Calorie deficit explained (How to lose weight efficiently & accurately)
Whether your main goal is to lose weight (body fat) or gain lean muscle, it’s very important you understand how to do it correctly. This involves how many calories you need to consume per day, and how to do this accurately. This is what I explain in great detail below.
Before I explain what a calorie deficit is, I first need to explain maintenance calories. Maintenance calories is the exact number of calories a person needs to consume in one day to stay the exact same weight. Now this will vary, every single person will have a different number. It comes down to gender, age, weight and height. All you do is insert this information into the TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator, as shown below.
To work out your TDEE number, click on this link https://tdeecalculator.net — You can change the activity section to tailor how many times (if any) you workout per week. However, as we are working out how many calories’ we burn without doing any exercise (maintenance calories), leave it as sedentary. Now I don’t know what my body fat percentage is, and the likelihood is you don’t know yours either, so leave it blank (this won’t make a difference so don’t worry!). Obviously if you do know it then great, insert the number. Now when ready, click calculate!
Right if you’ve made it this far, you know how many calories you need to consume daily to stay the exact same weight! See below for my results.
The sedentary level is what you need to focus on, which for me is 2,316 per day. This means I need to eat this many calories per day to stay the exact same weight. If you are doing exercise during the day, then focus on the light/moderate/heavy exercise areas, this will differ to the individual.
Calorie deficit
A calorie deficit occurs when you consume fewer calories than your body expends. Now we know our maintenance calorie intake per day, how do we use this information to make sure we are losing weight (body fat)? Now it’s obvious if you want to lose weight you need to eat less calorie’s than your body needs(maintenance); You also need to make sure you are losing body fat and not muscle; how do you do this? Let’s use my information as an example. My maintenance calorie intake is 2,316 per day. If I consume that many calories per day, I will stay the exact same weight. Now in order to make sure I am losing weight; I need to eat less calories…I need to drop my calorie intake by roughly 250/500 calories per day.
2,316–250=2,066 calories per day
2,316–500=1,816 calories per day
Do not drop your calorie intake any further than 500, the reason for this is you want to ensure your losing body fat!! If you drop any further your body will start using muscle as fuel, which means you’ll keep your body fat and start losing your muscle and you really don’t want that! It then depends on if you want to drop your calories by 250 or 500. Dropping by 500 means you will lose weight faster (about a pound per week) so I recommend this, but either is fine!
Now if you go to the gym most days like me and want to retain as much muscle as possible but lose body fat, I advise eating maintenance level (2,316). This is because typically when training in the gym, I will burn between 250/500 calories. Meaning I will still be in a slight calorie deficit even when consuming maintenance calories… get it? Remember, calorie deficit occurs when you consume fewer calories than your body expends.
Track what you eat
Now it’s very important you track what you eat, this is to ensure you are eating the right number of calories per day, this will give you satisfaction and confidence you are losing weight. I recommend you buy food scales so you can weigh your food. I also advise downloading a free application on your phone called ‘my fitness pal’. This app is great, I use it most days in order to track exactly what I eat. You can insert how many calories you need to eat per day. Then during the day, you can add in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. As you add each meal, the app will automatically tell you how many calories is in each food item and will take it away from your overall daily calorie intake, so you can always keep on top of what your consuming, it’s great! Please see my example below (obviously my calories are different as they suit my current goals). If you have any questions on this app, do let me know as I can do a separate blog on how to set up correctly.
It’s super easy to use to as well, all you do is scan the barcode of the item and it will pop up with how many calories are in it! It’s just as important you weigh your food, so you can log the exact calories; if you don't weigh your food you could be over-consuming for the day! So scan the food, then weigh it, then insert it into the app to determine the exact calories, easy! The app will also tell you the macro’s in each food. This is how many carbohydrates/fats/proteins is in each item of food — I will do a separate blog on this shortly so keep an eye out for that!
If you want to retain as much muscle as possible whilst losing body fat, it’s very important you consume enough protein daily, how much is enough? 1 gram of protein per 1 pound of body weight is enough. I weigh 194 lbs, which means I need to consume 194 grams of protein per day. This is very important if you go to the gym 3/5 times a week and lift weights. If you do not lift weights at all, this section won’t apply to you.
As you can see above, I scanned the barcode of eggs. 3 eggs has a total of 246 calories and has 0grams of carbs, 17.1grams of fats and finally 23.4grams proteins — perfect!
As long as you stick to this model you will lose weight, consistency is key! All in all, have fun with it! Eat different types of food! Still enjoy your guilty pleasures like chocolate, just make sure it fits in with your daily calories! Also, where possible try and do some excercise, this means you can eat slighly more during the day! Once you get into a routine it will get easier… Health is wealth! Please let me know if you have any questions, happy to help!
Don’t forget to weigh yourself once a week to keep track of process! Have a goal/target you want to achieve by a certain timeframe, I cover this in my blog below so be sure to take a look!
Follow me to stay in the loop with similar blogs!
