Hard time getting enough calories in during heavy lifting

[lfod14]

my maintenance calories are 3300. my goal is 2500. when i was off keto, no problem. was even hungry.(but fat loss was rather slow)
now I hit 2000cal and i just can’t eat anything. my protein is at 200-250g however which is my goal.
sould i just ignore the calorie count and listen to my body, as long as hit my protein intake?

If you’re getting in your protein, you’ll be putting up a fight for a while, but if you’re consistently eating 1300cals below maintenance you (are) going to start losing lean mass, no way around it. You say mostly carnivore, if not actually carnivore then just drink them if you have to. Incredibly easy to make a shake at 1000cals if you wanted to without even being able to tell.

Being 247 at 6’3" isn’t bad to begin with, losing a lot of fat without losing muscle isn’t possible, but it can be minimized. But not with that large of a longterm caloric deficit. 2000cals while lifting heavy 4-5x /wk isn’t even enough to fuel that growth in most cases. Where’d you get those cals? Is that from tracking and honing in on them, or is that from a calculator guessing them?

[Naghite]

44y old male. 6.3.ft/192cm. 247 LBS, 27% body fat. weights 4-5x week(heavy). cardio 3x week(light)
goal is fat reduction without muscle loss. also on 200mg/TRT weekly
i got 27%BF or so. last dexa in nov i was 30. so there is success.
i was on and off keto, but firmly back in (mostly carnivore) for a month or so. dropped like 5lbs in a week (probably water)
my maintenance calories are 3300. my goal is 2500. when i was off keto, no problem. was even hungry.(but fat loss was rather slow)
now I hit 2000cal and i just can’t eat anything. my protein is at 200-250g however which is my goal.
sould i just ignore the calorie count and listen to my body, as long as hit my protein intake?

LOL, I was thinking of asking carnivores how they get away with eating less than that. I am struggling to get my protein under 2g/kg body weight. I guess I just love protein too much. My best attempt so far (as in keeping it low) was at 2, while I was eating much more g/kg at 3000-3600 daily calories. Practice makes perfect, I am learning to eat more fat and eating smaller portions of lean meats like heart or an outside roast.

I measure for a bit and check myself, then take a break. Then check myself again…but I have high IR so I am checking sugars still

Good luck with your journey.

[PaulL]

i’m not sure what my weight should be lbs/kg wise. since a year or so, I made around 10-15lbs in muscle gains. at 20% BF, with my current lean gain progress, i probably will be around 225-230lbs or so. this is how i calculate my protein intake, while some would say it is a bit too high, due to the fact that i am on (a rather high dose) of TRT. there don’t seem to many downsides of having your protein a bit higher.

Well, 230 lbs. is 104.5 kg. At 20% body fat, your lean mass would be 104.5 × 0.8 = 83.6, so your range of protein should be in the neighbourhood of 83-166 g, which is far less than the 200-250 g you mentioned earlier. Given that 166 g of protein is only 664 g/23.4 oz. of meat, you should find that an easier target than the 1.0 kg/32 oz. you are currently struggling to eat.

As for the drug you mention, TRT, I’m not familiar with it or its effects or even what disease it’s used to treat, so cannot comment on how it would affect your way of eating, sorry.

[Shinita]

so your range of protein should be in the neighbourhood of 83-166 g, which is far less than the 200-250 g you mentioned earlier.

No, 1g/kg is definitely not the right idea if one is serious about a decent paced muscle gain and if one is already muscular, they need more anyway. I wouldn’t give an advice going below 1.5g/kg for sure and some extra can’t hurt as long as eating it isn’t a serious problem…
For people not wanting to gain muscle and having problems with eating even 1.5g/kg, yep, 1-1.5 may work fine though it is so weird to me when a short non-muscular girl eats, like, 50g protein, it’s so super low! Isn’t it? Maybe my own consumption and love towards protein skewed my perception but it still sounds tiny…

I am struggling to get my protein under 2g/kg body weight. I guess I just love protein too much.

I can relate. I am around 3g/kg for LBM lately (my LBM is quite small), it is bothering me though it’s still not unhealthy at least, just wasteful.
I am sure that for me, OMAD is the solution. But I know about your meals, you can eat way more than me in one sitting despite I am not being bad at it either (though it’s less on carnivore).
Fattier food helps too, it’s not a good idea for me, sadly as I overeat fat then. Except when my protein is super low hence today’s fat fast experiment.
Being a bit over 2g/kg is fine if you feel okay, IMO. My weekly average is over it all the time, no matter what. I had that all my life, probably, avoiding meat and/or eating high-carb didn’t do anything to the high protein needs of my body…
So my theory is that some of us need over 2g/kg protein. Maybe not for the necessary functions protein do, humans allegedly don’t need that much even when gaining muscle naturally… But I definitely need it for satiation for some reason. But I still have a tiny hope that I can go lower than usual (even if it’s still above 2g/kg) on carnivore OMAD. I will try that.

[Naghite]

Yesterday I ate fatty meats like pork ribs and salmon. Afterwards it tracked to 260 g of protein. Since I weigh 60 kg even, that is 4.3 g/kg. I failed , will try harder today.

[Shinita]

I go for fattier meat today, pork jowl (76% fat in weight, 98% in calories. it does have a tiny meat, I don’t eat pure fat tissue no matter how very popular it is in my country, maybe not among the younger generations…?) and just a little pork shoulder as it’s not fatty enough for my purposes… But it’s a fat fast day, at least that’s the plan… We will see. I have very lean fresh ham too so tomorrow will be high protein, most probably.
Oh I will eat dry sausage too, carefully as it’s only 82% fat…

There are many fatty meat options, thankfully and I need them on my normal days too. I experienced this when I learned to enjoy leaner pork, it messed up my fat/protein ratio. While I don’t care about my ratio itself (or my fat intake), it’s tricky to keep my energy and protein intake right if my ratio doesn’t suit my actual goals. 80% fat is guaranteed overeating in my case. For someone with a high energy and normal protein need, it may be too low… I love fat but I probably wouldn’t love to go very high with it… But I don’t know. I could just eat a bucket of sour cream, it actually sounds amazing… Maybe not every day. No problem, I have many other ideas.
Well, it’s not my problem, unfortunately. Eating MORE is almost always so easy for me…

[lamehack]

i personally avoid all pork. not a religious thing or anything, but I am trying to reduce my intake of Linoleic acid which pork is full of. there is a bit of controversy around this, but a lot of grain fed meat is full of this.
the only exception is beef, as the cow somehow neutralizes this (sorry, my understanding is limited, this is according to Saladino/Mercola which i have some limited trust to)
also avoiding fatty chicken, due to the same reason. which leaves you with fatty beef/dairy/butter.
but your typical costco beef is usually lean unless you buy something like rib-eye.
i think a lot of people in the keto community look at all fat equal, but IMO this is not very good.
i personally even used to fry stuff in canola oil, thinking this is ‘keto’. this stuff is more toxic then sugar…

[Shinita]

I can’t afford being choosy, good thing I love pork Okay, I AM choosy as chicken is cheaper (and horribly tasteless - or super expensive - and not satiating at all so it wouldn’t help)…
Without pork I would need to depend seriously on gluten and eggs (I do it with the latter already but doesn’t want a similar relationship with gluten)… With some organs and turkey thrown into the mix but I probably would eat carbs despite they aren’t good for me in order to get my variety and food joy…
Sometimes I think about these things and feel very, very thankful that my body and tastebuds LOVE pork. I would be doomed otherwise. Okay, I could make it work somehow but it would be way less ideal.

Of course not all fat is equal… Even lard isn’t like a very different lard, I’ve read articles about it. And we on this forum very seriously avoid seed oils…