Bodybuilding Forums

I want to start the MANS diet, but I have no idea how many grams of fat I am supposed to have each day. I know to start at 30g of carbs and to have about 1g of protein for every pound of my muscle weight I believe? I also know that calorie counting isn't that important for the MANS diet. I will just put all my info here and hope someone helps! Thanks for any input/advice for a beginner!

Female (if that makes a difference)
5 foot 2 1/2 inches
115 pounds
Body Fat 19.8%

The simpliest way to work out your daily Kcals is to multiply your weight in lb by 16. in yur case that would be about 1800 kcal's a day. 30 grm of carbs is about 120 kcal 200 grms of protien is 800 kcal which leaves about 900 kcals of fat which is about 100 grms. It's 1 gram of protien per kg not lb. for pounds it's about 2 to 2.2 grams per pound.

There are 4 kcals for a gram of Protien or carbs and 9 kcals for every gram of fat.

Hope this helps

Your math is wrong. If its 1 gram of protein per kg then it's 1 gram per 2.2 pounds as 1kg = 2.2 lbs. You would thus divided 1 gram by 2.2 to find out how much protein per pound that is not multiply. 1 gram per kg is low and I believe is incorrect. I checked the MANS diet http://www.musclehack.com/best-bodybuilding-diet-plan-revealed/ and did not see anything regarding protein intake for the diet so not sure where the 1 gram / kg is coming from.

I need advice too...not sure how much fat to eat.

I'm 5'4", 125lbs, around 17% BF

As for the girls question above, I think 1.5 grams of protein per pound would be about right....that would be 172.5 gms/day.

I am kind of concerned, because on the other muscle building plans I've followed, the cals have never been more than 1700/day. But I was eating higher carb also. After my cutting cycles, I always put the fat back on in the least desirable places (glutes/thighs/lower back) when I started trying to build again. I'm back in the same boat this year...with no noticeable increase in my upper body size. I swear the only thing that has grown is my calves.

I was wondering if it would be counterproductive to try to lean out my lower half, while increasing upper body size. Or...somehow just NOT GROW my legs anymore? Anyone have advice on how to just maintain leg size, while trying to bulk the upper body? I did the THT workout for legs yesterday...but I really don't want them any bigger.

1700 cals a day for building? How did they come to this conclusion? I put your weight and body fat % into the TSPA calculator and it said your maintenance calories would be 2150. Your starting calories for dieting on the program would be 1500.

Now the 2150 is an estimate so it could be a bit more or a bit less depending on what your actual metabolism is. The fact your gaining fat back on 1700 calories makes me think your metabolism is pretty messed up. From your profile picture I take it you compete? You may need some one on one coaching instead of a general guild like MANS to get you headed in the right direction. I can recommend someone that specializes in this kind of things if your interested. He charges but has a proven success record.

EDIT - actually here is the site you can check it out http://leanbodiesconsulting.com/

Yes, I have competed twice. When I started out (2 years ago) I was a 123 skinny fat gal....who was happy by the way. My goal was to compete, but gain muscle/lose fat at the same time. My trainer then I think took my bodyweight x 13 and calculated the calorie level. 8 months after starting my training, I weighed in at about 104 for my first competition. Thank God I didn't go crazy eating after...but started bulking again last year, had a new trainer who said she was trying to get my metabolism back on track. She had me at a high of 1700 cals on a workout day, 1500 on rest days. Then my diet started at 1300 cals/workout day, 1100/rest day. The good news is I weighed in at 10 lbs heavier...just not as lean.

I cycled carbs on both plans. The first year it was more precise because my trainer was a former bodybuilder.

I always thought thought that I would be able to really "eat" while I was building. I swear before I started all this, and was skinny but flabby, I probably ate in the range of 2000-2500 cals/day of more calorie dense food. And I was able to maintain with just putting medium effort into workouts. Now I'm scared to death to eat that many calories, unless it's a cheat day!

Anyway....I am so far enjoying M.A.N.S. It's easy, it's food I like. Although I am not getting up to the recommended calorie level. I topped out yesterday at about 1800. It seemed like a lot of food. Who is the recommended trainer? I would check them out...but really don't have the income right now to do that. That's why I bought Marks book and started researching this kind of eating and training.

Thanks for sharing zonedriven. I am working towards my first competition in Oct 2012. The site is http://leanbodiesconsulting.com/. Eric has a bunch of free info and forums and you can ask questions etc. He has a pretty extensive list of testimonials from competition athletes he has helped. Not trying to take away from Mark but when you get into competition its taking training and dieting to a whole new level especially for many who followed bad advise previously and really screwed up their metabolism, which is what Eric seems to be really good at getting people back on track and healthy again.

Yeah...it's gotta be precise, especially for bodybuilding. I think I would have done well in Figure last year, but it's not my thing. I will check out that website!

HI zonedriven,

Unfortunately you can't spot reduce when it comes to moving fat!
Most people find that the first place the fat goes to and the last place it comes off from is the three body fat stores that you mentioned, ie thighs, glute's and waist/lower back. the only way to reduce these areas is to get your diet right and reduce all over.
As for gaining more on upper body whilst maintaining legs, this will have to be a case of trial and error. You will have to try to do more higher reps and lower weights and try to find the right level of training that maintains good definition without putting too much size on your legs, whilst training heavy with lower reps for your upper body to increase size. This is not an exact science. You may have to stop training legs for a while or maybe train them once a fortnight instead of once a week if that is your regime.
Your problem here is a nice problem to have. Can you imagine how you would feel if you couldn't build your legs? Especially if your genes meant that you just didn't have enough muscle fibre in your legs to allow you to build them bigger!
I was looking at the mikementzer.com website doing some research on HIT training as mike was a great advocate of this style of training, and one of his solutions for someone struggling to grow their calves was to not train them. His reasoning behind this was that HIT training stimulates the body to grow all over due to the hormones being released when doing the big lifts, and by not training calves you were not over training them so allowing them to grow. As I said it's not an exact science.
Have a look at his website there is some really good stuff on there even nutrition info'

Good luck, Graham

Sometimes I think people like to over complicate things.

If you have a body part your happy with and don't want it to get any larger simply train it at the weight and reps that got it to that level instead of pushing to up the reps and weight like you do when your trying to make the muscle grow.