Calorie deficit

EmmaShorter

Ok I was looking at my goals page and I saw calorie deficit and assumed it was an average of how many calories I had not used as I had quite a few left on Saturday. Anyway I was helping my mum with her profile and noticed that she had a high deficit too as I have but she hasn't even started to fill any food in cos of the mistake she had made setting her profile up.
So my question is what is the calorie deficit all about? Is it the amount you should go under or above each day? Or what? I'm confused!

EmmaShorter

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Angel1066

i'd like to know that answer too

Atlantique

Your Goals page explains how your calorie goals and deficit were calculated.

Your Food Diary page shows what you have eaten for the day and whether your are over or under your calorie goal for the day. Your deficit is built into your calorie goal, so you should try to meet your calorie goal every day.

Basically, MFP figures out how many calories you need to go through your daily activities and then calculates a number a little lower than that as your daily calorie goal ( a deficit) so you will lose weight.

So if you selected a goal of losing 1lb per week, MFP would create a calorie deficit of 500 less than it takes you to get through your daily activites when it calculates your daily calorie goal.

Newfiedan

his post is for those whom seem to misunderstand how mfp works and need a reminder on it and the finer points of making it work for you.

1) When you joined and put in all your info mfp gave you a daily goal for calories. That goal already has the deficit needed to shed that weight built in right off the crack of the bat with no exercise built in, period end of story. For those whom do not know here is the breakdown on daily deficits based on mfp's goals. The daily deficit is what you need to shed the fat.
1/2 lb loss a week = 250 cal deficit/day BUILT IN.
1 lb/wk loss = 500/day
1.5 lb/wk loss =750/day
2 lb/wk loss - 1000/day.

2) Eating back the exercise calories:
Yes you eat them back unless you want to exceed the goal set forth by mfp every day, IF YOU LOG ACCURATELY EVERY DAY! This is the part that sooooo many seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around. If you log every day and log accurately for food intake and what you burn during exercise via a hrm (get a good one) then it will work without fail. It has done so for me and nearly every single person whom has befriended me on mfp.So lets give an example here:
Person X eats 1200 cals a day, works out and burns 300 cals a day leaving them with 900 net cals, refuses to eat back those exercise cals. They are dipping below starvation mode, give them 2 or 3 days like this and fat loss will stop dead in its tracks and the body will start to consume muscle for survival. So when mfp says eat those calories then that means eat them for a reason, you are not working out for nothing. Your working out to raise your BMR not to shed more fat, let the body shed the fat for you while you enjoy your meal and recover from your workout.

3) Having trouble eating what mfp says you should for caloric intake? You are not alone, many of us do or did not eat enough for fat loss, do not be alarmed. Eating right/more does work I am living proof of that and no I am not trying to sell you something or a fat loss program. I am trying to get you to understand that healthy fat loss is totally achievable without starving the body and it can be done in a way that makes you happy and full of energy. So society/tv/commercials and all those other crack heads/snake oil salesman have it wrong, starving yourself to lose fat is not the answer end of story.

4) Get used to the idea that there are going to be the naysayers out there saying that their "diet" is the best. What else is new, any diet that restricts good healthy foods like fruits, good fats, and healthy carbs is just that it is a diet, not a lifestyle change that will serve you better in the long run. We need to find what works for us and if you trust mfp, log accurately and religiously then it will work for you.

5) Why 1200/day as the minimum? Well this part is debated hotly around here, the reasoning behind that is that it is pretty hard to get the proper nutrition into your body on this low of an intake, so that is why they enforce it so strongly on the site. It is not an arbitrary number they pulled out of thin air, it has been proven several times over that 1200 or less a day is not advisable. Yes you can function on less but do you really want to be walking around starving the body and depleting muscle?

6) Starvation mode what is it? Well simply put starvation mode is not starving yourself from a hunger standpoint. The starvation mode they speak of is when the body is not being fed what it needs so in turn it will slow down the metabolic rate and effectively shut down fat loss. It happens daily on here and the number 1 reason for plateaus as ppl call them on here is that they are simply not eating enough. You can not expect to train like an olympian and eat like a mouse and expect fat loss, it is simple physics. The body need X amount of fuel to run, and X+more for effective fat loss, it is figuring out what amounts work for you to make fat loss a real thing.

So I hope this helps to clear up some misconceptions out there and if you have a question feel free to ask, I will do my best to answer it.

JellyPrz619

his post is for those whom seem to misunderstand how mfp works and need a reminder on it and the finer points of making it work for you.

1) When you joined and put in all your info mfp gave you a daily goal for calories. That goal already has the deficit needed to shed that weight built in right off the crack of the bat with no exercise built in, period end of story. For those whom do not know here is the breakdown on daily deficits based on mfp's goals. The daily deficit is what you need to shed the fat.
1/2 lb loss a week = 250 cal deficit/day BUILT IN.
1 lb/wk loss = 500/day
1.5 lb/wk loss =750/day
2 lb/wk loss - 1000/day.

2) Eating back the exercise calories:
Yes you eat them back unless you want to exceed the goal set forth by mfp every day, IF YOU LOG ACCURATELY EVERY DAY! This is the part that sooooo many seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around. If you log every day and log accurately for food intake and what you burn during exercise via a hrm (get a good one) then it will work without fail. It has done so for me and nearly every single person whom has befriended me on mfp.So lets give an example here:
Person X eats 1200 cals a day, works out and burns 300 cals a day leaving them with 900 net cals, refuses to eat back those exercise cals. They are dipping below starvation mode, give them 2 or 3 days like this and fat loss will stop dead in its tracks and the body will start to consume muscle for survival. So when mfp says eat those calories then that means eat them for a reason, you are not working out for nothing. Your working out to raise your BMR not to shed more fat, let the body shed the fat for you while you enjoy your meal and recover from your workout.

3) Having trouble eating what mfp says you should for caloric intake? You are not alone, many of us do or did not eat enough for fat loss, do not be alarmed. Eating right/more does work I am living proof of that and no I am not trying to sell you something or a fat loss program. I am trying to get you to understand that healthy fat loss is totally achievable without starving the body and it can be done in a way that makes you happy and full of energy. So society/tv/commercials and all those other crack heads/snake oil salesman have it wrong, starving yourself to lose fat is not the answer end of story.

4) Get used to the idea that there are going to be the naysayers out there saying that their "diet" is the best. What else is new, any diet that restricts good healthy foods like fruits, good fats, and healthy carbs is just that it is a diet, not a lifestyle change that will serve you better in the long run. We need to find what works for us and if you trust mfp, log accurately and religiously then it will work for you.

5) Why 1200/day as the minimum? Well this part is debated hotly around here, the reasoning behind that is that it is pretty hard to get the proper nutrition into your body on this low of an intake, so that is why they enforce it so strongly on the site. It is not an arbitrary number they pulled out of thin air, it has been proven several times over that 1200 or less a day is not advisable. Yes you can function on less but do you really want to be walking around starving the body and depleting muscle?

6) Starvation mode what is it? Well simply put starvation mode is not starving yourself from a hunger standpoint. The starvation mode they speak of is when the body is not being fed what it needs so in turn it will slow down the metabolic rate and effectively shut down fat loss. It happens daily on here and the number 1 reason for plateaus as ppl call them on here is that they are simply not eating enough. You can not expect to train like an olympian and eat like a mouse and expect fat loss, it is simple physics. The body need X amount of fuel to run, and X+more for effective fat loss, it is figuring out what amounts work for you to make fat loss a real thing.

So I hope this helps to clear up some misconceptions out there and if you have a question feel free to ask, I will do my best to answer it.

WOW very very very informative ! THANK YOU!

EmmaShorter

Thanks guys!

CommittohealthCHANGED

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