Calorie Deficit

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  • sassyg
    sassyg Posts: 393
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    This seems to be confusing more people than it is helping!

    It needs to be made clear that the daily goal MFP gives already has the defecit built into it, based on your chosen target (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 lb/week) And is already below what you need to consume to maintain yourself from day-to-day.

    PLEASE no one go subtracting a further 500calories off their daily target...






    Think of it this way:


    you have a nice surplus of a bank balance (your excess weight)
    You go to the store with $100 (your calories consumed today)
    You buy goods worth $150 (what your body burns in calories, to maintain day-to-day)
    You need to take $50 from your bank account, to add to your $100, to pay for your goods. (your daily defecit)

    Your friend asks you to pick up a few things for them, worth $20 (your exercise)
    Now, so that you don't need to take any more than $50 from your bank (your daily defecit), he needs to give you another $20 (more calories to consume).

    So, you go to the store with $120 (calories consumed), buy $170 worth of goods, yours and your friend's (your daily maintenence, plus your exercise) and still need to take $50 from your bank (daily defecit)


    If you do this, every week without adding to your bank balance, eventually you will have a $0 bank balance - i.e no excess weight.

    MFP is working out what your total store bill is based on what you are purchasing (burning), calculating that you will take $50 from your bank (the defecit, to lose weight), and telling you how much cash to take to the store (what you can consume in order to keep that defecit relatively constant).
  • 2playhockey
    2playhockey Posts: 65
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    Wow--so much information. I think it would start to get scary if a lot of people had a 500+ deficit at the end of every day. Your body may start to hold onto weight because it thinks you're starving yourself. I'm going to just keep on doing what MFP tells me.
  • fiendiish
    fiendiish Posts: 186
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    A deficit of 500-1000 is considered healthy. 1200 calories a day is the LOW end of healthy weight loss. No one should go below that. That means that if you take in 1200, burn 500...you need to eat the 500 so your body has 1200 calories to live on.

    I'm not sure why this is so confusing to people.

    Also, please remember that your BMR is what you would burn if you did absolutely nothing but rest (with a BMR of 1765, which is mine). Even if you are "sedentary" I will burn somewhere in the range of 2100-2300 calories per day BEFORE exercise. THIS is what your deficit should be figured on...NOT your BMR. The goals section of MFP has this mapped out pretty well.
  • FabulousFifty
    FabulousFifty Posts: 1,575 Member
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    Luckily, MFP actually does all that work for you. ie they have already subtracted your deficit depending on how much weight per week you nominated to lose. So, for example - my goal before exercise is 1200cal/day. Now my body should burn somewhere between 1500 and 2000cal/day (without exercise) so even if I don't exercise, if I stick to the goal MFP gives me then I should lose weight. If I exercise, it adds these calories which you can then eat and still have the original deficit that MFP had accounted for. Hope this helps you Arielle.

    This helps so much! Thanks!
  • lotusfromthemud
    lotusfromthemud Posts: 5,335 Member
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    Wow--so much information. I think it would start to get scary if a lot of people had a 500+ deficit at the end of every day. Your body may start to hold onto weight because it thinks you're starving yourself. I'm going to just keep on doing what MFP tells me.

    Yep just do what MFP tells you.

    It's already done the work for you! Knowledge is a good thing, but no need to overthink this. Let the fancy computer do the thinking for you, peeps.

    MFP is doing the math for you, that's the beauty of it.
  • brendac72
    brendac72 Posts: 109 Member
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    Thanks Teresa!
  • heathersmilez
    heathersmilez Posts: 2,579 Member
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    This is a good website to calculate your BMR, required calories and your deficit. It goes into details about your deficit, why too big is also bad. I’m guilty of that since I eat the minimum 1200 calories but burn 2200 a day – too much of a deficit but I’m slowly trying to increase to 1400 cals daily as recommended to prevent the desire to go hog wild with food on weekends, lol.

    http://www.phord.com/cc/
  • feeny
    feeny Posts: 110 Member
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    Keep in mind when you sign up with MFP and put in your goal and activity level, and how much per week you want to lose, it already has that calorie deficit accounted for. Be careful...you may be giving yourself 1,000 calorie deficit.

    (If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 lb. per week, it subtracts 500 from what it would take to maintain my current weight, and that's the daily allowance.)

    exactly what i was going to say. You can still eat your exercise calories, the way the OP worded the post makes it sound like you shouldn't

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