order to make a certain weight class given a 24-hour weigh-in or a 2-24-hour weigh-in.
As you can see, for a 24-hour weigh-in, you can be as large as ~200lbs at 10% body fat and still make the 181lbs weight class! What this effectively means is that, with a 24-hour weigh-in, an athlete who
weighed ~211lbs in the off-season at 15% body fat could still cut down to ~200lbs at 10% body fat and compete as a 181lbs lifter. Yes, that’s right; it is possible for a powerlifter to train at ~30lbs above his competitive class on a 24-hour weigh-in!
Even with a 2-hour weigh-in, you could weigh ~190lbs at 10% body fat and still make the weight class. This changes everything in terms of our calculations and when we should move up weight classes. In fact, you should only move up a weight class when you can no longer make weight without going
below your minimal acceptable body fat threshold and without cutting more than 5-10% water weight (depending on weigh-in length)!
Now, even though everyone knows about these practices, I can tell you, from firsthand experience, that most competitors are not necessarily lifting to “win”. They’re lifting for their own personal growth, which is absolutely fine and commendable. However, if you learn to master this combination of dieting and weight cutting, you can earn yourself a tremendous advantage in your weight class by being the biggest competitor in it. Most people simply won’t do what it takes to cut this much weight while being lean. It does hurt your performance to some degree, but the advantage you gain by dropping a full weight class (or more), is usually more than worth it.
Chapter 6: Putting The Big Picture Together
Summary: The “Why” of EatingToWin
Alright, now that we’ve got all the pieces we need to put the big picture together. The primary purpose of powerlifting nutrition is two-fold:
1) Performance Enhancement 2) Weight Management
In terms of performance enhancement, we know that we want to spend as much time as possible in a caloric surplus in order to build new muscle tissue, to be able to train more, recover more effectively from that training, and to keep our glycogen tanks on full. Even when we diet, we want to eat as much as possible while still achieving our weight loss goals because of the aforementioned performance enhancement benefits of food (and carbs in particular).
However, we must manage our body weight in order to maximize our competitiveness. Our goal is always to compete in the weight class that maximizes the amount of muscle we can carry relative to the weight class limit. In order to do this, we must use a combination of staying lean and cutting weight. In order to stay lean enough, we will cut and bulk between approximately 10% and 15% body fat if we are male and approximately 18% and 23% if we are female. This puts us in a position to never be too far away, in terms of diet length, from being able to get to our competitive body fat level.
In order to determine our competitive weight class, we will calculate which weight class we can make when we combine our 5-10% water cut with our projected body weight at our minimal acceptable body fat threshold. If you can no longer make a weight class without going below your minimal acceptable body fat threshold and/or having to cut more than 5-10% water weight (depending on your weigh-in length), you need to move up a weight class.
EatingToWin
1) Maximize calories in the context of an appropriate diet
2) Cut and Bulk between 10-15% body fat if you’re male; 18% - 23% if female
3) Compete in the lowest weight class possible while staying above your minimum acceptable body fat threshold and cutting no more than 5-10% water weight (depending on your weigh-in length) 4) Repeat this process over time to slowly move up weight classes and become more and more
competitive.
Now that we understand why we are doing what we are doing, it is time to examine the HOW of powerlifting nutrition.
Chapter 7: The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance
The Fundamentals of Nutrition
If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with anyone about weight loss, dieting, or nutrition in general, you’ll realize that the vast majority of people are majoring in the minors. When my friends and family who are not very familiar with the fitness world ask me nutrition questions they almost always revolve around “which foods to eat” or “which supplements to take”.
I debated long and hard about whether or not to include a basic primer about nutrition in this book, but, in the end, I decided that it would be necessary to discuss at least some of the basics in order to make sure that we’re all on the same page.
As such, I’d like to introduce to you a concept I’ve adapted from work by Eric Helms and that is the Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance. When we’re talking about achieving our nutritional goals, here are the main factors we need to consider in order of importance in my opinion:
1) Energy Balance 2) Macronutritition 3) Meal Frequency 4) Nutrient Timing 5) Micronutrition 6) Supplementation
My goal here is that you walk away with a big picture understanding of how nutrition works when we’re talking about body weight management and performance enhancement for powerlifting purposes. I want you to see each piece of the puzzle in its proper place rather than giving undue consideration to areas which simply don’t matter as much.
Chapter 8: Energy Balance
Calories are King
Regardless of what some nutrition gurus would have you believe, the sole determinant of whether or not you lose weight or gain weight comes down to whether or not you are in a caloric surplus or a caloric deficit.
Let me be very explicit about what that means.
If you are burning more energy than you’re consuming, if you are eating less calories than you’re using, you will lose weight. This is called a caloric deficit.
If you are consuming more energy than you’re using, if you are eating more calories than you’re using, you are going to gain weight. This is called a caloric surplus.
If you are consuming just as much energy as you’re burning, if you are eating as many calories as you’re using, you won’t see a change in body weight. This is called your caloric maintenance level.
You can eat all the chicken breast, brown rice, and vegetables in the world, but if you are eating too much, you will gain weight. Period. Likewise, if you budget your calories correctly, you can lose weight on McDonalds, cookies, and ice cream. This has been proven many times over by yours truly.
When you tip the balance towards the right side, you’re in a caloric deficit and when you tip the balance towards the left side, you’re in a caloric surplus.
Let’s refocus here. If you’re trying to bulk and cut between specific percentages of body fat, the only way you’re going to be successful is if you’re consuming the right amount of calories on a daily basis. If you’re trying to cut weight on a caloric surplus, it just isn’t going to happen. Likewise, if you’re trying to gain weight, but it isn’t happening, you’re just not eating enough… PERIOD!
If you’re trying to gain weight, you need to be in a caloric surplus. If you’re trying to lose weight, you must be in a caloric deficit. I’m just reiterating this fact because it is truly of the utmost importance.
The Correct Caloric Intake
How can we be sure if we’re eating the right amount of calories on a day to day basis?
While there are many fancy formulas out there that endeavor to help you determine exactly how many calories you need to eat each day to gain weight or to lose weight, the reality is that everyone has a different metabolism. If you consider two people of the exact same body weight, one of them might gain weight eating 2500 calories a day whereas the other might lose weight consuming the same number.
The only way to be one hundred percent sure you are eating the right amount of calories per day is to weigh yourself regularly to make sure your weight is moving in direction you intend it to.
Without a scale, to gauge progress, you’re extremely limited in your ability to make accurate judgements regarding your caloric intake.
You have to adjust your daily caloric intake based on real world data. There is no other way. You can use the formulas if you want, but they’re just starting points. You have to adjust from the starting points until you’re seeing the correct changes in terms of your weight in the real world. Again, I cannot
emphasize this enough: how many calories you should eat is determined solely by the real world results you’re seeing on the scale.
Calorie Counting and the Reality of Dieting
In previous section of this chapter, I discussed calories in a manner that paints them as rather absolute. You need to eat 3500 calories to make this happen or you need to eat 3400 calories to make that happen. Back in the real world, this isn’t a realistic way to approach calories.
Remember our discussions regarding accuracy and precision when it comes to body fat? Well, when we’re talking about diet the same rules apply. There is no way to know, with any true accuracy, the EXACT amount of calories you’re eating. Labels are only accurate within 5-10% most of the time. What are the practical implications here? We don’t actually need to know the true, 100% accurate calorie number you’re consuming. We only need a fairly repeatable number that we can use as a bench mark to adjust over time. If you’re “supposed to eat” 2400kcal, but you’re actually eating 2600kcal, this doesn’t actually matter if you’re eating the same foods consistently. Why? Well, when you base your intake decisions off real world data, you’ll still get the result you’re looking for.
Follow my logic here. Let’s say you’re actually eating 3000kcal but you think you’re eating 2000kcal. This is a HUGE discrepancy and more than you’d ever encounter in the real world. It still doesn’t matter, though. If you’re not losing weight on your theoretical 2000kcal, you’re still going to eventually reduce the amount. Maybe the next week you’ll be eating a theoretical 1900kcal, but it is actually 2900kcal. Eventually, because you’re eating the same foods consistently, or you’re getting a consistent inaccurate measurement, you’ll be able to adjust downwards enough where you start losing weight. In the end, because of the real world results that you’re basing your decisions off of, precision and repeatability matter more than absolute accuracy.
Recommended Caloric Intake Starting Points
For males trying to gain weight, I’d recommend about 16x your body weight as a daily caloric starting starting point. For losing weight, males can use a caloric figure of approximately 12x their body weight. Females can use about 15x their body weight for gaining purposes and about 11x body weight for dieting purposes.
For example, a 200lbs male trying to gain weight would eat ~3200 calories per day (200*16). A 150lbs female trying to lose weight would eat ~1650 calories per day (150*11). Again, these values are starting points.
If you already know how much you need to eat in order to maintain your weight, you can use the general rule of thumb that there are ~3500kcal in a pound of fat. Therefore, because there are 7 days in the week, you’d need to create approximately a 500kcal calorie deficit per day to lose one pound per week. In the real world, this doesn’t work out so smoothly, but it is a decent place to start.
I must stress that you have to adjust these numbers based on what is actually happening in the real world. You have to weigh yourself and see what is going on. I have seen males who need 20-25x their
bodyweight in caloric intake before they see weight gain. If that’s you, keep adding calories until you see
the proper changes in weight you’re looking for. If your weight isn’t going up, you’re still not eating enough.
Absolute Calorie Values vs. Ranges
If you try to hit any calorie number exactly, you’re going to drive yourself crazy. This is nearly impossible to do in the real world. As such, I’d recommend that you actually give yourself a calorie range.
Sure, keep using the baseline estimates above as starting points, but convert them into ranges. I’d recommend a 100kcal +/- buffer. If you’re a 200lbs male, and you’re trying to gain weight, instead of trying to hit 3000kcal exactly, just consider any day that you fall into the range of 2900-3100 a success.
As we discussed above when it comes to precision, the exact amount of calories you eat each day doesn’t actually matter. As long as keep your calorie range moving in the right direction, your weight will also trend in the right direction as we make adjustments.
This calorie range not only helps keep you sane, but it makes it actually possible for you to be successful on a daily basis. Trying to hit a specific number each day is a recipe for guaranteed failure.
Proper Rates of Weight Gain and Weight Loss
The next thing we need to discuss is the proper RATE of weight change that we’re looking for when either gaining or losing weight.
Remember our good ‘ole friend P-ratio? Yeah, well, he’s about to make another appearance here. You see, if you’re losing weight too quickly, your body is much more likely to catabolize muscle protein stores in order to help make up the energy deficit. Likewise, if you’re eating far too much, well, you can only synthesize so much new muscle tissue each day. The rest of your caloric surplus is likely going to be stored as adipose tissue (aka fat).
You might gain muscle slightly faster with a larger surplus, but, most likely, you’ll just gain fat MUCH faster instead. I don’t recommend bulking at unreasonable paces.
