Calorie suggestion for building abs?

[Knuxchan]

Hello, all. This is my first time in this community. I'm planning on getting a Fitbit Charge HR when it comes out, as a friend suggested that might be the best device for me for what I'm trying to do. I've looked at so many fitness bands/watches, and it was hard to pick one, but I've heard lots of good things about Fitbit's devices, so I'm going to give it a try.

For the new year, I want to work on building my abs. I realize it starts in the kitchen, but I'm not sure how many calories I should be taking in. I am 5'9, 156 lbs. I am a very athletic/active person, doing martial arts and parkour about 12-15 hours a week. However, my day job consists of sitting at a desk on a computer. I plan on getting a Fitibit Charge HR to monitor my heart rate so I can accurately keep track of how much I'm burning when I workout. I've heard so many different stories/suggestions about athletes having to take in a lot of calories, but I don't know if that applies to me. How can I determine how many calories I need to take in? I want to update my Fitbit dashboard accordingly.

Suggestions? Advice?

[Dominique]

---

@Knuxchan wrote:

I plan on getting a Fitibit Charge HR to monitor my heart rate so I can accurately keep track of how much I'm burning when I workout.

---

Although I have no experience with the Charge HR for the time being, I'm sure it's an excellent device. However, it's not going to be optimal for your stated purpose, for the reason explained here. Even if you do get the Fitbit Charge HR, you would therefore still want to log your workouts (strength training) separately, rather than use the calorie burn reported by your Fitbit for these activities.

As to the "calorie suggestion", the general consensus is it's easier to build muscle when on a caloric surplus than on a deficit, so you would want to eat slightly more than what you burn. You would also want to make sure you get enough protein, since it's the main building material for muscle.

However, your problem may not be that you need to build abs (with 12-15 hours of martial arts and parkour per week, one would think you already have decent abs), but rather to make them visible. If so (could well be the case, since you're posting on the Weight Loss forum), this would mean getting rid of some of the fat layer on top of your abs. Lowering your body fat while building muscle at the same time is usually a tall order. You may want to check books by Lyle McDonald, for instance The Stubborn Fat Solution.

[Knuxchan]

Thanks so much for your reply. I don't mind logging my workouts for strength training. So if you don't believe the Charge HR will be optimal for my intended purpose, do you have any suggestions of a device that I should be using instead to keep track of these things?

How do I know how many calories I need to be taking in? Is there a way to calculate that? Or is that something the Fitbit can do?

I do a lot of workouts that are centered around ab-training (crunches, planks, ab wheel workouts, leg-lifts, and more), but I am not seeing the intended results, so I'm wondering if I am burning enough calories, which was why I wanted to invest in a fitness band. But if I am going about this all wrong, then it's best I know before I invest money in a fitness device.

I will check out the book you suggested. Thank you.