[cardsfan2009]

What is a deficit?? And how much of one should I have??

Alicia

[jillybean720]

Calories burned - calories eaten = caloric deficit

You take your BMR (number of calories you burn in a regular day without additional exercise), add any calories burned through exercise, then subtract how many calories you take in via food and drink.

Having a deficit means you are burning more calories than you are taking in, which results in weight loss. An average deficit of 500 calories per day should result in a loss of one pound per week. Of course, there are so many other factors and variables that come into play (your metabolism, age, hormones, water retention...the list goes on and on) that it won't always work perfectly, but it should work out in the long run.

[srmb60]

Yup, what Jilly said.
The important part is to have a deficit at all! Tweak your food healthier and smaller and make the deficit bigger by exercising. You'll lose just like Jilly said.

[cardsfan2009]

Ok, so, if we were talking about fitday--would i take my total calories burned and subtract the number of calories i ate? Or just add up the lifestyle & activities caloried burned and then subtract what i ate?

Sorry, maybe im just a ditz. lol

[jillybean720]

Originally Posted by cardsfan2009

Ok, so, if we were talking about fitday--would i take my total calories burned and subtract the number of calories i ate? Or just add up the lifestyle & activities caloried burned and then subtract what i ate?

You use the total calories burned. Any calories you burn in a day through any means should be included (BMR, execise, and lifestyle). However, many have noted that in Fitday, you're likely to get more accurate results if you set your "lifestyle" to "sedentary" because it tends to over-estimate the number of calories burned through lifestyle. Also, be sure to add sleep as an activity.

[cardsfan2009]

ok! Thank you very much for clearing this up.

Alicia

[aphil]

I also wanted to add that you don't HAVE to add up the calories that you are "burning" each day. You really don't. All you need to do, is to become more active. Exercise, park further away from the store in the parking lot to get a few more steps in-just generally, become more active.

I have never ONCE kept track of how many calories my body burns in a day. Fitday, your treadmill, and other things can "estimate" a calorie burn for you-but they are just that-estimates.

All you need to do, other than to start being active-is to control your calorie intake. Start out at about 1800 calories a day, and weigh in once a week. If you are losing 1/2 to 2 pounds a week on this level-then you are doing just perfect.

If the time comes where you have a few weeks where there is no loss, then drop your calories slightly (by 100 or so a day) and see where you are at your weekly weigh ins-OR increase your exercise slightly. (If you do 20 minutes a day, then start doing 30, for instance.)

If you stick with this-you will ensure that you are creating a deficit-without getting into all the numbers and estimates.

I, for one, don't lose weight like "clockwork". I may lose 3 pounds one week, and then not lose any for two weeks...and so on. If I went by the estimates of all of the deficits and saying to myself "I should have lost 2.2 pounds this week by my calculations" then I would drive myself nuts.

[cardsfan2009]

aphil, thanks for the advice. you always have some good input

Alicia