Re-Calculate Your Calories to Prevent Stalls and Crashes

This is for my current clients who has lost quite a bit of body fat (20-30lbs+) but still have a way to go.

We know that the lighter the body, the less calories it burns..  So comparing a person who is 300lbs and a person who is only weighing at 150lb.  The person who is 300lbs will burn almost double the calories due to carrying more mass and will need the energy/calories to maintain it.

An overweight dieter at 300lbs will also have more fat to lose and will have an easier time cutting calories comparing someone who is relatively lean.   This means, if both are trying to lose body fat and one is trying to not get a stroke while the other is trying to get rid of stubburn fat to compete in a bodydbuliding show, the leaner person will only be able to tolerate a very small bit calorie deficit.

When our body gets to a certain (low) body fat percentage, it will defend starvation (fat cells death) stronger than someone who is simply obese.  This is why the popular recommendation of cutting 500kcal a day doesn't work.  For someone who's obese, seeing a 1lbs/week (7day x 500kcal = 3500kcal = 1lbs of fat) of fat loss is very discouranging.  Instead of using a stardard # of calories to cut all the way through, it should depend on the person's specific goal, body composition status, training, gender, and dieting experience.

you can read more about what is the most appropirate rate of fat loss (calorie cut) for the body to avoid performance crash, hungwe pangs, mood swings, and muscle loss, here.
http://www.examiner.com/article/are-you-cutting-too-many-calories

So if you've been doing good on my diet and has lost more then 10lbs but is slowly running into stalls and loss of strength or muscle mass, here's what you need to do to update your calorie allowance and macronutrient ratio to accomodate your new body.

For men fatter than 12% or women above 20%:

a quick and dirty way is use your current weight in lbs x 14x to find your maintenance. Use 15 if you're a dude.  use 13 if you're completely sendentary and 14 for lazy dudes.

use your bodyweight in pounds x 1% to find the calorie deficit you want to cut per week.

1lb of fat is 3500kcal.

divide the weekly deficit by 7 to find your daily deficit.

take your maintenance minus the deficit to get your total allowance but can always eat less if you want.

For example: if you weigh 200lbs, 1% of that would be 2lbs a week.  That's 7000kcal of calories you  need to cut from your maintenance.  that's 1,000kcal a day.

so if your maintenance is 200lbs x 15 (male who works out) = 3,000kcal

use your maintenance of 3000 - 1000 and you get your daily allowance of 2,000kcal.

So there you have it, that's how you find your new fat loss calorie allowance.

For macros,

whatever your body weight is (in lbs), eat that many grams of protein as minimum.  training or not.

For carbs, you don't really need any if you're sedentary and you could careless about sports performance or weight training.  aim for 0g.  For those who need some flexibility in your meal planning and training recovery, take your bodyweight # and eat under that many grams for carbs.

for fat and alcohol, it really depends on what's left in your calorie budget.  Generally I will allow more carbs on training days especially around the workout and have more fat on rest days. 

For example. If you're at 200lbs, eating 2,000kcal/day to lose 2lbs/week.  You will eat 200g of protein OR MORE. 200g of carbs OR LESS. rest is up to you.

200g of protein and 200g of carbs is 1600kcal.  which leaves you 400kcal to play with for fat and alcohol.  this means, the fattier the meat you want to eat or the more margaritas you want to drink, the less potatoe chips you can get away with. 

Last Step
For every 5% of body weight you keep losing after that, repeat the above formulas until you are under 12% for men and 20% for women.  

If you don't have a good method for measuring bf%, use this
http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages

if you could see definitions on your shoulder and perheps upper abs, your protein requirement will go up and the rate of weekly fat loss will go down  you'll need something different and this is when I will need to take a look at your training, body compsosition, and food intake again.