Gym 74
Setting a sensible goal
The app asks for a number of calories and a split in percentages. This article is about how to arrive at those numbers — for building muscle, for maintaining, and for losing weight.
What this article is about
This article helps you pick a first goal: how many calories a day and how to split them over protein, carbohydrate and fat. It is written for anyone who wants to bulk, maintain or lose weight without guessing.
After reading you will know
- How to find your maintenance level from your own data
- Which direction suits you and how much to add or take off
- How to split your macros and adjust your goal afterwards
First things first
This is general information, not medical advice. If you have a medical condition, take medication, are pregnant, or are recovering from an eating disorder, talk to a doctor or dietitian before changing your intake. Guidelines are averages; you are not the average.
Step 1 — Find your maintenance level
Everything starts with the number of calories at which your weight stays put. Formulas give an estimate, but they can be off by tens of percent, because nobody knows how much you move in a day. Your own numbers are more accurate, and you already have them.
- Eat the way you normally do for two to three weeks and log it honestly. Not tidier than usual — you are looking for your ordinary week, not your best week.
- Weigh yourself a few times a week at the same moment, ideally in the morning after the toilet and before breakfast. On the progress page, look at the weekly average rather than single days: water, salt and a full gut move your weight by a kilo without trouble.
- If the weekly average stayed level over that period, the average number of calories you ate is your maintenance level. If it went up or down, you were above or below it accordingly.
Step 2 — Pick a direction
Bulking and building muscle
Building muscle costs energy, so this adds something on top of your maintenance level. More is not faster: beyond a certain point it is mostly fat that grows along, and that has to come off again later.
- Count on 10 to 15 percent above maintenance. At 2500 kcal maintenance that is 2750 to 2875 kcal.
- Aim for 0.25 to 0.5 percent of your body weight per week. At 80 kilos that is 200 to 400 grams. Gaining faster means the surplus is too large.
- If you are a beginner you can start at the low end: muscle grows fastest in the first year, and that is when you need the surplus least.
Maintaining
You are where you want to be and you keep it there. This is also where you sit between two periods: after a stretch of losing or bulking, a few months of maintenance is not lost time but a break you can keep up.
- Your goal is the maintenance level from step 1, with nothing added or subtracted.
- Keep following the weekly average. If it drifts by more than about a kilo without you changing anything, your maintenance has shifted — which happens when you start moving more or less.
Losing weight
Here something comes off. The temptation is to take off a lot, but a large deficit costs muscle and almost nobody keeps it up; the weight comes back the moment you stop.
- Count on 15 to 20 percent below maintenance. At 2500 kcal maintenance that is 2000 to 2125 kcal.
- Aim for 0.5 to 1 percent of your body weight per week. At 80 kilos that is 400 to 800 grams. Losing faster means you are losing more than fat alone.
- Keep your protein high and keep lifting. Those are the two things that decide whether you hold on to muscle while the fat comes off.
Step 3 — Split your macros
The calories decide whether you gain or lose; the split mostly decides what you gain or lose, and how you feel on the way. Work in grams per kilo of body weight first and convert to percentages afterwards, because percentages are what the app asks for.
- Protein: 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilo of body weight. At 80 kilos that is 128 to 176 grams. Sitting at the top end is sensible while losing weight.
- Fat: at least 0.8 grams per kilo, or 20 to 30 percent of your calories. Lower is possible, but hormones and satiety suffer.
- Carbohydrates: whatever is left. This is your fuel for training, so this is where the room you have left should end up.
- Convert it: protein and carbohydrates give 4 kcal per gram, fat 9 kcal per gram. Divide the calories per macro by your total and you have your percentages.
The app converts your percentages into grams the moment you type them, so you can see straight away whether you land on what you worked out here.
Step 4 — Adjusting
A goal is a starting point, not a promise. Your body adapts, you move more in one month than the next, and the first estimate is often off. Adjusting is part of it.
- Review every two to three weeks, on the weekly average. A single day says nothing.
- If it is going too slowly or too quickly, shift by about 5 to 10 percent of your calories. Big jumps make it impossible to see what worked.
- If something major changes — an injury, a different job, a different programme — start again at step 1. Your maintenance level moved along with you.
Further
Once you know your numbers, fill them in on the goal page. The app takes it from there: the diary shows how far along you are each day, and the summaries per week and month show whether it holds up over time.