REGARDING DEFICIT

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rosej31
rosej31 Posts: 189 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
This may sound stupid but I hear alot of people on hear mention deficit, what does it mean? I just want to make sure I understand it clearly

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  • RunningMom1038
    RunningMom1038 Posts: 144 Member
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    Being in a calorie deficit means you burn more calories than you take in.
  • CafeRacer808
    CafeRacer808 Posts: 2,396 Member
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    Maintaining a caloric deficit means burning more calories than you consume in a given day. MFP determines your daily deficit based on your normal daily activity level (excluding exercise), along with your age, gender, height, weight and, of course, how many pounds per week you'd like to lose. TDEE calculators work on the same principle, but include calories burned via exercise in their calculations.

    An easy way to think about caloric deficit is CICO, which means Calories In/Calories Out. As long as your calories in is lower than your calories out, you'll be in deficit.
  • rosej31
    rosej31 Posts: 189 Member
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    If I take in 1200 calorie daily & workout burning 600 cal would that be cal deficit
  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    rosej31 wrote: »
    If I take in 1200 calorie daily & workout burning 600 cal would that be cal deficit

    You already burn plenty of calories just living and going about your life, so 1200 calories alone without exercise is already a deficit. MFP has already deducted calories from that amount you burn.
  • CafeRacer808
    CafeRacer808 Posts: 2,396 Member
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    Put it this way: if your maintenance level (number of calories you'd have to eat to main your current weight) is 1200 calories and you eat 1200 but then burn 600 doing exercise, then you'd be in a 600 calorie deficit for the day.
  • rosej31
    rosej31 Posts: 189 Member
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    Okay! I got it...thanks
  • leanjogreen18
    leanjogreen18 Posts: 2,492 Member
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    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    This helped me understand a little better not only what I needed to be in a deficit during weight loss but also what I will be able to eat when I get to goal (enter in goal weight instead of current to get maintaince calories at goal weight).
  • ClosetBayesian
    ClosetBayesian Posts: 836 Member
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    CafeRacer808 wrote: »
    Put it this way: if your maintenance level (number of calories you'd have to eat to main your current weight) is 1200 calories and you eat 1200 but then burn 600 doing exercise, then you'd be in a 600 calorie deficit for the day.

    That said, unless you are very petite, very sedentary, and/or have a thyroid disorder or other medical problem (i.e., PCOS), your maintenance calories are higher than 1200.
  • CafeRacer808
    CafeRacer808 Posts: 2,396 Member
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    ClosetBayesian wrote: »
    CafeRacer808 wrote: »
    Put it this way: if your maintenance level (number of calories you'd have to eat to main your current weight) is 1200 calories and you eat 1200 but then burn 600 doing exercise, then you'd be in a 600 calorie deficit for the day.

    That said, unless you are very petite, very sedentary, and/or have a thyroid disorder or other medical problem (i.e., PCOS), your maintenance calories are higher than 1200.

    Yes, most definitely this. (I just used 1200 as an example because that's the number OP used in her hypothetical.)
  • RunningMom1038
    RunningMom1038 Posts: 144 Member
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    OP, if you plugged your height, weight, activity level, and weight goals into MFP, the number they give you already includes the deficit. Any calories you burn through exercise would make it even larger, and a very large deficit day after day is not good. Taking in 1200 calories per day is going to already be a deficit for most people. (As was already mentioned)
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    As already said, your 1200 calories will already have your deficit built into it. If you exercise, you should eat some (usually about 50%, to allow for inaccuracies) of those calories. The reason for doing this is to ensure you are fueling your body for the exercise you are doing, as well as ensuring you are getting enough nutrition to help support your body while you are losing weight. A steep deficit can lead to more than necessary muscle loss.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    RunningMom1038 wrote: »
    OP, if you plugged your height, weight, activity level, and weight goals into MFP, the number they give you already includes the deficit. Any calories you burn through exercise would make it even larger, and a very large deficit day after day is not good. Taking in 1200 calories per day is going to already be a deficit for most people. (As was already mentioned)

    For an experiment, put your stats into MFP, but set it at maintaining your weight. That will give you the approx number of calories you burn in a day (excluding exercise). When you set your weight loss goals, the number of calories goes down by 250 for each .5 lb of loss set up. Any exercise logged will increase the calories for the day.
  • nowine4me
    nowine4me Posts: 3,985 Member
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    The red or green number on the far upper right of your dashboard is your deficit (or overage). Green=under, red=over. Ideally, you want to be at 0.

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