Lesson 4: Creating a Calorie Deficit

In order to lose weight, you’ll need to create a deficit between the number of calories your body is using (your DM calories) and the number of calories you are consuming. One pound of fat is 3,500 calories. So, for each pound you want to lose in a week, you need to have a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories for the week or 500 calories per day. So, if you want to lose 2 pounds in a week, you’ll have to have a calorie deficit of 1,000 per day. But before you go eating 1,000 fewer calories per day, let’s take a look at the numbers.

Let’s take my DM calories and use it as the example. I need 1,896.9 calories per day just to have enough energy to do my basic activities (this is my BMR multiplied by 1.2). If I were to try and eat 1,000 fewer calories each day so that I could lose 2 pounds in a week, I would only be eating 896.9 calories per day. That’s way too few calories! I would be sending the signal to my body to go into starvation mode and my body would start storing all kinds of fat! Women need to eat no fewer than 1,200 calories, and men no fewer than 1,500 calories each day in order to keep their body from going into starvation mode.

What other alternative do I have, you ask? Exercise. Wait! Before you go and click away from this article… I have good news. Exercise isn’t a dirty word, or at least it doesn’t have to be. Exercise simply means that you need to do more physical activity than you are currently doing. That’s it; it can be any type of physical activity, anything more than what you are doing now counts as exercise!

So, how much exercise do you need? Let’s go back to our calories. My DM is 1896.9 calories or 1897 rounded up. If I can’t go below 1200 calories eaten per day, then I need to find another way to cut 303 calories (1897-1200=697, 1000-697=303) each day to get my 1,000 calorie deficit per day. I’ll need to exercise away 303 calories per day. I can do that by gardening for 70 minutes, doing some heavy house cleaning for 50 minutes, or taking a 45 minute walk with the dog. There are lots of other ways to burn calories, here’s a list from the Mayo Clinic to get you started: Exercise for Weight Loss

So, now you know the two most important keys to weight loss, calories in (food) and calories out (exercise). Next week we’ll talk about when you eat.