How many Calories to Lean Out?

Megan had a great question from the Paleolithic Solution podcast Episode 6. Here is her question and my answer. As you see again, there are no one-size fits all approaches. We need to be able to think about what we are doing and why we are doing it. A little understanding of the scientificals helps with silly stuff like trouble shooting.

From Megan:

Question about the fat prescription: I’m not fat phobic and I thought I was eating plenty of fat until I heard the prescription of 15 cal/ # body weight. I’m a 150# female (want to lean out a bit), o-lift/strength 3x week, CF 2x week, office job. I have been averaging about 110g protein, 88g carbs, 133g fat, 1800 cals. If I follow the fat prescription (+150g protein + 50g carbs) my caloric intake would be 3050 – a significant jump. I know it’s not all about calories, but that seems like a big jump. Would you recommend this fat prescription & amount of calories for women who want to increase strength but reduce body fat?

My answer:

Megan!!

Wait a second girl, I think you are combining the mass gain recommendations with the lean out recommendations. Lets look at this: 150g protein= 600 cals, 50g carbs=200 cals the “lean out prescription is less than 15cal/lb/day. For you let’s run about 13cals: 13X150= 1,950cals. 1,950-800cals (from carbs/protein) = 1,150 cals from fat which is 127 g of fat (9 cals/g of fat). That is a 58% fat level, easily ketogenic. Here are the wiggle points:

1-If you are trying to lean out AND are more or less ketogenic you may not NEED that much protein. You might be fine running tighter than that. In which case we simply adjust your other macros to fill in. I LIKE that protein level however. Plenty of BCAA’s. Very satiating etc.

2-The numbers are a generality that has some scaling based on body size. We base the 20cals on Welbourn. Who is BIG. Interestingly however, as you get larger your surface-area goes up as a square, your volume goes up as a cube. Less surface-area to volume means less heat radiated relative to size. I am working on some scaling based on this and you will see it in the collaborative book The Paleo Diet for Power Athletes with Welbourn, Cordain and myself. For now this is just a starting point.

3-So, this is a great STARTING place for folks, but you may need to adjust things down a bit. Again, I think for most people, simply eyeballing a low carb paleo diet is MONEY for leaning out. If you get stuck, you may need to weigh and measure to figure out where things are buggered. It all depends on how much effort you want to put into the whole thing. I’m lazy, I weighed and measured as a chemist…it’s hard to rally me to do this stuff, but again it’s a tools for the using.

Now, if leaning out is the upmost priority I think Zone level protein with deleted carb blocks works great. In my FAQ I touch on this but it is also covered in 42 ways to Skin The Zone. What we have in this situation is a low carb, very calorie deficient program. You will lean out rapidly, you will also likely lose some muscle mass and feel like dookie. The method I outlined above is slower but you are likely to maintain your muscle mass and performance better. Slow and steady or hair on fire, it’s your call.

But Hey! This is all Pseudoscience anyway!