Getting lean and jumping higher by tracking every calorie
How a 150 day deep-dive into calories-in / calories-out took me from 230 lb to 205 lb and a higher vertical leap.
Back in October my rec league basketball team lost back to back games in OT by 1 point. I decided I wanted to make a more serious effort on my conditioning to win more games.
At the time I felt like I was working out hard and eating clean but it was clear my progress was stalling.
I decided it was time to start tracking calories in and out as accurately as possible and see where it took me.
The 3-month keto experiment
I’d never gone low-carb before, but the recent carnivore hype all over my feed sounded appealing. I've always loved eating a lot of meat.
- Macros: ≤ 50 g carbs, ≥ 200 g protein, the rest fat.
- Why it worked: two high-protein meals kept me full on ~2,500 kcal. Basketball performance was unaffected.
- Why I stopped: brutal leg cramps after a morning of toddler snowman building plus an afternoon on the ski slopes. Energy levels after basketball were consistently low.
Flipping the macros (carbs up, fat down)
The fix was obvious: carb-up on heavy exercise days, slash fat to keep calories in check.
- Protein never changed, still a 200 g floor.
- Lean staples
- 85/15 ground beef (1-2 pounds daily. Yes, really)
- Chicken breast or thighs, salmon, tilapia (~300g cooked portions)
- Foods I love but stopped eating
- Bacon & most pork cuts (only toddler leftovers)
- Cheese
- Nuts and peanut butter
What actually stayed on my plate
| Daily staples | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Ground beef | Quick, cheap protein; easy to scale portions |
| Whole-milk yogurt + fruit | Small carb bump, big satiety |
| Coffee with whole milk | Non-negotiable morale booster |
| Low-cal veggies (mushrooms, onions, peppers, tomatoes) | Bulk without blowing the budget |
Never worth it (for me): pastries, sugary drinks, peanut butter, and any recipe so complicated I easily can’t weigh the parts.
How I actually tracked everything
- Kitchen scale on the counter every bottle of olive oil gets weighed before & after a pour.
- Repeat meals breakfast and lunch hardly changed for 100 days; MyFitnessPal logging became two taps.
- Same time weigh ins same moment of each morning routine; reduces water-weight noise.
- Dashboard Apple Watch + MyFitnessPal iOS widgets on a home screen that show a snapshot of my daily calories in and out.
What the data taught me
- Apple Watch burn is close, but not exact. First month it under-shot, later it drifted over by ~8 %. Weekly averages are fine; single-day numbers are noise.
- Resting burn decreased by ~200 calories as my weight declined (2,500 → 2,300) as the weight came off. Your metabolism absolutely adapts to the fat loss.
- Big deficits get harder the leaner you get. At 20% BF I could manage to sleep with a 1,000 kcal deficit; by ~15% BF anything more than −500 was difficult.
- Cumulative deficit vs. scale line tracked very closely, proof the boring math still wins.
Results
I didn’t log exact performance numbers, but here’s the practical outcome:
- Deadlift, squat, bench never dipped (protein saturation worked).
- Consistent one-hand and two-hand dunks achieved as I got to 210 lbs.
- Achieved visible abs for the first time in my life.
Two things I’d highly recommend if you try this
- Weigh your food every time. Simplify recipes until you can weigh them; uncertainty kills results.
- Surface the numbers. Wear an activity tracker, export the data, and look at deficit vs. scale every single day. Progress will keep you motivated.
If you’re stuck at a performance plateau or just curious what complete logging looks like, check out the dashboard: