How to correctly achieve a calorie deficit

The term ‘calorie deficit’ gets used a lot in the world of health and fitness – some influencers have even made a whole career on the back of engaging ‘calorie deficit’ content.

A ‘Calorie Deficit’ is essential when it comes to weight loss, though more knowledge and education needs to be given along with this. 

This article is to go over what a ‘Calorie Deficit’ actual is, and to help you understand (whether for yourself or when working with clients if you are a fitness professional) how to best implement a calorie deficit.

What is a calorie deficit?

A calorie deficit is when you are burning more calories in a day than the amount of calories you consume – for example if you consume 2000 calories but burn off 25oo across the day, your calorie deficit is 500 calories.

What does the deficit mean?

If your body has burnt more energy that what has come in, it will need this surplus energy to come from somewhere, therefore it will utilise your bodies fat stores. Thus in turn buring bodyfat which in time, and following a consistent practice, will mean your bodyfat percentage will reduce.

Does it matter what foods make up these calories?

In the grand scheme of things, 2000 calories is 2000 calories, whether that has come from quality protein sources or simple carbohydrates. A calorie is a form of fuel that your body can use.

Many’diets’ go off of this rule – “So long as you hit your calorie target it does not matter what foods you eat”. 

But…. it is highly important, from a health point of view, that the macronutrients that make up these calories are balanced.

Fat has a very high calorific value, 1g of fat gives you 9 calories. Whilst 1g protein and 1g of carbohydrate will give you 4 calories.

Therefore if you were to eat foods that are very high in Fat (the worng fats at that too, e.g processed), your calories will be very high from a small amount of food.

Whilst you will need to eat more protein and carbohydrates to achieve the same calorific intake.

Now Fat is not bad for you, it is an important part of your daily macronutient balance. But you can get the correct amount of fat (saturated and unsaturated) by consuming a varied amount of meat, fish, vegetables and nuts & seeds over 3 balanced meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

By balancing your three main meals with meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds you will be giving your body a good balance of Protein, Fats and Carbohydrate (and fibre).

Each food type is broken down differently by the body too. In its conversion into energy for the body to use or store, your body will use a different fluctuation of hormones in the body. Simple carbohydrates for example can be broken down and used for energy extremely fast but this can result in Insulin and Cortisol spikes.

If you eat balanced meals, this will give your body a good balance to macronutrients (Proteins, Fats and Carbohydrate) and balanced meals will allow your body to digest in the most optimal way.

How do you track daily calorific intake?

A lot of individuals do not even realise how many caloires are in certain foods and meals. A calorie tracker is a good way to help a person understand where their calories are being made up and also if they are hitting their ‘calorie target’.

For example, a McDonalds Bigmac Meal (medium) is upwards of 1200 calories. Whilst a home prepped burger and home-made oven cooked chips are around 800 calories and much better for you if prepared from good food sources.

There are multiple calorie trackers these days – MyFitnessPal seems to be the go to and has a large database of foods, making tracking calories simpler for the user.

Should you always use a calorie counter?

A big thing for me when working with clients is to use a calorie counter only in the beginning, to help a client to understand what foods contain what calories and what the macronutritent balance of those foods are. But once they have this understanding and good habits of eating the correct foods then I try not to encourage constant tracking (unless necessary for consistency for the individual).

You do not want foods to become numbers for your clients, you want them to enjoy their food intake, and when they know how to prepare food correctly and where their calories are coming from, their weekly nutritional intake won’t change much.

Note: you can use food labels as a way to see calories, but if you eat whole foods, naturally sourced, they wont always come with a food label (these are the types of food sources that you want yourself and your clients to consume – foods from the butchers and green grocers, not packaged up  and ‘ready-made’ foods).

So that gives an overview of Calories coming in. What about calories going out?

To ensure that you are burning more calories that what you are consuming and to be way above this (around 500 calories above intake), it is quite easy to track these days thanks to Smart Watches.

But the key here is to simply be active – every….single…day.

If you are desk based, walk around more at work and in your lunch break.

If you can cycle or walk to work, do so.

If you work from home, get out for a couple of walks each day.

Then around being more active, ensure that exercise becomes a part of your daily routine.

What type of exercise should you be doing?

All exercise is good for you, and you should do what is best for you and your goal, and encourage your client to perform the exercises that are specific to their goal and importantly exercise that they enjoy.

Personally, I believe it is important to educate everyone to perform across the week ‘Total Fitness’. A balance to your training.

For example, 3-4 weight training sessions, 2-3 cardiovascualr training sessions, and peppered around both of these exercise diciplines – mobility and stretching exercises.

Resistance training is a must for all individuals. It promotes stronger muscles, joints and skeleton. It also increases your metabolic effect, so you will be using calories while you are resting as your body repairs the muscles and connective tissues that have been broken down by being overloaded due to the resistance exercise.

Cardiovascular is also of great importance. All individuals should be encouraged to be as fit as they can to improve their cardiorespiratory health and it will also burn a lot of calories in this manner.

If you just lift weights – do cardio as well.

If you just go for runs – do weight training as well.

If you don’t do any stretching – do strecthing and mobility regularly (ideally daily).

It is all about balance – food, training and lets be fair, life in general.

What do you do now?

If you want to know if you are creating a calorie deficit, or if you are a personal trainer and are helping a client to lose weight and want to work out their calorie deficit, start tracking all food and drink consumed on a daily basis (keep a food diary).

Use a calorie tracker to work out if the daily intake has a good balance of macronutrients (quite often protein falls way short – this will be explained in a further blog), and use an activity tracker (such as a Smart Watch) to see how many calories are being burnt off during the day as an output of energy.

This will be baseline to work out if you, or your client, are eating too many calories (i.e consuming 2500 a day but only burning off around 2000 calories on an average day – this will lead to weight gain), and are you, or your client, active enough and training hard enough?

We will explore ‘Calories In vs Caloires Out’ in more detail over some further blog articles and podcasts.

It is a simple concept, but not always applied well or correctly.