What’s Calorie Deficit?

What you eat isn’t the problem, how much you eat is.

There are over a million ways how to lose weight on the internet, but none is as effective as following a calorie deficit.

You must have heard about it. It’s what most fitness coaches talk about these days, and not until recently, did I decide to know more about it.

So what’s a calorie deficit, how does it work, and how can you tell how many calories you need to lose weight?

Read to the last line and in a little while, you’ll learn about all you need to know about calorie deficit.

What’s Calorie Deficit?

First, calories are the value of energy used by the body to perform life functions such as breathing, circulation, and maintaining your heartbeat.

Depending on your age, sex, body composition, and level of activeness, your body needs a specific amount of calories to carry out those functions and they’re obtained from the foods and drinks you take.

However, when your body uses more calories than you consume, you’re working on a calorie deficit, which will result in weight loss because now your body has fewer calories supplied to it, and instead of not carrying out life functions due to insufficient supply, it uses your stored calories instead.

According to research the required amount of calories generally needed by the body is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

How Does Calorie Deficit Work?

If you burn off 1500 calories either by working out, taking a walk, or just being active, and eating meals that sum up to 1000 calories a day, that’s a 500-calorie deficit as opposed to what your body requires.

You’re sure to notice a significant change in your weight balance with consistency in such deficit because when you stop providing your body with the required amount of calories, it will have no choice but to break down your body’s fat and muscles to make up for the 500 fewer calories.

The reverse is the case when you eat more calories than you burn, then you won’t lose weight.

Calorie Deficit Benefits

You may be thinking “I know what the benefits are, I’ll lose some weight”.

Well, while you’re not wrong about that, there are other benefits of calorie deficit, both linked to weight loss and your overall well-being.

Improves Blood Sugar Levels: being on a calorie deficit requires you to eat foods that would amount to a lesser calorie level than you burn, therefore, you’ll be careful about your sugar intake, because high sugar intake can potentially lead to an increase in your calorie intake, and when that happens, your body doesn’t see the need to burn fat or muscles from its reserve.

Therefore, calorie deficit helps you to consume less sugary foods, which is beneficial in regulating your blood sugar levels, hence putting you at lesser risk of developing medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

Keeps You Active: over time, with consistency in your calorie deficit, you’ll begin to feel much lighter and you’ll be able to do more exercises, run more miles and even stretch better.

Plus, because you’re more focused on anything other than a big feast of food, you tend to accomplish more of your daily tasks.

Boosts Your Overall Well-Being: a 2016 study have shown that when people who are overweight begin to cut calories and lose weight, there is an improved change in their moods, sleep, cardiovascular health, and sexual function.

Improves Your Skin Appearance: the popular saying “you are what you eat” is as true as the saying “you look as much as you eat”. Your skin will look better with a calorie deficit as reduced calorie intake will cause reduced skin oil production, thereby reducing breakouts such as acne.

Additionally, our skin constantly sheds and new skin replaces old ones. With calorie deficit, this process is improved, as reduced calorie intake can improve the activities of your macrophages, so not only is old skin replaced but the rate at which you age physically is reduced also.

Calorie Deficit Calculator

Now you know what a calorie deficit is, but how can you calculate your calorie need to be sure that you’re in a deficit that is suitable for weight loss?

There are several ways to do this, the most common ways are manual calculation and online calculation.

To calculate how many calories you need to be in a deficit manually, you could go about it in 2 ways. Either multiply your current body weight by 15 and subtract 500 from the value you get, or use your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and your level of activeness.

How can I know my BMR?

Use the calculation below:

For adult males: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lb) + (12.9 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age) = BMR

For adult females: 655 + (4.3 x weight in lb) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age) = BMR

When you’ve gotten your BMR, then you can calculate how many calories you need to sustain your body, against the recommended value of course. To do this you need to understand how active you are.

For instance, if you’re:

Sedentary (you do little or no exercise): BMR x 1.2

Minimally active (1-3 days of exercise or activity): BMR x 1.375

Moderately active (3-5 days of moderate activity): BMR x 1.55

Very active (6-7 days of staying active): BMR x 1.725

Extremely active (e.g athletes that train two times daily): BMR x 1.9

However, if you want to calculate how many calories you need to stay in a deficit by using the online calculator, you’ll be asked to input your body details and your goal weight, although this may differ for different online calorie deficit calculators.

When you’ve put in those figures, the calculator will display tables and graphs showing your recommended calorie intake and the estimated time for you to achieve your weight loss goal if you follow the guide. This may also differ for different calorie deficit calculators.

However, it is best to get professional advice from your doctor or nutritionist to know just the right amount of calories you need to be in a deficit.

How Much Calorie Deficit Is Too Much?

Even in a calorie deficit, your calorie levels must not be below certain limits, because then it’ll be difficult to see results.

Doctors and nutritionists recommend not eating less than 1,200 calories a day for females and not less than 1,500 calories for males.

It is believed that at any of these levels your daily nutrient recommendations won’t be met. Plus, at lower levels your body may detect a shortage in the food supply, and so to protect it from going into starvation mode, it’ll slow down your metabolic processes, thereby lowering the rate it burns calories, so weight loss will be a lot slower.

Why Am I Not Losing Weight In A Calorie Deficit?

Yes, this can be a problem. Even with tracking the number of calories in your meals and snacks, you may face the frustration of not losing weight.

Why?

Well, being in a calorie deficit is just one way to lose weight, although effective, but there are other factors to consider when you want to lose weight as they may also influence how much weight you put on and how fast it happens.

These factors include:

• Stress level: while different people react differently to stress, to know why you’re not losing weight even in a calorie deficit, be sure that your stress level is at optimum as increased stress levels cause an increase in cortisol levels –the stress hormone.

Generally, an increase in weight is one of the side effects of abnormal levels of several hormones. Therefore, when you’re highly stressed frequently, weight loss might be a slow process.

• Level of activity: to see the optimal result with a calorie deficit, it is best to accompany it with some workouts. If you’re too busy for a full workout, you could always take at least 30-minute walks each day, go swimming or use the stairs instead of the elevator.

Not only is this effective for weight loss, but you’ll also notice that your sleep pattern is improved and it’s beneficial to your cardiovascular health.

• Hormones: just as we have said, peaked hormones can lead to weight gain instead of loss. Aside from stress, your hormones may be abnormally high due to an underlying health condition or if you’re a female, due to your menstrual cycle and the weight increase is usually temporary, mostly water weight which you’ll lose after some time.

So figure out if you have any underlying health condition, if you do, get treatments then you’ll see your weight drop.

Takeaway

A calorie deficit involves eating lesser calories than you burn so your body uses your stored body fat instead, but you have to be careful not to burn so many calories that you feed your body too little because then you may not notice much weight loss.

You can either manually calculate or use an online calorie deficit calculator to know just the right amount of calories you need, or you could speak to a doctor or a nutritionist.

Sources

Calorie deficit calculator www.fatcalc.com

Calorie deficit for weight loss: How it works, tips, and safety www.medicalnewstoday.com

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