Trying to understand how deficits work

ejb499

So I have been using MFP for about 2 months. I started at 269lbs and am down to 243lbs which is great. When I started I just used the goal that MFP gave me (I think it was 2220). The last couple of weeks the weight hasn't been coming off like it did in the beginning so I just adjusted my goal down to 2000. Is this ok? Also, what do people mean when they talk about deficit? I assume it means how far below your goal you end up for the day. i.e. If my goal for the day is 2000 and I end up with 1500 I had a 500 calorie deficit. Is that correct? And do you take your exercise into account with that?

Thanks for any help. I feel like these are dumb questions but I am new to calorie tracking. I've lost weight previously on Atkins but I never really counted calories, just cut out carbs and exercised a lot.

capaul42

When you set up your goal weight with MFP, the number you got already has the deficit built in. You should be recalculating every so often as your body burns less calories at lower weights. If you're set for 2000, you should be eating to that number. If you're logging exercise as well, you can and should eat back a portion of those calories as well. Typically most people aim for 50-75% as sometimes the numbers can be inflated.

kimny72

The goal MFP gave you already includes your deficit. MFP uses the stats you entered to guesstimate how many calories you burn per day, then if you say you want to lose 1 lb a week, it subtracts 500 cals per day to give you your calorie goal. You should also be logging your exercise and eating back @ 50% of those calories (because MFP tends to over-estimate them).

So basically, deficit means you need to eat less calories than you burn to lose weight.

If you aren't losing like you should be, check to make sure you are choosing accurate entries from the database (many are user entered and way off) and that you are logging accurate portions. Also keep in mind that even if you do everything right, you won't lose weight every week. It's normal to not lose for a couple of weeks.

Good luck!

shadow2soul

You should recalculate your goal as you lose weight.

Your deficit is the difference between what your eating and your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Your TDEE decreases as you lose weight. MFP gives you a goal that puts you at a deficit if you don't workout. If you workout, your Energy Expenditure is higher and you need to increase your calories to keep your deficit the same.

Recommendations for rate of loss are:
- No more than 1% of your body weight per week *
- 2 lbs per week (1000 calorie deficit) if you have 75+ lbs to lose
- 1.5 lbs per week (750 calorie deficit) if you have 50 - 75 lbs to lose
- 1 lb per week (500 calorie deficit) if you have 25-50 lbs to lose
- 0.5 lb per week (250 calorie defict) if you have 25 lbs or less to lose.

*This recommendation comes from the fact that your body can only use so many calories per lb of body fat a day (I think it's around 30 calories per pound of fat). If your deficit exceeds that, you start body starts turning to organs and muscles for fuel as well as fat.

CoffeeNCardio

1. What is a deficit: A deficit is simply eating fewer calories than you burn. If you put your stats in MFP, and chose "Lose weight" at whatever amount per week, the number it gave you creates the deficit with no further action on your part aside from logging and meeting that number. MFP uses the NEAT method, which is a fancy way of saying it doesn't account for exercise, it adds that after the fact as you log it in.

2. What matters about deficits: A pound is about 3500 calories. Creating a deficit means your body, (which needs, for example only, 2500 calories a day to function well and go about it's business) will start going after it's fat cells to make up the difference. Because your body NEEDS that 2500 calories. If you stop providing them through food, it has to go to it's 'Savings Vault" to make up the difference. Just the same way your car NEEDS it's 14 gallons of gasoline to go 400 miles. If you don't put gas in it, it won't go. The difference is your body has a savings tank called fat, to which it can turn if you fail to go to the pump. If you wanted to lose 1 lb per week, you'd eat 3500 less calories than you require to maintain your current weight over the period of that week. 2 lbs is 7000 calories less, .5 lbs is 1750 less. Over the period of the week mind you.

3. Adjusting for exercise: When you manually log exercise in MFP, it will inflate your caloric allowance to make up for that exercise. If you were sedentary (mostly sit all day) and it allotted you 2000 calories, then you burned 200 calories through exercise, your allotment would adjust upward to 2200 to ensure you're getting "paid" for that exercise, which is not accounted for in the initial number 2000. It's important to eat back some of these exercise calories, as they exist in order to ensure you have room in your allowance to get adequate nutrition to enable your body to deal with the work out you did.

4. You should be eating the number it gives you, as that has already created a deficit. Eating less than that number won't kill you, but it can have detrimental effects on your health over a long period of time.

5. Here's a good link to find out what we call your "maintenance calories" are. Maintenance calories are the ones from whence you must create a deficit in order to lose weight. Eating at maintenance is the practice of eating exactly as much as you burn in order to maintain your current weight. Eating at a deficit from that will result in weight loss. It is also commonly referred to as TDEE or, Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is your NEAT(that initial number MFP gave you) Plus exercise.

(http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/)

6. Weight loss is not Linear. There will be weeks you don't lose anything and other weeks when your scale weight positively plummets, even beyond your "weekly loss goal" estimate of 2 lbs per week or whatever. That estimate is averaged over a period of time, and is just that: an estimate that can be altered by outside variables, like whether you log well and accurately or not.

ejb499

Ok this is great info thanks!

kshama2001

Losing 26 pounds in two months comes out to over 3 pounds per week, so you should actually slow down. How many more pounds do you want to lose? If you have less than 50 pounds to go until your goal weight, change your weekly weight loss goal to 1 pound per week and eat the calories you're given.

When you lose weight too fast, you lose muscle as well as fat, and it's important to preserve that muscle.

ejb499

I set my goal weight for 200. Honestly I could stand to lose even a little more than that but I can't remember the last time I was below 200, probably before high school so that seemed like something to shoot for