Calorie Deficits

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bjenegiles
bjenegiles Posts: 75 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I know this may be elementary BUUUUT.. could someone explain the whole calorie deficit thing to me. If I eat 1230 calories a day, how many calories do I need to work off in a day in order to lose weight?

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  • ddavies919
    ddavies919 Posts: 1,005 Member
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    It depends on what activities you're doing during the day. Are you working out? If so, I would recommend a HR monitor/calorie counter so you can see what you're burning in a day. It takes a defecit of 3500 calories to lose one pound. Are you looking to lose a lot/little bit of weight?
  • alantin
    alantin Posts: 621 Member
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    I know this may be elementary BUUUUT.. could someone explain the whole calorie deficit thing to me. If I eat 1230 calories a day, how many calories do I need to work off in a day in order to lose weight?


    First, go to this page to get an estimate of the daily minimum amount of Calories your body needs.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

    Next, add to it about 400-500 to account for daily activities. After that you need to decide how much you want to lose in a week. About a pound a week is pretty healthy so 3500 / 7 = 500 Cals a day. Reduce that and if it doesn't work after a week or two, reduce another 500. The basic is that if you eat less than you burn, your body has to take the extra from its reserves, hence the weight loss.

    If you exercise, you need to estimate how much you burn extra and add that to the day's Calories so you're able to maintain the optimal deficit. A Deficit of over 1000 Cals usually gets very unhealthy.

    I think that, with your 1230 Calories a day, you should be on pretty solid ground somewhere around the 500 Cal deficit..
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    alantin is on the right track, but there are a few things I would respectfully disagree with.

    No need to use the BMR calculator. just go here:

    http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-metabolism-calculator

    and it will calculate your TDEE (which is how many calories you burn during the day without adding exercise in)
    But this is academic, as MFP already does this for you when you enter in your number in the goal wizard.

    In the goal wizard, what ever you choose as your weekly goal, will translate into a number of calories under your TDEE (TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expendature) that you should eat to achieve that goal.

    Take note, the size of your weekly goal (I.E. 1 lb per week, 2 lbs per week...etc.) should be tempered by how much weight you are looking to lose, the less you have to lose the smaller your goal should be. If you want to lose 25 lbs or less, 1/2 lb per week is a good goal. 25 to about 35 or 40; 1 lb per week is good, more than 40 and you can try 1.5 to 2 lbs per week and probably be ok (but play around for a bit, this is a very individual thing, some can some can't do 2 lbs a week)

    Also, IMHO 1 to 2 weeks is far to short a time period to determine if something is working with regards to weight loss, a month is the minimum I would recommend, better would be 6 weeks. I know this makes it a slow process, but it also makes it far more certain. Remember, our bodies can fluctuate up to 5 lbs a day just with water weight and daily weight fluctuation, if you try to judge results after only 1 or 2 weeks, you could be basing conclusions on incorrect data.

    hope this helps.

    -Banks

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