Need some estimates

[ChrisJG]

You're making too many assumptions. a x1.0 multiplier would mean that all you do is exist. ie. breathing and pumping blood, thats it. You'd be amazed how many calories you can burn just by changing the channel. If you're in a coma, you may qualify, otherwise, you're at least a 1.3 (my guess is closer to 1.6, as Wrangell suggests). You've already said you're running 5 miles so, look at those multipliers again, especially the one that says "This is where most of you are at"

I suggest you re-calculate.

 

[Tripsin]

Regardless of what 1.0 is, the sticky defines 1.2 as "Very light activity (Working a desk job or on a computer and not performing any type of physical activity during your day.)"

When I started doing this, and figuring out all the numbers, I didn't include my projected energy expenditure; I calculated what I was expending at that point in time, and that didn't include an hour of running. The above definition accurately describes what I was doing - no real physical activity to speak of. At most, on some days where I walked places I might have gone up to a 1.3 but that's still 2400. 2400 is also what I come with when I use the hourly calculator.

This really is semantics. I'm sure I would go up to a 1.6 if I included my running, which would be around 2900-3000 total expenditure.

Now that we have that out of the way, I really need to know if I should take supplements like Whey Protein or a Multivitamin and include more meats for proteins when I work out, or if just lifting weights will be enough during a time of dieting.

 

[mdawson2]

i dont agree with your mile calculations according to my bf%, height, weight when I run 5 miles which I do 3 times a week I burn 800cals in roughly 30min. also you have to multiply your bmr by 1.3/1.25. You eat dont you, thats were most of the energy you expend comes from, when your sedentary. you use a lot of ATP just to generate ATP from the glucose itself (metabolism), but anyway for your height and weight. I calculated about 3000calories for your mantenance using my method (including cardio) but the method wrangell uses works too, I know cuz thats what im doin with a 20%cut

 

[Phate89]

You run 5 miles in 30 minutes?

Nice!

 

[Wrangell]

I'm 18 years old, 67 inches (5'7") tall, and about a week into this, I weight 170lb.

My day includes going to college in the morning, driving around for any chores I may have for the day, around 2-3 hours a day in front of the computer, hanging out with friends at any of half a dozen of our favorite spots, and schoolwork in the evening. Throw in maybe an hour or two of watching TV and halfassed studying in there and you have my typical day. I work Fri-Sat-Sun combined 20-25 hours. Since I've started cardio, I've made time for an hour of exercise, most of that being running 4-5 miles.

I've used these two sources to calculate my daily maintainance without the cardio:

The formula found in this sticky: http://training.fitness.com/nutrition/nutrition-101-a-32846.html

And this website:
Estimated Calorie Requirements

The sticky formula gave me 2250 and the second website gave me 2480, so I've averaged it out to 2300.

As for the multipliers listed by Wrangell; Why does the good doctor give a multiplier of as much as 1.3 for "Very light (bed rest)"? A sedentary lifestyle that includes no real activity should be a multiplier of 1.0, since that is what is needed to keep you alive and if you're in bed all day, that's all you're really doing, keeping yourself alive..

Just keeping yourself alive - i.e coma - is closer to your BMR, and conscious rest is closer to your RMR.

And a sedentary lifestyle isn't 1.0 X RMR IMO - I've seen a sedentary lifestyle described as 20% - 40% of RMR .....which is actually much closer to Berardi's factor of 1.3 for " Very Light "...and I've also seen other authors use a catch all 1.6 as a simple rule of thumb average for all lifestyle components.

And as I said before, once you get your separate lifestyle calories estimated, you have to add this to your estimated RMR and then add both of those with your estimated calories expended during exercise to get your maintenance calories. So, in broad brush terms , the primary components of your maintenance calories are RMR calories + lifestyle calories + exercise calories.

As for the " good doctor " .....this is Dr. John Berardi's detailed calc ( i.e Steps #1 - #5 ) of determining your maintenance calories - found in this link....

Bodybuilding.com - John Berardi - Massive Eating - Part I!

Were I to use that formula and your recommendation of 1.6, I would get a maintainance of 2992, almost 3000. There is no way I expend that much while doing "Office Work/watching TV.".

Actually, it's your RMR + Office Work/watching TV.

And, who knows, your lifestyle may be closer to 1.5 instead of 1.6, which would put you at 2,800....or about 16 calories per pound of bodyweight...which is not unreasonable.