I’m trying to burn some body fat as I gained some weight recently. I’m pretty fit as it is so exercising isn’t hard, it’s the diet. I’m a chronic snacker, I’ll eat close to 3000 calories in a setting sometimes.
So I looked into counting calories and used some calculator on the internet. They suggest me eat upwards to 240-300 grams of protein for maintaining. This is extremely hard to do while staying within my goal calorie intake for fat loss.
Those numbers are really excessive unless you’re an abnormally large and muscular person. Typically, protein recommendations range anywhere from 1.5g to 2 2g per kg of bodyweight per day. If you’re on a cut, I think the higher end of that range is good to retain lean mass, especially when combined with resistance exercise.
So start with your total daily caloric intake, subtract the amount of calories required to achieve roughly 1g of protein per pound of lean mass (e.g., a 200 pound person at 20% bf should have a goal somewhere in the ball park of 160g), then distribute the remaining calories to achieve an appropriate fat/carb ratio. Most of these numbers have pretty wide wiggle room within “optimal” but I’d say choose caloric and macronutrient goals that you can beat stick to throughout the duration of your cut.
Low calorie high protein diet burns fat builds muscle. Get 7-8 hrs sleep every night, drink a lot of water, and exercise although as I see you’ve got part under control. Cardiovascular exercise & weight training
Fat loss is almost entirely related to calorie intake vs expenditure. I’ve written an article explaining the ins and outs of calories, but the gist of it is that your 3000 calories is more the problem than protein consumption.
If you’re trying to gain mass, that kind of calorie and protein intake can work and is often referred to as ‘bulking’ whereas if you want to lose fat you enter a ‘cut’ or ‘shred’ phase.
Healthline Article Explaining Bulking & Shredding
If you know all this, I don’t mean to talk down to you at all.
I see that .8g - 2.2g of protein per kg of body weight measurement all the time and have yet to find a way to balance that into a calorie plan that works for my daily life / exercise routines without just eating 5 chicken breasts a day and torturing my wife with keto breath.
Edit: I’m bad at math. A 180lb man is \~80kg. 80 \ .8 = 64g of protein while 80 * 2.2 is 176g of protein. Either is manageable on even a 2000 calorie diet.*
Mostly I just shoot for 100g of protein / day, which is about 400 calories worth.