Help with higher calorie goal after increased activity

[JaredOnly]

Hey everybody, new to these forums. Just recently joined and posted on the NRoL forum. I hope to be an active member of this community. This is going to be a bit long, hope you bear with me.

Let me start with a brief background. I am a 27 year old male, 6'3". I completely changed my diet and began exercising last summer when I was at my highest weight (~230lb; I know that's not a lot, but I am pretty lanky, there was very little muscle on me and a good deal of fat). I completely lost fat the WRONG way. I became conscious of counting calories, but cut them back way too much (around 1600) and went overboard with cardio (6 days a week). Well, I dropped a ton of weight, but unfortunately, also the little muscle that I had on me. I only lasted a few months with such a crazy deficit before I started to research more and learn about nutrition and fitness. Anyway, long story short, I have fixed up my diet and been maintaining at 165lbs since about december and about 2800 calories daily. I have been focused on macro goals of 40/30/30 (c/f/p), although this usually ends up closer to 45-50/25-30/20-25.

At maintenence, I have been doing the following exercise routine:
- ~4 mile run, 4 days a week
- push-ups (3 sets of 15), 6 days a week
- ab work (3 sets of 30, 1 superset based off of a shortened 8 min-ab routine), 6 days a week
- Typically, I do the push-ups and ab work every morning (6 days), run 4 days a week, and have a complete rest day on Sundays.

As I mentioned above, I have been maintaining at around 2800 calories, although I have not tried increasing to be sure that I hit my target level. I track my food on the daily plate and arrived at the 2800 calorie mark by estimating my activity level as moderately active. I have been curious if I was undershooting my activity, how would I know if this was the case?

Ok, now on to the main question. I know that I lost too much weight, and want to start weightlifting to add on muscle and increase my overall fitness. I have started NRoL and restructured my workout plan. I am starting off with the Break-In program, and then will move into Strength I probably. I would like to work myself into a schedule that (eventually) looks something like this:

Monday - NRoL
Tuesday - Run (2-4 miles)
Wed - NRoL
Thurs - Run (2-4 miles)
Friday - NRoL
Sat - Run (2-4 miles)
Sunday - REST

I realize that, especially in the beginning, I may need another rest day, which means either dropping a midweek run or perhaps only doing 2 lifting routines per week. However, I hope to build up into this routine over the next few weeks. My priortiy will be weightlifting though, and I want to that to be the focus of my week, with running as a supplement (time/resting needs may cut this back, but I would like to strive for mininum of 2 runs a week).

I have looked at the countless equations to try and estimate what my new activity level is. I have also searched these forums a bit, but found that most calorie questions pertain to woman or men with much lower goals than myself.

I know I have been maintaining previously on 2800, but now my exercise routine has changed a bit (cut out some running and pushup/ab-work, adding in 3x NRoL) and I am having trouble estimating what I should be eating to support this. Based on my new routine and your own experiences, how many calories do you think I should be eating? Keep in mind, I want to add muscle mass, but I want to do it slow and steady without putting on too much fat during the process (I realize that some fat comes on with muscle, I just don't want to let that get out of hand).

Any suggestions? I would love all the help/advice you can give.

[Lost Dog]

Any formula that you use will be a best guess, but since you seem to have a handle on your maint levels, you can figure out some things a bit.

The pushups/ab work don't really burn many cals, so don't sweat that.

At 165lbs, you burn about 104 calories, above your BMR (basal metabolic rate), so for every mile you don't run in that week, you subtract 104 cals from your weekly calories that you can eat to maintain. So, if you run 6 vs 16, you need to eat about 150 calories a day less to maintain.

With the workouts that you're adding in, there's no accurate measurement of calories, but assume something like 250 per workout, maybe. The easy way to manage this is to focus on those extra calories being in and around your workout.

Hopefully, this puts you close to balance, but you never know. Subconscious lifestyle changes are going to effect things, too. But, it's a starting point.

Now, you need to add in extra calories just to grow. I would suggest starting off slow, and adding maybe 250 calories to each day for a couple of weeks. Are you gaining weight? If so, are you keeping fat gain to a minimum? From here, you adjust up or down. 250 calories a day is about 1/2 lbs of body weight per week, so you might add another 250 (500 extra total) at this point.

Keep tracking your food/calories and your body changes. Muscle can be hard to see changes in, so the scale, body fat levels, belt notches, etc. can be helpful indicators. Scale up and no extra fat = good. Scale down or level, not enough food.

Congrats on the fat loss, btw!

[JaredOnly]

Thanks a lot for your quick and well thought out response, Lost Dog. Very useful information. One thing that surprised me, however, was the estimate of the NRoL session as burning around 250 cals. I know its different than cardio, but I thought it would be closer to the numbers I burn during runs (400-500) - maybe just in my mind because it feels so much harder physically.

I think your plan is the right one. For now, I will add about 250 calories per week and see how I respond. I'm guessing that with my increased activity, the added 250 will bring me close (if not slightly above) my new maintenance levels. Since the end goal is to put on muscle weight, I'll be shooting for above maintenance anyway so I shouldn't worry about it. Definitely very hard to switch mentality from watching what I eat and trying to stay at or below maintenance to an increased eating mindset. I also keep forgetting that while I may be eating above maintence now, I'll soon be adding on weight and ultimately reaching a level where what I eat now IS maintenance.

During searches on this forums for relevant topics, I came across a poster (Kfisherx) that had created a good spreadsheet for determining maintenance levels and tracking your body composition. I'll try to get a hold of that and use it to track my progress.

As you said, I will start with the first 250, see how that goes, and eventually increase by another 250. How high over maintence would you recommend stopping at, for my particular goals?

[JaredOnly]

Another quick follow up question. As you see above, I have been in the habit of eating the same amount of calories per day regardless of activity, as opposed to only eating more on days with increased exercise.

Does anyone here practice some form of calorie cycling (whether or not its linked to exercise days) for putting on muscle weight, or is that generally more for those trying to achieve an average deficit for losing fat?