What is a 1000 calorie deficit?

If you have been investigating how to lose weight you have probably come across the reference to 500 or 1000 calorie deficit. Why is it such a common reference and what does it really mean?

In order to understand why it is so popular and what it really means, first you need to get familiar with two concepts: Basal Metabolic Rate and Daily Calorie Intake Deficit.

What is BMR?

BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. It basically represents the amount of calories your body needs to ensure the most basic functions to survive during one day. We are talking about energy needed for breeding, digestion and heating among other autonomous functions your body perform. It would be equivalent to how many calories you would spend during one day if you spent the full day in bed resting.

Your BMR is influenced by several factors like gender, age, height, weight and body composition. Another way to influence the BMR, is by making adaptations to your nutrition to include foods and herbs with thermogenic effects. These food will increase slightly your BMR requiring the body to consume more calories just for the basic survival functions. Same effect is many times achieved by some food supplements that will boost your energy levels and make your body consume more energy than usually.

You can discover your BMR with our free BMR calculator.

What is Daily Calorie Intake Deficit?

Daily Calorie Intake Deficit represents the number of calories in deficit when you compare it with your BMR. This deficit can be caused by ingesting less calories, burning calories with daily activities and exercise or by a combination of both methods.

Ok, so the calorie deficit you hear about frequently refers to the Daily Calorie Intake Deficit. But why is that so important? To put it simply, if you are providing your body less calories than the ones it needs to consume just to survive, what is going to happen is that it is going to make use of the stored energy, by burning fat cells to release the necessary energy.

Why 500 or 1000 calorie deficit?

It is very common to read articles mentioning 500 or 1000 calorie deficit. Why are these numbers so common instead of lets say 400 or 2000 calories?

It goes back to a theoretical calculation that 1 pound of fat tissue represents 3500 calories. If you divide 3500 calories per 7 days you will come to the a result of 500 calories per day. This is why 500 calorie daily deficit is so popular, since it represents the Daily Calorie Intake Deficit required to in theory lose 1 pound per week. To lose 2 pounds per week, you would aim for a Daily Calorie Intake Deficit of 1000 calories. As the recommended health weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week, this is most of the times translated into the need to be in 500 or 1000 calorie deficit diet to achieve those results.

How to calculate your Daily Calorie Intake Deficit?

In order to calculate your Daily Calorie Intake Deficit you need to quantify 3 variables:

• Your BMR
• Your Daily Calorie Intake
• Amount of calories daily spent on daily activities and exercise.

Your Daily Calorie Intake Deficit will equal: Daily Calorie Intake – BMR – Calories spent on daily activities and exercise

How to use the Daily Calorie Intake Deficit to plan your weight loss plan?

Most of the times the Daily Calorie Intake Deficit is actually used as a planning tool instead of just to track a specific day.

For that you would define your objectives in terms of how many pounds you want to lose over how much time.

You can calculate the Daily Calorie Intake Deficit on our free tool.

This result will give you the daily calorie deficit you need to be over that time to achieve the weight loss you want. But how can you achieve that daily calorie deficit?

Knowing that the recommended minimum daily calorie intake is 1200 calories for women and 1500 for men, you would need to set up a meal and exercise plan to ensure you get in the correct amount of calories but also burn the necessary calories.

In this article you can find in a detailed way how to implement a diet and exercise plan to lose 3 pounds every week.

Does it matter what you eat in a calorie deficit?

In theory you will lose weight for as long as you can ensure a calorie deficit. So you can choose the food you eat to your heart pleasure as long as you stick to the daily calorie intake. So if you want to have pizza, burger, chips or any of your guilty pleasure foods included in your diet you can.

However, you should know that including these foods in your daily meal plan might make the rest of the day more challenging. The reasons for this are:

• The calorie density of these foods are usually very high. This means that a small amount of these foods will reach almost your daily calorie intake.
• The digestion of high fat foods when you are in a calorie deficit might not be pleasant since it will require more time to digest those and have the nutrients available when compared to other foods.
• Satiety: this means how full and for how long, you feel after eating. Foods rich in protein and fiber are the ones that make you feel full for longer. This is the reason why one of the most common recommendations for most diets is to fill the meal plan with fruit, vegetables and lean meat or other health source of protein.

Choosing to include high carbs density food in your meal plan will have a big impact on what and how much you eat during the rest of the day. This will have a have a serious impact on the satiety, exposing you to more cravings, challenging your will to diet.

In a nutshell you can eat your favorites when you are in a calorie deficit if you still comply with the daily calorie intake you set, but you should be aware of how much harder this will make your compliance to the diet.

How long can you be in calorie deficit

The usual recommendation is to be in calorie deficit up to 6 to 12 weeks and then implement a maintenance phase where you eat exactly the required amount of proteins.

The reason for this recommendation is to avoid what is usually called metabolic adaptation. This is a process where the body being used to be in calorie deficit will start consuming less calories as an adaptive response. This is exactly what you want to avoid in a weight loss plan! You want your body to be burning calories to help you lose the stored fat tissues.

Symptoms of being in a excessive calorie deficit

The most common symptoms for acute excessive calorie deficit situations are fatigue, irritability, insomnia, and constipation.

Chronic excessive calorie deficit situations, can lead into more serious problems with several metabolic deregulations as an adaptive response of the body.

Is it really healthy?

As long as you stick to a Daily Calorie Intake Deficit of 500 to 1000 calories, in principle you will be fine and lose weight at a healthy rate. As important as the Deficit itself is ensuring you are eating at least 1200 calories, for women, and 1500 calories, for men, daily.

Very low calorie diets usually go below these values forcing higher deficits. They are many times referred to as miraculous diets for the almost immediate results but you should consider the long run. These diets represent higher health risks for you and the likelihood of weight rebound is also very high.

Considering that excessive weight has health disadvantages and risks, promoting temporary calorie deficit to lose some weight, will reduce the risks associated to the excessive weight. Make a plan focusing on your health and not on immediate results. Make use of the available tools to help you get the results you want in a safe way.

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