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How big should the calorie deficit be. The days I go to the gym I have a deficit of 1400 how much of this should I eat. I'm curious to see what other peoples deficits are.
I run a deficit of about 1200 calories a day, but I don't view it as such.
I decided in the begining I didn't want to "save" calories or "get to eat more" beacause I worked out. I was advised to eat 1200-1500 calories a day, but I try for 1200 and almost always stay right around there.
Any exercise I do and log is just extra. My daily burn meter now says I burn just by existing 1960 calories a day (in my opinion I think it for me is really more like 1700). I usually log about 500 calories burned from exercise almost every day also.
I think if you do a massive amount of working out you should eat more than you normally would on a restricted calorie plan.
I am trying to exercise 6 days a week now, 3 at the gym and 3 walking, etc. i generally have a 500 calorie deficite with no exercise but it's usually kicked up to 1000 now on those six days. I hope I see greater results but I will let you know. I just started the 6 days a week think last week.
I don't eat any of the deficit. I don't freak out if I go a little over my calorie budget on high workout days but I don't specifically "allow" myself to eat more.
According to CC, and all the other sites I've looked at, they recommend not going much over 500c deficit each day. I always do, but they say that if the deficit is too high it will cause your body to go into starvation mode, and you will stop loosing as much weight, and worse start losing muscle mass. I use my BMR as the limit and always stay 500c below that, and any exercising I do in addition, I don't count towards my deficit. If that makes any sense to anybody but me. I recently noticed however that since I increased my exercise time each day that I'm not losing as much weight. I'm hoping that it's because I'm increasing muscle mass from the extra work. My measurements are going down. So that's how I'm gauging the difference.
I tend to run a higher deficit than that. The way I look at it - should I continue to be at this unhealthy weight or lose an extra lb or two a week?
I eat 1600-1800 calories and get at least 30 minutes of activity a day. In sticking to that daily calorie goal, I naturally gravitate to a high fiber/low fat diet so that I'm not feeling hungry all of the time. I generally have 250-300 calories for breakfast, 400-500 for lunch and dinner each, and then the remaining in snacks in the afternoon and evening.
While running at a deficit (any deficit), you'll naturally lose around 25% lean muscle and 75% fat. Doing weight training while you are losing weight will help you preserve some of that, but you cannot gain muscle while running a deficit.
For your body to totally focus on breaking down muscle for energy, the number to know is the Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure. From Phord's calculator: "One study found that body fat in humans can be converted to energy at a maximum rate of 31 calories per pound of actual body fat per day. Any energy you expend beyond this rate comes from your intake of nutrients and the breakdown (catabolysis) of your muscles. Weight loss in most people consists of about 75% FAT and 25% MUSCLE. Since we can calculate the actual amount of body fat in your body using your Body Fat Percentage (if given), we can determine the optimal calorie deficit to focus on FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS. To optimize your FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS, you should choose a deficit that does not exceed this value. (Persons wishing to lose muscle as well as fat can ignore this deficit limit.)"
Yeah. Whatever works for you is what's important. I'm doing 90 minutes a day of cycling. So combining the cycling and my BMR I'm running around 800c to a 1000c deficit a day. I'm eating 1500c a day which at my current weight of 187lbs, age and gender it's the low end. When I get to my goal weight (42 more lbs) my maintenance will be around 1700c. So I hope by then I will be used to that daily intake. (1 yr. hopefully) When I'm there I will have lost 102lbs. I sure like the sound of that!
Good luck everyone!
