I read everywhere that an active adult needs about 2800 cals a day. I also read that a teenage guy needs about that much too. I've been eating really really cleanly for about 12 weeks now, have been training hard (4 days weight, 7 days 30 mins cardio), and lost weight. I'm still the fat one out of all of my friends, yet all of them eat whatever they want, and a lot of it too. For example, every day, one of my friends has a huge croissant and turkey sandwich, a yogurt cup thing with recees pieces, and a snickers marathon bar. I eat a turkey sandwich on wholewheat bread with lettuce and red onions, and an apple. The thing that depresses me is that I can't eat like they do. I've upped my calories (2800) and noticed significant fat gain pretty quickly. I immediately aborted and am now still at 1800-2000, eating extremely cleanly. It just seems that I put WAY more effort into what I am doing, but my friends are the ones enjoying the summer with their shirts off. If you wanted to know, I weigh 163 at 5'9" and around 12-13% BF. I don't really know why I'm posting this, but I guess I just needed to vent.

This was the case for me back when I was really heavy. I honestly never really overate, and hated that kids teased me making jokes about how I stuffed my face all the time or whatever when I ate less than anyone I knew.

My problem was that I was very inactive physically, and when I did eat I ate fairly large meals, usually very late in the day. As a result I had a very low metabolism (lots of fat and little muscle didn't help either).

The more often you eat, the more active you are, and the more lean body mass you have the higher your standing metabolic rate is. I nearly doubled what I was eating when I seriously started trying to lose weight. I lost more than 40 pounds before I even started doing cardio, just hitting the weights and trying to eat clean. By comparison I was still eating way worse than I do now, but it was still more than enough to really kickstart my metabolism.

Now I finally understand what some of my ectomorphic friends must have been feeling when they were constantly needing to eat and I made fun of them for acting like squirrels. While I don't feel ravenously hungry all the time or anything, my body's needs for fuel have increased tremendously, and I now eat to feel healthy and energized rather than for some sort of psychological comfort or just to avoid discomfort from hunger.

In short, give it some time. You will reach a point where you can cheat without serious consequences, although I bet that by that time you're standards will be to the point that you really don't want to, and you'll be looking at your friends as the "out of shape ones."

Hey man, its natural to feel depressed somtimes about your progress, it happens to the best of them, even athletes.

I use to feel like thie ALL the time around my friends, I was always the "fat guy" or the "large guy" in the group, but as time improves and you push yourself through with dedication and healthy eating, you will feel great, and you will start to change into somthing else.

I am now considered the "fit guy" in my group, and I look at how they eat and get sick because I know that I will be feeling great once I have my healthy bananas, pears and low fat/low gi yogurt.

Push through hard and become the guy in the group that everyone seems to know what he wants and is dedicated at what he does, I have even noticed that many of the ignorant ones in my group who always seemed skinny are now becoming the big ones, but I dont put them down for it, I try to help them turn over to a healthy lifestyle. :)

163 at 5'9"? you seem to be like pretty much normal to me, im 171 at about the same, and I feel great, but also its perhaps cause I have alot of lean muscle mass, most of my weight comes from that instead of fat.

So try to think of all the good things you will get from all your hard work in the long run, we have our on and off days, so dont worry dude :tucool:

I read everywhere that an active adult needs about 2800 cals a day. I also read that a teenage guy needs about that much too. I've been eating really really cleanly for about 12 weeks now, have been training hard (4 days weight, 7 days 30 mins cardio), and lost weight. I'm still the fat one out of all of my friends, yet all of them eat whatever they want, and a lot of it too. For example, every day, one of my friends has a huge croissant and turkey sandwich, a yogurt cup thing with recees pieces, and a snickers marathon bar. I eat a turkey sandwich on wholewheat bread with lettuce and red onions, and an apple. The thing that depresses me is that I can't eat like they do. I've upped my calories (2800) and noticed significant fat gain pretty quickly. I immediately aborted and am now still at 1800-2000, eating extremely cleanly. It just seems that I put WAY more effort into what I am doing, but my friends are the ones enjoying the summer with their shirts off. If you wanted to know, I weigh 163 at 5'9" and around 12-13% BF. I don't really know why I'm posting this, but I guess I just needed to vent.
its not just in the diet

2 things, do you (and they) lift wieghts? how old?
my closest friends i knew not in HS growing up were lean and ate whatever, i ate worse then them and was much more inactive once HS sports stopped hence my weight gain, but anyway now its 3 years later.. its catching up to them as a couple have grown beer bellies and what not but the main difference is, only one has ever lifted for this entire time and he is the only one that looks great.... even me at probably a higher BF% then them (or maybe not know not sure) i have a better composition because of lifting

its gonna catch up with them and it also depends on your other activities

Glaive...made alot of sense because this desribed me also.. and I've been noticing that lately I'm eating more but I'm not gaining..:confused: and I feel hungry between meals.. which is new to my 5-6 time aday feeding
I guess what I'm seeing is a shift of fat to muscle ..

Plus your being really hard on yourself... 5'9" 163 ? "How I Wish" :) well I'm 5'8.5" 205 and it ain't all muscle :)
So work on your soft areas and you'll be fine... Lift weights!

I read everywhere that an active adult needs about 2800 cals a day.
:confused: :confused: :confused:
Simply not true. I'm an active adult. I don't need 2800 calories.

Did you read the stickies to determine your specific calorie needs based on your height and weight? Based on a quick calculation, I think 2400 - 2500 is closer to the amount of calories you need at your weight. However, a growing teen needs more than that. It's really best not to count calories if you are still growing. Try to focus on making the cleanest foods available part of your diet, and leave the other options for treats. Eat until you are full, but not stuffed.

Bear in mind as well that those formulas do not tell you how many calories you have to eat in order to maintain your weight.

Now I will repeat it in italics: the formulas don't tell you how many calories you need.

What do the formulas do? They tell you how many calories, on average, the general population needs. This is useful information, but it's rather like knowing the average shoe size for young men, or knowing the average length of time it takes people in a certain region to travel to work.

These kinds of information are useful, because they give you a ballpark figure. To finding out how much to eat, there is only ONE method (so far) known to the scientific (and real life) world, and that is trial and error. You start by eating roughly the amount that you think is right, and then, over time (maybe weeks or months), you slowly adjust your food intake (and perhaps exercise level) to achieve the rate of weight gain or loss (if any) that you intend to achieve.

So, let's say you are intending to keep your total weight roughly constant. In this case, you keep an eye on your weight, and if it is going up or down over time, you slowly decrease or increase your daily calories until it stabilises. At this point, you have successfully got your calorie intake and your calories burnt in balance.

Where the formulas come in handy are in choosing how much food to start off with. You have to choose some particular amount at the start of the process. And since the formulas tell you the average for a population, they are a good starting point.

And that is what they are. A starting point. The next task - and the actual important one - is then trial and error, over time, and adjustments until you reach the actual correct calories for your overal intended effect. You could start with a different amount of calories altogether, and take it from there. But it's nice to start with an average amount rather than a totally random amount, if you have nothing else to go on.

I use a piece of software called DietPower. I'm sure a few people in here have heard of it, but most maybe not. It is like fitday.com in that it has a huge library of foods and drinks from which you make up your diet. You can add more if you need to, entering their nutritional content.

It takes account of what you eat from day to day, as well as the number of calories burnt through exercise. I have heard, however, that these figures are very inaccurate. Anyway, rather than taking your weight and height and telling you the number of calories you need on average, it actually calculates it for you based on previous experiences.

DietPower will notice that you have been losing X lbs on a daily intake of Y calories and adjust it to meet your target. Weight loss (or rather fat loss) seems to be your goal, but it can also cope with weight gain and maintenance, just by watching your weight vs calorific intake.

On top of that, it will do the things that fitday does, by telling you your macronutrient split and also your vitamin intake. Not all foods are fully completed though, so this will just be a VERY rough estimate.

I have been using it for a month, and have asked it to help me get from 200lbs to 168lbs. Today's weight is a bit above what it should be due to waterweight - yesterday's weight was 194lbs. The graph is tracking a 7-day average, removing all the waterweight noise (see this post (http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showpost.php?p=218640&postcount=27)) which shows you how close it is.

My "bank balance" is something I don't really pay attention to. 8934 calories have built up there due to some nights out where I haven't been bothering what I've been eating and drinking, but logged it since DietPower needs to know WHY I've gained a lb. It's mainly alcohol to be honest :) The NQ gives you a mark on how well you've eaten that day - i.e. how closely what you've eaten compares to your targets. It goes up to 120 (A++).


9750


Quite cool, eh?

-Masher

its not just in the diet

2 things, do you (and they) lift wieghts? how old?
my closest friends i knew not in HS growing up were lean and ate whatever, i ate worse then them and was much more inactive once HS sports stopped hence my weight gain, but anyway now its 3 years later.. its catching up to them as a couple have grown beer bellies and what not but the main difference is, only one has ever lifted for this entire time and he is the only one that looks great.... even me at probably a higher BF% then them (or maybe not know not sure) i have a better composition because of lifting

its gonna catch up with them and it also depends on your other activities

Yes I do lift, 4x weekly. I lift the most out of all of my friends, only two lift and it is on occasion. I guess I'm just really jealous that they can be lean and eat a whole lot of whatever, and I am not very lean and have to eat a lot less. This is considering I lift for 1.5-2hrs 4x weekly, and do cardio everyday for 30 mins.

Also, in my post I accidentally put down 2800 for an active adult, not an active MALE.

Its hard for me to tell if my weight is moving around beause it fluctuates like hell. One day I weighed myself multiple times, and came up with weights ranging between 159-168 lbs. Maybe my scale just totally sucks.

Anyway, thanks for all the feedback!

It just seems that I put WAY more effort into what I am doing, but my friends are the ones enjoying the summer with their shirts off. So the hell what? You play the cards you're dealt. I was a bit chubby as a kid and all of my friends looked far better with their shirts off. I was too embarrassed to take mine off. I decided to get serious when I turned 16 and promptly lost weight and started putting on muscle. So, it took some effort, and others seemingly stayed thin with out it.

Fast forward a decade. I am thin and muscular and hardly any of the guys my age are. I have a yearly lake party at a guy's house and out of about a dozen couples myself and another guy (he works out like a fiend) look the best and nobody else is comporable. I'm not bragging, but merely stating that your friends' lazy approach now will not reap dividends later, but your disciplined approach will. It's not that my soft friends couldn't look good if they wanted to put in the effort, but when you're my age you have to put in effort if you want to look good, and if you do put it in, you'll get what you want.

It sucks that we can't all look like Arnold without trying, but we can't. I have an ungodly huge appetite and not very good genetics, but I deal with it. So, I may have to work harder than many others, but the thing is many others aren't bothering _at all_. End result: I have a physqiue I want and they do not. Just be practical about it!

Oh, BTW, I've spent a little time around some ectomorphs. The only one I've spent a lot of time around I used to hear about how he'd "eat like a pig" and that his was at his grandmothers and she was doing her best to fatten him up but she couldn't. He was 6,3 and weighed like 140, as a young adult. Reality? He ate very little. I watched, because I wanted to see for myself. He'd eat a couple of times/day. The #*$(ing guy did not get hungry. It's like his hunger network did not work. So, he'd go hours and hours and then realize "Oh, maybe I should eat". So, his family would see him maybe SOMETIMES crank a lot of food in, but then they were forgetting that he probably hadn't eaten all day. Furthermore, he was a very damn picky eater. In actuality, he'd hardly ever finish his plate, and rarely get seconds.

So, we all know the skinny person who eats pizza every night and a candy bar, but what's he doing the rest of the day? There are few people who are TRULY eating tons and tons of food and staying rail-thin. It's possible, but then it doesn't mean it applies to you, and believe me: will wins out over genetics every time. If you combine poor genetics with a will to succeed, it won't be long into adulthood before you're smoking the people with "good genes" who are still eating like slack assed teenagers.

I get depressed just being around my younger (only by 3 years) brother. He loses weight if he doesn't eat constantly, while I gain if I look at the wrong foods for too long. However, when we both hit the weights, I gain muscle more quickly than he does, so I guess it balances out.

When we were hitting the gym together about 10 years ago, I told him I was jealous of him because he didn't need to do any cardio to stay slim. He said he was jealous of me because I didn't need months and months to make gains in my benches. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

Don't give up hope, or let the shirtless guys get you down! It may take more work for you, but it'll be all the sweeter when you get to the point where you can't wait to take your shirt off in public, because you'll know you worked for it! :flex:

Dont dell bummed out. Its all a matter of time. One of my good friends always used to call me fat ass. Well I lost 38 pounds and gained muscle and he stayed the same. Well now hes the fat ass because he now weighs what I used to weigh. So now he seems to be fully aware hes the fatter of both of us and hes dieting. Only problem is hes starving himself cause he thinks he'll lose weight faster. So hes now becoming a skinny fat person.

Anyway back to the subject. Take your time cutting. Maybe this summer you wont enjoy it like you would have liked to have enjoyed it. But if you keep on track with your fitness goal come next summer you'll be the person getting all the attention.;)