We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!

Calorie defecit

boity00
boity00 Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I want to lose weight for hot girl summer and I was told to eat in a caloric defecit. How do I go about doing that? What number of calories do I need to consume daily for a "caloric defecit"? Mind you, I didn't really count calories before. Im fairly new to this app/website. Please help

Replies

  • hipari
    hipari Posts: 1,367 Member
    Go through the guided setup on your profile. I haven’t done that in a while, but I think it starts with either asking for your weight and height or your weight loss goal. Go through the guided setup, set your goal at 1lb per week (only put more as a goal if you have 100+ lbs to lose), and then focus on eating the amount the app tells you. The deficit is built in the goal that the app gives you after the guided setup.

    The tricky part is knowing how much you actually consume. For this you need to log everything you eat accurately, which means knowing how much you eat and logging truthfully every single thing that goes into your mouth. If you do intentional exercise, don’t forget to log that too.

    The amount of calories remaining at the end of the day should be close to zero. Not more, not less.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    Welcome!

    On a web browser, click on "My Home" > "Goals" > "Guided Setup." MyFitnessPal will do the math for you based on the goal you set. A calorie deficit just means that you use more calories in a day from your organs working, your body moving around doing your daily life, and exercise, than you take in from eating. If you tell MFP you want to lose one pound per week, it will set a deficit of 500/day (3500 calories = 1 pound, just about) based on your regular activity. Your exercise on top of that will give you more calories you can eat in a day, which can be very important if your calorie goal is not very high (the minimum amount MFP will give you is 1200).

    If you don't have much weight to lose, I'd recommend even setting it at half a pound per week, which would give you a deficit of 250 calories per day.

    Whatever goal you set, I'd recommend you stick with it for a month or one full menstrual cycle if you currently have a cycle, because due to water weight, the digestion of food, and hormonal fluctuations it can take time for fat loss to show up on the scale. This is really important if you don't have much to lose. Patience is the name of the game - no quick fixes here, but you're setting yourself up for good habits for life. :)
  • boity00
    boity00 Posts: 2 Member
    Omg! Thank you so so much for the advice :)
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 921 Member
    You can use the guided set up on MFP (you can choose to loose up to 2lbs/week - but I'd strongly suggest doing only .5lb/1lb per week).

    Alternatively - you could use an online TDEE calculator (maybe a couple bc there are multiple formulas and I figure it's best to take an average of all of them or the median)....and then manually set your calorie goal on MFP that way. Your TDEE is how many calories you should eat based on your general activity level to stay the same weight so eating in a deficit would mean eating slightly less than that (but more than your BMR). Log your cardio calorie burns and eat back somewhere between 25%-100% depending on how hungry you are or how low that makes your net deficit.

    It can be confusing to get started but honestly - it's a little trial and error...and you will have to try something for a consistent amount of time to see if you gain/lose or stay the same and make adjustments from there.

    It's also not going to happen over night. Good luck and have a fun summer!

Categories