Calories Deficit Basics

If weight loss is one of your goals right now, then eating in a caloric deficit is going to help you achieve that goal. This just means that you are eating fewer calories each day than your body is consuming, so the result is your body will burn its fat stores in order to keep its normal body processes functioning. If you maintain a steady deficit for a period of time, like 12 weeks, you will lose weight because you used fat stores for energy instead of just using food.

Our body burns a varying amount of calories each day. Our metabolism consists of a simple formula:

Calories Burned= Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) + Thermic Effect of Food + NEAT + Exercise

Our BMR is the amount of calories our body burns every day at rest, and is what burns the most amount of calories in this equation (unless you do a lot of exercise like running a marathon). This number is impacted by how much someone weighs and the amount of muscle mass an individual has because muscle is metabolically active tissue. If two people weigh the same, but person A has more muscle mass than person B, person A will have a higher BMR. This is partly why weight lifting and building muscle is so beneficial for long term weight loss.

The thermic effect of food is the energy consumed trying to digest, absorb, and store the nutrients in the food you’ve eaten. Protein consumes the most amount of energy when digested, then carbohydrates, and then fat using the least amount of energy. The best estimate is 10% of your total daily caloric intake is burned through the thermic effect of food. If you are trying to get into a caloric deficit, it is best to focus on eating a good amount of protein for a few reasons. The first is that protein burns the most calories to digest, so the more protein you eat, the higher the caloric expenditure from the thermic effect of food will be. The second reason is that eating enough protein, especially in a caloric deficit, is essential for maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. The third reason is that protein is satiating, and will keep you feeling full in between snacks and meals.

NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis and represents all the calories you burn throughout the day just living your normal life, but doesn’t include any structured physical activity. These activities would be cooking, showering, walking to your car, driving, working, and so much more. NEAT is one of the best ways to increase your overall caloric expenditure throughout the day. If you notice yourself sitting for long periods of time, try to break it up by standing (which increases NEAT) or taking short breaks to walk around. You can also park farther away from where you work, pace when you talk on the phone, take the long way to the bathroom, or put a little extra energy into doing your daily chores. The less time you spend sitting down, the higher your NEAT will be. Sometimes focusing on increasing your NEAT day to day is more beneficial than adding in extra cardio, because no amount of cardio is going to compensate for being sedentary 6-8 hours a day. This is why investing in a standing desk or sitting on an exercise ball instead of an office chair can really make a difference when trying to lose weight.

Lastly, there are the calories you burn through structured physical activity. This includes any calories burned doing cardio, organized sports, or weight training. Cardio tends to burn more calories per unit of time than weight training, but weight training is important for building and maintaining muscle across the lifespan. Also, as I mentioned before, muscle mass is metabolically active so building and maintaining muscle is very important for losing weight and keeping it off. The recommended goal for cardio is around 150 minutes of low to moderate intensity cardio per week, or 30 minutes of activity 5 times a week. This is important to keep the heart healthy and strong. Weight training recommendations are much more dependent on your specific training goals, but anywhere from 2-4 times per week is a good goal to shoot for.

Now that you know more about what goes into your metabolism, let’s talk about caloric intake. The best way to really determine if you are in a caloric deficit is to track the amount of food you eat each day. If you start to lose weight, you know that you are truly in a deficit, but if you don’t then you know you either need to eat less or move more. Tracking is the best tool we have to gather information about our nutrition. Typically, a caloric deficit of 300-500 calories will be enough to start losing weight. You do not want to eat much less than a 500 calorie deficit because you will sacrifice more muscle, your NEAT will drop because you don’t have the energy for little daily tasks, and you can get really hungry which sets you up to overeat on the weekends. Sticking to a smaller deficit will make weight loss slower overall, but also more sustainable and enjoyable. Weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s important to build healthy habits and take the slow approach.