Confusion about Caloric Needs

[Devyn Stewart]

Hello everyone. I am a 19-year-old male who is about to start his LP (after about a year and a half of other barbell training that was likely less effective than LP) after a surgery. One of my biggest struggles with weight training is deciding what to eat and how much I truly need. For some context, I am 6'3", 210 lbs, and about 18-19% body fat. I eat around 4000 calories a day and 200 grams of protein. I thought this would surely be enough, and seeing as I am around 18-19% body fat, the higher end of what most stereotypically "fit" people are comfortable with being, I thought this would be sufficient. Reading Starting Strength-related materials would suggest to me otherwise. One example is an article I read today:

The First Three Questions | Mark Rippetoe

In this article, it mentions that a 6'2" 180 lbs man may need 6000 calories a day. Being a 6'3" 210 lbs man, this concerns me. Do I really need 6000 calories? That seems ludicrous to me, as 4000 calories is already very difficult for me to eat. At the same time, I always hear in SS-related materials that one does not need to become obese to get strong, but I simply cannot see myself staying under 25% body fat while eating 6000 calories no matter what type of training I am doing. Can anyone provide me with some guidance on this subject?

[Karl Schudt]

How do you know your caloric intake? Are you measuring and tracking? People tend to be wrong in their estimates. The only way to be close is to measure with a digital scale and track.

You will need to gain weight to gain strength. There's no other way around it. You won't know if you need 6000 until you try it at 4000 and don't gain weight. Then, try 4200. If you don't gain weight, add more. Titrate the caloric intake to get the scale moving in the right direction.

You probably also need to think about your goals. A novice progression is a glorious time that a lifter can put on lots of muscle, especially a 19 year-old male lifter. The rest of us would do things, terrible things, if we could go back and train intelligently at age 19. My advice is to get strong for 6 months, at least, not to worry about weight gain, and then worry about it later, when you get to more intermediate programming. If you try to stay "lean", you'll blunt your progress, and miss out on the best opportunity in your life to put weight on the barbell.

If you do need 6000 calories, you can find ways to do it. But you'll have titrated up by then, gradually, finding the right amount to eat.

Good luck! You're making a wise choice by training seriously. Wish I had done it when I was your age.

[Devyn Stewart]

I measure my food on a digital scale and record it all in MFP. I've been doing it for quite a while actually, though the 4000 number has been only this summer. In the year and a half that I've been training, it's normally been around 3200-3600.

I want to take the simple approach you're suggesting; I only have one real worry. I don't think I'm a true novice. In fact, I'm not even sure I am a novice at all. Like I said, I have been lifting for over a year and a half (though I think the progress I have made COULD and WOULD have been made in 4-5 months of doing things right on SSLP), and I can squat 330, deadlift 350, and bench 220 paused. As far as I know, before even starting my LP, I could be finishing my potential for LP or still have 100 pounds left in all my lifts. If I start to stall, do I blame my insufficient calories or just that I am no longer a novice? Rip mentions many times that most people do LP wrong and have much higher potential if they do everything right. I guess another reason why I'm worried is that I have a bit of a history of program hopping. In my year and a half of lifting seriously, I've been on probably a dozen programs and been on one for, at most, about 3 months. Of course, that program, Madcow's, was the one on which I saw the best progress far and away. What I'm saying is that I want to know when to blame nutrition and when to know enough is enough and I should move on to Texas Method (and not worry that I'm just program hopping again).

Thank you for your reply.

[Karl Schudt]

You're getting into programming questions. Let me make it simple:

at 6'3", you won't be strong at 210 lbs. You will likely need to be 250lbs or more.

Don't worry about how much you're eating. It's going to be a lot.

A longer answer would require seeing your lifts and knowing your training history.

[Devyn Stewart]

I appreciate the bluntness. Okay, it sounds like I need to eat more than I currently am and reassess my ideas about my diet. When I start LP in about a week after my surgery, does 5000 calories sound like a good start? Should I leave my protein the same at about 200 grams a day and try to make the increase mainly in carbs and fat?

[Karl Schudt]

I would not go straight to 5000. Aim for 1-2lbs per week. Put on 10 lbs pretty fast. Then you can taper down to about a pound a week. Protein should be above 200. Try 240g protein, keep the fat pretty low (80-100) and make up the rest with carbs. At this point, though, keeping the fat low is less important than getting the calories in.