What is calorie deficit?

koala__karen

Right now I'm eating a total of 1,260 calories per day.

cwolfman13

koala__karen wrote: »

Right now I'm eating a total of 1,260 calories per day.

That is a deficit from your maintenance level of calories...

Everyone requires XXXX amount of energy (calories) per day to maintain the status quo...the bulk of your energy (calorie) requirements come from you merely existing on this planet...for the average woman, that's about 1300 - 1400 calories per day...then you have your day to day stuff...add a few hundred more calories and lets say 1700 - 1800 calories per day...then exercise activity...lets say a few hundred calories...so 2000 or so calories to maintain the status quot...

If this particular person were to eat 1500 calories they would be in a 500 calorie per day deficit. Think of it like money...if you owe $2,000 and only have $1,500, you are in a deficient position...probably have to go get a loan...well, your body fat is your loan or otherwise make up for that deficiency right?...when you're in a deficit, your body burns body fat to make up for the energy deficiency.

JenLeggo

great reply cwolfman13

yirara

Your body needs energy (calories) just to exist. That's your base energy need. Then your body needs energy for everything you do next to just existing: moving around, sport, doing groceries, just watching tv, thinking even. How much energy your body needs depends on various factors, like on how heavy you are, your gender, age, amount of muscles and body fat, and also on how active you are. Both types of energy needs together are called Total Energy Expenditure. This is what your body needs in a day. If you give your body this amount of calories as food you neither gain nor lose weight. If you eat more than this then your body stores the excess energy as body fat. And if you eat less you lose weight. The deficit is the difference between your total energy need and eating less than you need.

mitch16

And to throw some of the acronyms out there --BMR and RMR are your Basal Metabolic Rate and Resting Metabolic Rate, respectively. These are the amount of calories your body needs even to exist (for bodily functions like breathing and your heart beating). BMR and RMR are calculated slightly differently, but most people treat these terms as synonymous. TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure--the calories needed to do all of your daily activities, inclusive of breathing and keeping your heart beating. It is not possible to know EXACTLY what these numbers are without very sophisticated metabolic testing, but you can estimate these numbers using calculators out on the web (and even mfp's calorie calculations are an estimate of this). You never really want to eat less than your BMR/RMR (unless you are under a doctor's care) for any significant period of time. The sweet spot for losing weight is somewhere between your BMR/RMR as the lower limit and your TDEE as the upper limit of calories consumed.

goldthistime

Why 1260? Is that a number MFP gave you when you put in your stats/goal? I was given a calorie goal in the 1200s when I first started on MFP. It was too low a number for me, I was starving all the time. But I had chosen "sedentary" as my activity level, which wasn't true, and I selected 2lbs/week as my calorie goal, which was too aggressive for my bf%. Unless you're short, 1260 might be aggressive.

CattOfTheGarage

It's very like money, actually. What you eat is your income, your body's wages. Your body is prudent and likes to save up its income - the fat stores are your savings. The only way you can reduce the savings is to spend more than you earn - in other words, burn more energy than you eat. Just like in money, If you spend more than you earn, the difference is called a deficit. If you keep up the deficit over time, your savings will gradually dwindle.

Obviously, to your body, all this overspending seems extravagant and risky, and that's why it fights it.

savithny

Where did 1260 come from? Did you fill out the forms here at MFP and give your weight, height, age, gender and how much you want to lose each week?

If you did that and MFP told you to eat 1260, then your "deficit" is built it:

If you told MFP "I want to lose 1 pound a week," then you have a deficit of 500 calories a day.
If you told MFP "I want to lose 2 pounds a week," then you have a deficit of 1000 calories a day.

Your "deficit" is how much less you're eating than your body uses to keep you alive and move you around each day.

What that means:
If your goal was "lose two pounds a week" so that your deficit is 1000 calories a day? You should still lose some weight even if you go over that goal. As logn as you stay under "maintenance" (that would be 1260+ your deficit), you shouldn't gain.

So: for holidays etc, I will say I am "eating at maintenance." My deficit is 500 calories per day (for a pound a week) and I know that as long as I don't go more than 500 calories over my goal, I should at least maintain and not regain.