How does a caloric deficit actually work?

[DaCrownlessKing]

I don't fully understand the concept of it. How do you burn more calories than you consume. I'm 5'11 and 185 lbs and from what I can tell with my lightly active lifestyle I'm supposed to consume around 1967 calories a day to maintain my weight. Being that when I run for 45 minutes straight non stop, I burn about 741 calories. I don't think that weight lifting really burns that much, which I do for an hour. Which leads me to believe a workout session a day, I can only burn up to about 900 or so with how much I do... I think. How in the hell do you burn more than you are supposed to eat? Am I supposed to be eating 500 less than what I do to lose weight because I heard that is bad for your metabolism. The whole concept of weight loss is confusing to me. Any explanations?

[Rufus335]

Weight loss is challenging at your size. you are actually at a great weight. I WISH I WAS 185. but im also 7% body fat so im assuming if you havnt been weight training at all that you are around 12-15%.

if your looking for a 6 pack and cut muscles you should be focusing on training to hypertrophy. i will not explain that to you but u can look it up. your gunna find that the amount of running you are doing is actually breaking down muscle instead of fat so you're probably stagnant.

keep up the cardio but do HIIT two or three times a week for 10-20 minutes. more will be pointless. shoot for 2500 calories a day. im assuming you're actually 23.

im guessing your problem is inadequate weight training and over training on cardio. you are working out like a woman not a man. Also weight lifting burns more calories/time meaning that if you do 30 sets for lets say roughly a minute you're actually burning about 600 calories. most sets dont take a minute but my point is the cardio isn't helping much

macros: 185 g pro, 100 g carbs, 100 g fat per day. you can cycle carbs on heavy cardio days if you want to cycle. but im assuming you're not at the experience level for that. see my profile and you'll realize i know what im talking about

[Rufus335]

also the goal is to burn more calories than you consume. that is the definition of weight loss

[WeaponZero]

The amount you burn also factors into the amount your body consumes just to power basic life support functions. To calculate what this is use an online calculator to figure out your TDEE and your BMI. BMI is the amount your body consumes just to keep bare minimum life support going. It is the amount it would take to keep your body and brain alive if you were in a coma. TDEE is the average amount of calories your body burns over the course of a day to maintain your present weight at your present activity level.

[nalaa]

In theory yes, you're supposed to undereat to burn fat instead of food. In reality it's a losing battle.
The whole idea of calorie counting is kinda BS anyway. Your body knows what it needs. If you just eat 100 calories too many or too few in a day, that's about a lb per month, or 12lb in a year. You have no hope of ever counting more accurately than what your body tells you to eat. So I'd recommend, just do that. East super healthy food but as much as want. Processed foods, especially no processed fats such as oil. Just simple, whole foods and eat as much as you like. You'll be fine

People know no reason when it comes to food. Ever heard of the Minnesota starvation experiment? It's an interesting case study. Well it's actually a diet experiment. I think they fed men 1700 calories and observed what happened. And what happened was that they obsessed about food. Grown men in the 1940s that suddenly collected recipes, wanted to open restaurants, drew pictures of food and constantly thought about food.
And it's no surprise that a year after they had all gained it back if not more. One of their conclusions was that starvation, or as we call it, a diet causes depression, impaired judgment, social isolation and hysteria. So enjoy !

[Distant]

You burn nearly 100 calories an hour just for being alive. That's the reason you're supposed to eat ~2000 calories a day. Any exercise you do, especially 700-900 calories will put you in a deficit if you only eat 2000 a day. It's not exactly that simple but you get the idea. You can't burn more than you eat. If you do, you'll eventually become exhausted and start having health issues.

[DaCrownlessKing]

I didn't think so but you have these fitness articles saying to burn more calories than you consume. I was like how? That sounds bad for you

[Distant]

I think they just mean burn more than you would store. Like if you go 200 over your daily requirements, burn 200+

[thorthorley]

Calories is a measure of energy and most of your energy comes from food. However if you eat less calories than you burn, then the extra calories has to be coming from somewhere. The extra calories are burned from your fat stores. When you burn fat, you lose weight. So the idea of weight loss is to have a low calorie intake of food so when the extra calories which your body needs come from burning fat.

[Anonymous]

With science