This is what your nutrition plan looks like when you start with me. Clear numbers, food you actually recognise, and an honest timeline. Nothing here asks you to overhaul your life in one week.
You are not guessing, and neither am I. This is built from your bodyweight, your training load, and a deficit small enough to keep your strength going up while bodyfat comes down.
Your maintenance sits near 3,000 calories. That is what you burn on an average day at 220lb, training four times a week, based on your height, age, and activity.
We take about 15 percent off that. A larger cut would strip the energy you need to train hard, and lean mass goes with it. This is the deficit that lets you lose fat without losing performance.
Anything within 50 calories of target is on plan. You do not need to hit this to the decimal.
Protein is the number that protects your muscle in a deficit, so it stays fixed. Carbohydrate fuels your training. Fat keeps hormones and recovery where they should be. These are daily targets, not per meal.
| Macronutrient | Daily target | Calories | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protein | 200g | 800 | Holds onto lean mass while you are in a deficit, and repairs what you break down in training |
| Carbohydrate | 255g | 1,020 | Fuels your sessions and refills what you use. This is the number we move on training days |
| Fat | 80g | 720 | Hormone production, joint health, and absorbing the vitamins you are eating |
Pick from these. You are not restricted to them, but building most of your week from this list makes hitting the numbers straightforward instead of a daily maths problem.
One example of how 2,750 calories can look. Meal timing is flexible. Hitting your daily totals matters far more than the clock.
Twenty pounds is a real change and it takes real time. Recomposition is slower than a straight cut because you are building while you lose. That is the trade, and it is worth it.
Fast early drop, mostly water and food volume. Strength holds or climbs. Do not read the first week as your rate of progress.
The steady stretch. Roughly half a pound to three quarters of a pound per week. Clothes change before the scale does anything dramatic.
Target range. Expect the scale to stall for weeks at a time while you are still visibly leaner. That is lean mass going on as fat comes off.
If a day falls apart, hit your 200g and let the rest go. It is the single biggest lever on keeping muscle while you lose fat.
Morning, after the bathroom, before eating. Take the weekly average, not the daily number. Daily weight swings three or four pounds for reasons that have nothing to do with fat.
Oils and nut butters are where hidden calories live. A heavy pour of olive oil can be 200 calories you did not count.
Under fuelling before a session costs you the quality of the session, and the session is what tells your body to keep the muscle.
Hitting these numbers most days for six months beats hitting them exactly for three weeks and quitting. Consistency over intensity, always.
If something here is not working for your schedule, your appetite, or your budget, tell me. A plan you cannot follow is not a plan. We adjust it until it fits your actual life.
Check in weekly with your average weight and how your training felt. Those two things tell me everything I need to know about whether to change the numbers.
This plan was written for one hypothetical client. Yours starts with a conversation about your weight, your training, your schedule, and what you actually like eating.