Weight Loss Calculator
Use the weight loss calculator to compute the calorie deficit you need to lose weight.
How to Use the Weight Loss Calculator
Weight loss is a function of calories in and calories burned. Inputting your information, age, gender, height, weight, activity level, and goal weight and timeframe. This will give you the calories needed to maintain your current weight, reach your goal weight, and calories needed to maintain your goal weight.
What is a Calorie Deficit?
Creating a calorie deficit means that you expend more energy or calories than you consume. You can either decrease calorie intake through your diet or increase calorie expenditure through physical activity.
In most cases, you want to do a combination of these two things to achieve healthy weight loss.
If you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. There is no fancy formula or magic solution. Eat more calories than you burn, and you’ll gain weight. Burn more calories than you eat, and you’ll lose weight.
Thus, a calorie deficit is equal to calories burned minus calorie intake.
Weight Loss Calculator and Calorie Deficit
Weight loss is the result of caloric deficits. The steps are simple and easy to follow. Start by increasing calorie burn. Then, reduce your intake of calories. Easy right?
Pounds and Calories
There is a general rule of thumb regarding calories and weight loss. One pound is approximately equal to 3,500 calories.
Using this number, decreasing caloric intake by 500 calories each day would result in a weight loss of approximately one pound a week. This is only an estimate since there are many other factors that play a role in weight loss. But it’s a good rule of thumb to use as a baseline.
Calculating Calorie Deficit for Weight Loss
For a weight loss goal, you can calculate your calorie consumption from your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) and your weight loss goal. Experts suggest that a safe weight loss target is around 1 – 2 pounds a week.
Losing a lot of weight too fast can have adverse health effects and decreased metabolism. This can be counterproductive and can actually stall weight loss. In some cases, this causes weight gain after calorie restrictions are lifted.
Studies have demonstrated that when exercise generates a calorie deficit of 500 – 1,000 calories per day, you can lose a significant amount of weight.
By combining exercise and a healthy diet, you can boost the likelihood of losing weight, but also keep the weight off.
Steps for Weight Loss
The following are the steps you need for calorie deficits to achieve weight loss.
Determine your daily caloric needs
To find the number of calories you should eat that includes your calorie deficit, you need to figure out how many calories you burn daily. This is known as your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
Components of TDEE
Your TDEE is made up of three main elements, these include
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Your basal metabolic rate is your metabolic rate while you are at rest. This is the number of calories your body burns when you are sitting. BMR includes your body’s basic physiologic functions, such as breathing, heart rate, and brain activity.
Thermic Effect of Physical Activity (TEPA): The thermic effect of physical activity is the number of calories burned while your body is performing any type of movement or activity. This includes the energy you exert during exercise and the energy expended during non-exercise activities (non-exercise activity thermogenesis/NEAT).
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): The thermic effect of food is the number of calories your body needs to digest, absorb, and metabolize your food. TEF plays a minimal role in overall metabolism and is often not included in calculations used to estimate TDEE.
Find your optimal calorie deficit
Calculating your total daily energy expenditure gives you the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight.
However, if your goal is to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. Remember, calories in must equal calories out to maintain current weight. Calories in must be less than calories out to for a deficit.
You need to burn about 3,500 calories to lose one pound. To lose this weight safely, you should aim to lose around 1 – 2 pounds a week. This is roughly equal to burning 500 – 1,000 calories a day more than you consume.
Calorie Deficit to Lose One Pound per Week:
500 calories daily
Calorie Deficit to Lose Two Pounds per Week:
1,000 calories daily
