What is calorie deficit?

avrae06

This is my first week of counting calories and so far so good but I'm a little confused on what a "calorie deficit" is.
Thanks in advance!

arditarose

Consuming less calories than you burn. Less calories than it takes to maintain your weight.

AmyRhubarb

And that's less calories than what your body burns all day, in a 24 hour period - sleeping, walking, working, folding laundry, etc - not just exercise cals burned.

avrae06

AmyRhubarb wrote: »

And that's less calories than what your body burns all day, in a 24 hour period - sleeping, walking, working, folding laundry, etc - not just exercise cals burned.

Thanks! That makes more sense. Do you know if there is a way to find out an estimate of how many calories are burned doing those everyday tasks?

arditarose

avrae06 wrote: »

AmyRhubarb wrote: »

And that's less calories than what your body burns all day, in a 24 hour period - sleeping, walking, working, folding laundry, etc - not just exercise cals burned.

Thanks! That makes more sense. Do you know if there is a way to find out an estimate of how many calories are burned doing those everyday tasks?

You can figure out your maintenance calories or TDEE using a calculator at iifym.com or scoobysworkshop.com.

avrae06

Awesome! Thanks so much

AmyRhubarb

Or just go with MFP. The daily goal you're given has you at a deficit, and that's before exercise. This means you could eat to goal every day, do zero exercise, and you'll lose weight, because that calorie goal is less than what your body burns all day 9assuming you've entered all your information accurately). If you do exercise, log it in MFP, and those burned cals will be added back into your goal - you can eat those too, and you'll still be in a deficit for the day - your NET cals should be at or near goal.

avrae06

That's good to know that it's included. I have been logging everything pretty accurately and noticed when I exercised the numbers changed. I'm still trying to figure this out I'm so glad 5 days in I finally found this discussion board lol

Smorrison68

Help? In the daily diary area it's listing me as having an 86 for exercise and I have not exercised today and I have not listed any exercise for the day. I don't wanna over eat my calories for the day. This happened yesterday as well and when I did exercise and enter it , it then calculated my calories burned along with the 86 which made it look like I had an extra 86 calories. It won't let me delete the 86 in the daily diary area. I checked and it automatically has done this 3 days straight.

avrae06

Smorrison68 wrote: »

Help? In the daily diary area it's listing me as having an 86 for exercise and I have not exercised today and I have not listed any exercise for the day. I don't wanna over eat my calories for the day. This happened yesterday as well and when I did exercise and enter it , it then calculated my calories burned along with the 86 which made it look like I had an extra 86 calories. It won't let me delete the 86 in the daily diary area. I checked and it automatically has done this 3 days straight.

It sounds like it could be from the step tracker, mine does that too.

avrae06

I think you can turn the step tracker off..

heybales

avrae06 wrote: »

AmyRhubarb wrote: »

And that's less calories than what your body burns all day, in a 24 hour period - sleeping, walking, working, folding laundry, etc - not just exercise cals burned.

Thanks! That makes more sense. Do you know if there is a way to find out an estimate of how many calories are burned doing those everyday tasks?

Average everyday task calorie burn is estimated by your selection of non-exercise activity level in your profile setup.
So if you have 45 hr weekly commute/desk job, no kids, no big shopping times, bump on a log outside of exercise - you are sedentary.

Then when you exercise, you burn more. Of course MFP doesn't know this until you log it.
So you log it, MFP knows you burned more, subtract the same say 500 calories to cause 1 lb weekly loss, and you eat more on those days.

That way, big exercise day, small exercise day, rest day, you take 500 calories off what you have burned in total for the day (estimated), and you eat correctly for what you have done.

cwolfman13

You require XXXX amount of energy (calories) per day to maintain the status quot...you have your basal requirements (BMR)...these are the calories you "burn" by merely existing...your heart pumping, lungs working, kidneys detoxing your body, etc. For most women this is in the neighborhood of 1300 - 1400 calories or so...on top of that you have your day to day stuff...everything you do during the day requires energy (calories). Then finally, you have exercise...which for most people, calorie requisites are fairly minimal unless they're an athlete or training for endurance events, etc.

You add that all up and you get your TDEE...Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Lets say this number is 2000 calories...to lose 1 Lb per week you would simply eat 1500 calories...this would represent a 500 calorie per day deficit (2000 - 1500 = 500)

MFP figures this all out for you when you put your stats in...your calorie goal includes your weight loss deficit BEFORE exercise...with MFP you add your exercise calories in after the fact when you log it.

heybales

Smorrison68 wrote: »

Help? In the daily diary area it's listing me as having an 86 for exercise and I have not exercised today and I have not listed any exercise for the day. I don't wanna over eat my calories for the day. This happened yesterday as well and when I did exercise and enter it , it then calculated my calories burned along with the 86 which made it look like I had an extra 86 calories. It won't let me delete the 86 in the daily diary area. I checked and it automatically has done this 3 days straight.

Do you sync with Fitbit or other daily activity tracker?
And there are 2 diaries - Food and Exercise - which one are you talking about?