What is a calorie deficit? Well our bodies require a certain amount of calories everyday to keep you at the exact weight you are currently at. The number of calories you require depends on a variety of things such as:
Physical activity
Sex
Metabolism
Genetics
Diet
Muscle mass
Sleep and more
In order to lose weight, you would need to be under what your body’s daily requirement for calories is.
It really does come down to calories in = calories out.
If you want to lose weight, you want to be in a caloric deficit.
If you want to gain weight, you need to be in a caloric surplus.
Of course you want to make sure the calories you are choosing are to fuel your body. Choosing a plate full of veggies and lean protein. Food that nourishes and recharges you. Not food that will leave you lethargic and tired.
Now, you can increase your daily caloric requirements in a few ways. You could increase your exercise, how many steps you do in a day or by increasing your muscle mass.
The more muscle you have on your frame, the more calories you burn.
This means doing your regular day to day activities you will burn more calories just by having more muscle.
What you want to be careful to avoid, is to not under cut your calories. Under cutting your calories hurts your metabolism and your ability to lose weight. It may work at first but you will hit a wall, and ultimately lead yourself to failure. Eventually you will have to cut out more calories just to see a small change on the scale. You will be unable to get past a certain point while making it incredibly hard to lose weight. It is not worth the future trade-off.
If you want to get an idea of how many calories you should be taking in a day, please click on the Weight Loss Calculator below!
If you want to learn exactly what it would look like to count calories click the link below here:
Counting Calories vs Counting Macros
Sincerely, Chantal Alexis – Simplifying fitness to get to your best you!
