Calorie Deficits??

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LilMizzSunshine
LilMizzSunshine Posts: 13
in Health and Weight Loss
What does a calorie deficit mean on MFP? I am just trying to inform myself and make sure I am not doing this whole thing wrong? :) Thanks for any help..

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  • SuzanneRogers
    SuzanneRogers Posts: 250 Member
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    difference between what you ate and what your body burned that day with exercise.

    allotted 1200 calories
    worked and burned 300
    1500 was given to you to eat for the day
    you only ate 1100
    you have a deficit of 400 calories.
  • TabiHerbalifeCoach
    TabiHerbalifeCoach Posts: 691 Member
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    an average female takes about 1800-2000 calories a day just to exist, so if you lower your intake to say 1500, depending on your body you have a deficit of 300-500 calories, if you work out and don't eat the calories back, and burn another 300 your deficit is now 500-800 calories, this is important because 3,500 calories equals 1 pounds so create a deficit the body pull the energy from the fat cells stored in your body causing you to loose weight.
  • LittleSpy
    LittleSpy Posts: 6,754 Member
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    difference between what you ate and what your body burned that day with exercise.

    allotted 1200 calories
    worked and burned 300
    1500 was given to you to eat for the day
    you only ate 1100
    you have a deficit of 400 calories.

    Except not.
    MFP builds your calorie deficit into your calorie allotment depending on how much weight you told it you want to lose each week. .5#/week puts you at a 250 cal deficit per day. 1#/week at 500 cal deficit, 1.5 at 750 deficit, and 2 at a 1000 cal deficit (though MFP won't set your cal recommendation lower than 1200 so you may not get the whole 1000 cal deficit in that case).

    So, I'm set to lose 1 pound per week. I'm at an automatic 500 calorie deficit for the day if I eat what MFP recommends PLUS any calories burned through exercise (which MFP will also tell me to eat once I enter my exercise).

    If I don't eat my exercise calories, I'm increasing that 500 calorie per day deficit. Today I ran 2 miles & burned 374 calories. If I don't eat those, that puts my calorie deficit for the day at 874 calories. If I do eat those calories I burned, I'm still at my 500 calorie deficit.
  • LilMizzSunshine
    LilMizzSunshine Posts: 13
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    Thanks for all your input ladies. I believe that being said, that I am only giving my body 300 calories a day, if that many, to work on. That's not good-my body is starving!!! I'm alloted 1200 a day, I'm burning 1100-5 days a week. I have notice my weight loss kinda slow down these last couple of days. So imagine that I need to eat more!! LMAO! The body is such an amazing machine. Have a good one!
  • LittleSpy
    LittleSpy Posts: 6,754 Member
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    Thanks for all your input ladies. I believe that being said, that I am only giving my body 300 calories a day, if that many, to work on. That's not good-my body is starving!!! I'm alloted 1200 a day, I'm burning 1100-5 days a week. I have notice my weight loss kinda slow down these last couple of days. So imagine that I need to eat more!! LMAO! The body is such an amazing machine. Have a good one!

    Yeah so you're creating like a 2000 calorie deficit 5 days a week and a 1000 calorie deficit the other 2. According to those numbers, you should be losing an AVERAGE of about 3.5 pounds per week. I bet you're not (or won't be for long). What does that mean? Your metabolism is slowing down to compensate for those huge deficits. That's what the notorious "starvation mode" is -- not losing weight as fast as you should be according to the numbers.

    I've been there. I can overdo it and create what I think are 2000 calorie deficits every day and lose about 1.5 pounds per week and feel frustrated and burned out. Or I can create 750 calorie deficits daily and... lose 1.5 pounds per week and feel like I'm just having fun living my life while I lose weight. :smile:

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