Please explain "calorie deficit" and other stuff please.

SwankyTomato

You guys all talk about your "calorie deficit". Does that mean that you eat under your goal calories on MFP?

If so how much do you eat under?

I need to lose 20 and I exercise twice a week at the moment (step and strength training classes). I am playing around with finding the correct caloric intake for the day for me.

When I had it set to 1280, I could see loss. However now I changed my activity level to reflect exercise/lifestyle I can feel that it is too high.

Then you guys talk about losing "lean muscle" and no way in heck do I want that as I am concerned with overall fitness shape and strength.

I know it is trial and error, I suppose. Help!

TIA

daisyls85

Your body needs a certain amount of calories to just maintain your current weight. You need a deficit to lose weight. Mfp will set your allowance for you with the deficit. I've also seen the calculation of your weight x 10 minus 500 to be close to what MFP suggest.

Liftng4Lis

When entering your stats and goals into MFP, there is a number given to you that includes a deficit. Additionally, your activity level is your basic lifestyle, not including exercise (added separately if using MFP's way). If you want to include your exercise as part of your lifestyle, then you are using the TDEE -20 method so you want to check your numbers.http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

SwankyTomato

daisyls85 wrote: »

Your body needs a certain amount of calories to just maintain your current weight. You need a deficit to lose weight. Mfp will set your allowance for you with the deficit. I've also seen the calculation of your weight x 10 minus 500 to be close to what MFP suggest.

So, since I am not really exercising at a high level yet, I should ignore the exercise?

cincysweetheart

Calorie deficit simply means that you are eating less calories than you are burning (remember that you burn calories just by being alive as well as through exercise). You can technically eat over your goal and still be in deficit. For example, my goal is currently set to lose 2 pounds a week. Therefore MFP gives me a calorie goal that includes a 1000 calorie a day deficit. I could eat 500 calories above my goal and I would still be in deficit. I would just lose weight at a slower pace.

If you have changed your activity level and the calories are too high that you aren't seeing a loss anymore… then change it back to where it was. Considering you aren't doing a great deal of exercise (only twice a week), I wouldn't change your activity level for that. Chose the activity level based on your life outside of your workouts and just log your exercise separately… then you can eat back a portion of your exercise calories.

Fast or extreme weight loss due to extremely high deficits can sometimes lead to losing lean muscle as well as fat. This can be minimized by losing more slowly and by doing some strength training as part of your workouts from day one. Making sure you get enough protein will help with that too.

malibu927

The calories MFP gives you is already set to a deficit and includes your day to day activities WITHOUT exercise. You're supposed to eat to that number, plus half of your exercise calories to account for miscalculation of burns.

In order to keep your muscle, make sure you are consuming enough protein and adding strength/resistance training into your routine.

daisyls85

SwankyTomato wrote: »

daisyls85 wrote: »

Your body needs a certain amount of calories to just maintain your current weight. You need a deficit to lose weight. Mfp will set your allowance for you with the deficit. I've also seen the calculation of your weight x 10 minus 500 to be close to what MFP suggest.

So, since I am not really exercising at a high level yet, I should ignore the exercise?

Well unless you have a heart rate monitor you're really estimating calories burned during exercise. MFP calculations won't be exact so you run the risk of over estimating calories burned and then over eating. I wouldn't say totally ignore the exercise but I wouldn't eat them back if you're not hungry. Listen to your body. If you're hungry eat something. If estimating I will input a lesser amount than what MFP tells me. For example if it says I burned 250 cals I will adjust it to a lesser number.

Sued0nim

Your activity level is how you live your life ...work at a desk = sedentary, on your feet like a teacher = lightly active

When you exercise log it separately under exercise. If using the MFP database knock off 25-50% calories as it overestimates

Your MFP goal calories will be at the bottom of your food diary ...the number it says to eat includes your calorie defecit and you should eat that amount of calories

SwankyTomato

So I guess I have to play with the MFP settings a bit and find that perfect balance. I am not into extremes and have it set to .5. Maybe I should change that to 1 lb/week.

Sued0nim

How much do you have to lose that can help you determine a healthy rate of loss

lemurcat12

To add to what everyone has said, if you go to Goals you will see a line that says "daily calorie deficit." That's your deficit (without exercise). If it's 500 calories (and you eat to your goal), that's generally going to average to a loss of 1 lb/week. That's what people are usually talking about when they refer to their deficit unless they use the TDEE method explained above.

Typically, I'd say "lightly active" if I walked a lot daily, had a job that involved some movement, or had young kids I was running around after or did a lot of housework. For me, I don't do that much around my house (I'm neat enough, though!), don't have kids, and sit all day at my job, but I live in a big city and walk most everywhere/take public transportation, so I found that made me "lightly active." Some people have jobs that are "active." For exercise, like you are talking about, I'd just log that when I did it and typically deduct about 25% to 50% of the calories from the count, depending on what it was. (I count all running calories, but would deduct about half of biking calories and a portion of exercise class based calories depending on what seemed reasonable.) With those modifications MFP's deficit predicted well for me, but you have to compare performance over time and adjust.

I now use the TDEE method, which means I include exercise in the overall number and deduct from that, insist of adding back in exercise. To give some context, I'm around your age (45), am now close to my goal weight (127), and have been eating and losing about 1 lb/week (sometimes more) at 1600. I'm getting nervous about losing lean mass, so am going to increase my calories/lower my deficit. (The deficit MFP shows me in goals is misleading because of the exercise I do that it doesn't count--it thinks I'm already almost at maintenance.)

As you are only seeking to lose 20, 1280 seems lower than you should need to lose, as you won't want a rate above 1 lb. Losing lean mass isn't worth it.

SwankyTomato

lemurcat12 wrote: »

As you are only seeking to lose 20, 1280 seems lower than you should need to lose, as you won't want a rate above 1 lb. Losing lean mass isn't worth it.

And there is the sticking point for me. That is what I thought as well.

It really can get a bit confusing reading all these threads.

I will be 50 next month so I REALLY do not want to lose lean muscle!

clambert1273

I recommend (and this is just me personally) calculating your TDEE subtract 10-20% from that... don't log exercise once you set it to this method... I log just for keeping track but set calorie burned at 1 lol

Keeps you eating the same amount each day ... you just have to know how much you work out to calculate (no biggie). For the lean muscle retention, I would highly recommend a strength program.. there are many on here including bodyweight.

Sued0nim

SwankyTomato wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

As you are only seeking to lose 20, 1280 seems lower than you should need to lose, as you won't want a rate above 1 lb. Losing lean mass isn't worth it.

And there is the sticking point for me. That is what I thought as well.

It really can get a bit confusing reading all these threads.

I will be 50 next month so I REALLY do not want to lose lean muscle!

Get into a heavy lifting programme now

Strong Curves, New Rules of Lifting for Women, Ice Cream Fitness, Strong Lifts 5x5

SwankyTomato

Thanks! I will look into the heavy lifting. I do belong to a gym and have access to their equipment.

I do take strength training classes however they are at such a high pace time wise which is not ideal.