How To Set Your Calorie Deficit For Fat Loss (simple with video)
Ready to lose weight? You might not need to start tracking your calories to do it. If you’re eating high calorie things like fast food, soft drinks and candy, start by limited those waaaay down. Next, focus on eating more single ingredient foods like fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, etc. We bet you’ll make a lot of progress just by taking those steps.
But if you’re ready to get down and dirty and want to know how many calories you should be eating to lose fat… let’s do it.
(Be sure and scroll all the way to the bottom for info on our free calorie and macronutrient calculator download.)
Step 1: Calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
Use an online calculator (less accurate) or track the number of calories that you’re currently eating in an app like MyFitnessPal for about a week and see how it correlates to what your body does during that week.
If your weight stays about the same, then the number of calories you ate on average that week is your estimated TDEE.
Step 2: Calculate how much weight you should be losing per week.
This is really person to person dependent BUT, we recommend erring on the slower side.
Aim to lose between half a percent and one percent of your body weight per week.
Again, unless you have A LOT of weight to lose, shoot for that one half of a percent goal as it’s more sustainable and adherable for more people.
Step 3: Set up your daily deficit.
Take the number of pounds you’re trying to lose per week and multiply it by 3500 (there are around 3500 calories in a pound of fat).
That number is the number of calories per week that you need to cut from your intake.
Divide that number by 7 and you have the number of calories that you need to cut DAILY.
Step 4: Set up your daily calorie intake.
Take your TDEE from Step 1 and subtract your daily deficit from step 3.
THIS is the number of calories that you should eat per day.
What’s this look like?
Here’s our example man from the video above:
TDEE: 3250
Goal: Lose 2-lbs per week
Weekly Deficit: 7000 calories (3500c x 2-lb/week)
Daily Deficit: 1000 calories (7000c / 7 days per week)
Daily Calorie Intake = 2250 (TDEE of 3250 - Daily Deficit of 1000)
Remember, this is the frame work. Think of it like setting up your budget. It’s the general process, but so much of it also depends on your history and your lifestyle.
The most important thing is to do it in a sustainable way for YOU.
We created a free calculator to help you set your calories and macronutrient targets, whether your trying to lose fat, gain muscle or lean bulk. You can download it for free HERE. Or try our free 2-week turnaround workout and nutrition program.
And if you’d like your very own private guide to help you along this journey, we offer one-on-one nutrition coaching. Click here and let’s talk. We’d love to welcome you to the Digital Barbell team!
All our best,
Jonathan & Blakley