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You can burn more than you consume either by burning more, or by consuming less.

Burning more requires doing more physical activities, such as working out.

Consuming less means eating less food or food with less calories.

The entire point of losing weight is to get your body to convert its fat reserves into energy.

So if you burn 2000 calories and eat 1500 worth of food, your body will make up the shortfall by converting muscle and fat into calories. You then lose a bit of weight.

Unfortunately, fat contains quite a lot of energy, so you will need to keep this pattern of burning a little fat per day for a long time.

the fat on your body is measured by calories. you burn* the 1000 from consuming and 500 from your body’s storage

>Unfortunately, fat contains quite a lot of energy

Our hunter-gatherer ancestrals reading that: 0_0

well the average person uses like 1500 calories a day doing nothing so thats how you burn that, and eating less or low calorie things is how you keep it at a deficit

its also important to keep macros in mind tho (protein, carbs, fats) because your body uses them differently and having too much of one can make you gain weight even if you're at a calorie deficit

You burn a lot of calories simply by being alive.

The more active you are the more you burn.

You can think of it like fuels consumption for a car.

You engine burns fuel even if you are just idling, fuel consumption goes up with driving faster or making the engine work harder in other ways.

You goal is to pump less extra "fuel" into your mouth than you burn each day.

Exercising and making you body work harder in other ways helps with that.

Let me know if I'm understanding this correctly then, so to lose said weight, if my goal is to eat 1000 calories, I do then need to actually burn 1500 calories to lose weight?

Could I not just burn 500 for example because I'm already in a huge calorie deficit by only consuming 1000?

burning the 500 from storage is just, not eating. you have to proportionally consume and burn more than you consume (output more than input)

It's pretty straightforward. Fat is essentially just a way to store energy. If you want to reduce those reserves, you need a net negative in/out balance i.e. it needs to decrease faster than it increases, like draining a bank account by spending faster than you refill it.

In the case of energy, you gain it from food. So you can reduce that by eating smaller amounts and/or less energetic food. Conversely, you spend energy through basic bodily functions (those account for the majority of energy expenditure for the average person) and exercise.

This is what always gets me, I've got a very active job (I'm a CO, so while doing my rounds I walk at least 6 miles up and down stairs a day) but even on the treadmill reaching high calorie output numbers seems daunting.

I weight train, and then do cardio on top of my job, although even if I eat 1500, spending 20 minutes on the treadmill only burns about 500 calories, where does the extra 1100 come from?

eat more/burn less = gain weight bc you’re adding to storage without getting rid of much/anything

eat regular/burn regular = stay at weight bc you’re getting rid of what you’re putting in

eat less/burn more = lose weight bc you’re taking from storage without putting anything in.

you burn calories by existing. just as an example : you burn 1500 calories a day by just living and working. if you want to maintain your weight, you need to eat 1500 calories. if you consistently eat 3000 calories per day, you will gain. If you eat only 1000 calories, you will lose weight.

There are calculators to estimate your energy output during the day. Whatever that number is, adjust your goal caloric intake accordingly.

Just being alive sees you burning something like 1800 calories a day. You'd use that much even if you laid perfectly still in bed all day, like a coma patient.

Say that between an active job and exercise, you burn another 700 or so, putting your total at 2500. If you then stick to a harsh diet like 1000 kcal a day, you're 1500 kcal in the negatives, so that comes from fat instead.

If you're an average sized person your basic bodily functions, heart beating, liver filtering, brain thinking, all use anywhere between 1500-2000 calories a day. Speaking from experience an overweight 6'5" man burns 2500 calories if i just sit in bed reading a book all day

i'd talk to a nutritionist, they can help you with your caloric/macro nutrient intake goals and figure out the best exercises for you

but honestly it sounds like you're quite fit so im guessing your goal is just general weight loss? so i'd like to just put it out there that unless you change your eating and exercise for the rest of your life, as soon as you stop the "diet" or extra exercise or whatever it is, you will more than likely end up gaining the weight back and possibly more

tl;dr diets dont work, lifestyle changes do, and weight loss isnt the end all be all for happiness/self esteem

Ohh ok, see I didn't even think about basic bodily needs outside of the gym, that makes it much easier to understand how that's obtained now! So from your example, I could even eat 1500 calories and still lose weight from just normal everyday bodily needs?

So if said overweight 6'5 man just stayed in bed all day, and ate 1500 calories. He'd lose weight rapidly then? Even with no exercise?

Talking to a nutritionist does sound like a good plan, unfortunately I live in the middle of nowhere USA so I'd have to travel a bit to see one.

I'm overweight for my height at least not in my mind tragically so, 220 at 5'9 my goal is both to put on muscle while also losing weight, a lifestyle change is exactly what I need tbh, I don't want to diet, simply eat less which I guess is "dieting" but it's not as strict, I mean I could eat 1500 calories of McDonalds and call it a day.

Absolutely. As long as total in is smaller than total out, your weight is on a decreasing trend. 1500 in vs 2500 out is still net -1000 which is very substantial.

As a rough estimate, a kilogram of body fat contains about 7000-9000 kcal worth of energy, so this particular diet would see you lose one kg of weight in roughly a week's time.

Similarly, if you were comatose and getting fed 1500 kcal a day, you'd be at 1500 - 1800 = -300, so still losing weight but only 30% as fast as the example diet --> about 1 kg a month.

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Thank you!! This conversation helped so much!

like i said, macros are just as (if not more of) an important factor as the actual calories, here's an article from harvard about why a calorie is not a calorie, which i think is a good place to start! do some research, and listen to your body!!!

my best advice tho is not to worry too much about counting calories, listen to your body and only eat when you're hungry, and try to eat the foods that you're craving, because your body will tell you what it needs (but like if you're craving fast food, try to eat homemade foods with similar ingredients that will give your body what it needs while still keeping you relatively healthy)

that said, all things in moderation! if you want chips here and there thats fine! a soda once in a while? why not! your body is whats keeping you alive so try to give it the love it deserves!!

No problem, and good luck.

E: do keep an eye on proper macro balance, though.

Thank you!! 😌🙏This conversation helped me alot!

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good luck on ur journey man!! all the best!!

You burn about 2000 calories a day (depending on your gender, size, etc) doing absolutely nothing. Your body's metabolism burns calories. If you naturally burn 2000 a day, and then through exercise burn another 300 and only eat 2000 calories, you will be in a calorie deficit.

In short, track what you eat and don't overeat. It's not complicated, despite what all the fad diets and weight loss companies would lead you to believe.

I used to consume 500-700 calories a day, it’s called the Korean model diet. Typically a lot of water throughout the day, 1 banana for breakfast, salad with no dressing, and a small meal for dinner.

I did this for 3 months. I would workout 2 times a day. Once in the morning I would jog on the treadmill for about 1 hour, or until the machine said anywhere from 800-1000 calories based on my weight. At night I would weight-lift, let’s say 100-200 calories. Since weightlifting doesn’t burn a lot of calories initially. I obviously burned calories too by having to walk around throughout the day, let’s say 300-500 calories. Right there is a consumption of 500-700 and a deficit of 1200-1700.

You basically need dedication. Not a lot of people have that 🤷‍♂️

If you have a bunch of weight you are trying to lose, the weight, which is typically calories stored as fat, is where you are getting those additional 500 calories from. Your math is a bit simplistic but the idea is the same. We often view our bodies as calorie burning machines with the goal to burn calories. We don't think of cars the same way. The purpose of calories is energy to move around. We just happen to take in a lot of fuel and move around a lot less than we should and then get annoyed when the fuel builds up. We tend to value inefficiency in our metabolism because we like eating so much. This is not natural.

Calories is a measure of energy. Your body uses energy to do anything. If you do more work you use more energy. So the chemically stored energy is used to do work it can power your muscles to exert a force.

So you care about how much energy you use per unit of time. Its power. Running at a certain speed will require E amount of energy per t unit of time so you need P amount of power to run. So P×T where T is the duration of your run equals E_tot the total energy you used.

We can get energy into our body by eating. The food contains E_in amount of energy and you burn E_out amount of energy if E_in/E_out = 1 your weight doesn't change if its >1 you take in more than you use so you gain weight, if its <1 you lose more than take in so you lose weight.

Of course measure how much power is required for an exercise isn't easy but there are estimates that can be looked up. The amount of energy you need to run a distance depends on your mass and the time it took. More mass more energy less time more energy. So work would look like this W ~ m/t × d if you needed less time you had to apply a larger force and for more mass you also had to apply a larger force and the longer distance you run you need more energy. The fine details of energy consumption is in your muscles.

The point is if you eat less you will only loose weight if you use more energy a healthy adult need roughly 1500-2000 kcal a day if you exercise more than the average with that kind of consumption you will loose weight. Of course the fastest is to eat little and exercise a lot. The difference of E_out-E_in=DE and thid DE will come from your storage, fat mainly.

Fat: 9 cal per gram CHO's: 4 cal per gram Protein: 4 cal per gram

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He would, but his muscles would deteriorate from not being used, his metabolism would slow down and eventually his body would need much less calories, so he'd have to keep reducing the calories intake. In the end he'd become thin but very weak instead of fit, like a survivor of a long and heavy illness, and might have earned some ailments as a bonus.

Weight loss happens when you burn more calories than you consume. It's not any more complicated than that. If you burn 2000 calories a day but only consumed 1800, you will lose weight. You burn a substantial number of calories (anywhere between 1000-2000 depending on age, weight, gender, physical condition, and other factors) just by being alive. In other words, you burn over 1000 calories a day just by laying in bed. digesting the food you eat also takes calories, and of course physical activity burns calories.

So to add that all up, let's say your basal metabolic rate is 1500 (these are the calories you burn just by being alive). Then let's say you burn 200 calories from digesting the food you ate throughout the day. Finally, you burn another 200 calories just from your physical movement throughout the day (walking around, doing the dishes...etc). That's a total of 1900 calories you burned in 1 day. If you ate less than 1900 calories that day, you will lose weight. If you ate more than 1900, you will gain weight.

If you use less than you eat your body converts the extra into fat. When you use more than you eat, your body uses that stored fat. Fat has weight.

When your body releases energy from food, chemically, it is the same process as if you lit that food on fire. The sugars, fats, and proteins are broken down into simpler molecules like water and carbon dioxide. Instead of releasing that energy as hear and light, our cells store it in chemicals to be used later. The amount of energy stored in food is measured in calories. Your body is always burning calories, and everyone has a baseline of how many calories they need daily just to stay alive. If you do nothing and eat more calories than your base line, you will put on weight. If you consume fewer calories you will lose weight. Alternatively, you can increase your activity while keeping your consumption constant which will lead you to burn more calories than you consume and cause you to lose weight

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Specifically, around 3500 calories = 1lb of body fat. A 500 calorie daily deficit will generally result in losing 1lb of body fat per week. You would want to eat enough protein and use some weight lifting to minimize muscle loss during this time. Bonus, muscle (even at rest) burns calories so the lifting helps with the deficit even more.

> I'm already in a huge calorie deficit

Then you already burn more than you consume. "Burn more than you consume" is just another way of saying "have a calorie deficit".

You aren't burning 500 calories in 20 minutes on a treadmill

From the way you phrase the question it sounds like you misunderstood calories a bit.

The human body, and any organic substance like food but also bone or muscle or fat etc, are composed of molecules that contain energy which we refer to by measures of calories. Your stomach and intestines break apart foods that you ingest and release some of the energy as calories for the body to use for things like moving muscles or sending nerve signals etc.

But your muscles, fat, etc. are essentially also the same composition as some of our food, just like when we eat meat from other animals. If you don't eat at all, your body still needs some energy to move around and do things. So the body has mechanisms for effectively eating itself to convert your own body into usable energy.

Anytime you use more energy than you get from eating, the body is going to pull some energy from its own internal storage by consuming its own fat or muscle etc. It doesn't literally go through your digestive system, but it is similar in final result. The fat or muscle is destroyed and the body gains energy that it can use.

When people say to burn more than you consume, this is the idea. If you eat less and/or move around more, then you will require more energy than you consumed with food. This results in your body "eating itself" (typically thought of as "burning fat") in order to have enough energy to get by.

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You know what fat is? It's a store of energy. If you eat more than you burn, your body stores it as fat, the reverse also works.

Burn more than you consume means to use more energy (calories) than you eat.

You car gets 30 mpg.

You have 10 gallons of fuel in the tank.

You drive 90 miles, burning 3 gallons, so now you have 7 gallons in your tank.

You stop and put 2 gallons into the tank, so now you have 9 gallons in your tank.

Your car used more energy than it 'consumed', and is now 1 gallon lighter than when you started out.

You burn calories by living. If you exercise, you burn more. If you consume zero calories you will starve because you burn 1500-2500 each day (depends on the person) by living. If you know your basal metabolic rate (how many calories you burn per day) and you eat 500 calories less than that number, you’ll lose about a pound per week.

When I look at nutrition labels, I'm never sure whether to be amazed at how many calories are in our food, or impressed with how efficiently our bodies use calories.

A lot of health plans will allow (maybe even encourage) you to see a nutritionist for free. Chat with your GP to see if they can recommend a virtual consultation.

bro that stuff goes right through me. I'm like a stick 💀

Yeah even going 25km/h for 20 minutes straight (which I highly doubt you're doing) you're still burning only 200 calories or so. 20 minutes of treadmill burns around 100 calories or so if you run half the time

I was for all of high school. I could shove a ton of food into my face and never gain any weight.

Then I got to college and it all changed. And before you ask, it was the buffet style dining hand and not beer. Didn't drink until I was 30 but put on plenty of weight.

>Weight loss happens when you burn more calories than you consume. It's not any more complicated than that.

Well, it is somewhat more complicated than that; the devil is in the details of "burn" and "consume" (and, to a small extent, "weight").

What you've said is certainly true as a broad and general statement; this isn't a disagreement, but a point of additional detail. That extra detail is to be careful about numbers "burned" or "consumed" in practice. Because, for example, a treadmill's "calories" readout is just an estimate. A packaged food item's "calories" count is an estimate. You may actually be burning more or less than the machine says when you work out, depending on your body (muscles, heart, etc). You may actually be gaining more or less when you eat the food, depending on your body (digestion efficiency, etc).

And there's also some amount of weight fluctuation for non-calorie reasons - mostly water weight going up and down. This last part is one of the big traps for people just starting a nutrition and/or exercise path, as those fluctuations will initially be bigger than the long-term trend caused by calories.

Also note that it is MUCH MUCH easier to not consume calories, than to burn them off later.

Its almost impossible to lose weight with exercise alone. If your eating too much now so that your overweight, if you start to work out you will be even hungrier, and it will be even harder to not eat, and that one soft drink takes like 2 hours of jogging to burn off.

Mathematically, the "best" way to lose way it to focus on cutting portions, eating less calorie dense foods, and then adding in lighter exercise and working your way to harder exercise as you are able to handle the cravings. of course willpower is hard to just create.

Sort of. Everyones bodies are different, but lets just assume your body burns 1500 calories a day just surviving, thats what it takes to keep your body temp up, and your organs working etc. And if your pretty sedentary, you might use another 500 calories to work your muscles, bringing your average calories per day at 2000.

If you keep the same amount of activity, and only ate 1000 calories a day, then yes, you would lose a pound every 3.5 days or approximinately 2 lbs a week.

But, your body really doesnt like starvation, and its going to make you feel like shit for a while. So typically what is "easier" for people is to exercise, which lets say means you now need 2500 calories a day, and you eat 2000 calories instead of 1000.

This way your still at a caloric deficit (500) and youll still lose about a pound of fat a week, you will lose weight, but you wont be starving all the time. Also you might have days where you work harder, and some days that are cheat days that you eat more, this is up to the persons preference.

Most of it is burned to keep your body temp up. The rest of it is to just do the basic functions, lungs, heart and organs working, the brain takes up a good chunk of energy as well.

Your right, you wont lose much weight by excercise unless you do it for many hours a day. You best bet is portion control, and eating less calorie dense foods, ie vegetables and fruits and natural meat instead of things with corn syrup, oils, butter, etc. its better to eat a giant bowl of spinich than it is like 1 slice of cheese.

The problem is our bodys have evolved to crave energy dense foods, so it basically means good tasting stuff is bad for you.

Also note that while losing weight is simply calories in > calories out, in the long term there are some factors that can make a difference. First off the longer you spend starving yourself your body will start to slow your metabolism down. Your body wants to keep its fat, it makes you fitter for survival in lean times. So simply starving yourself typically isnt as efficient as doing things like intermittent fasting. Again this doesnt mean that one is better for this person or that person, but just mathematically you can lose more weight that way.

Also remember that even if you are intaking less calories, you still need certain nutrients to be healthy. Your body requires fats, carbohydrates and proteins, as well as nutrients and vitamins to survive.

Unless you are very skilled and knowledgeable about balancing diets and meeting all these requirements and such, cheat days are a benefit to your overall health. Your body will often crave things it needs, so every now and then, you should treat yourself.

Your fat is stored energy, and energy is measured in calories. So say you want to loose 10lbs, you have to burn 10 lbs worth of calories more than you take in (a little more to it than that, but that's the high level). Each lb of fat has about 3500 calories, so to loses 10lbs, you have to burn about 35000 calories more than you consume. The good news is you burn about 2000 just being alive every day. So if you exercise you burn even more, watch what you eat...and you can pretty easily create a 500 or 1000 calorie per day gap.

The average person needs about 2000 to 2400 calories a day to maintain their current weight. If you need 2000 calories to maintain your weight but you only eat 1600 in a day then you have a 400 calorie deficit for that day. A pound of fat is about 4000 calories so if you keep eating only 1600 calories a day then after 10 days of doing this you will have a 4000 calorie deficit over those 10 days and will have lost a pound of weight. If you continue this pattern eventually you keep losing weight until you reach a weight where 1600 calories is your maintenance. The opposite is true as well if you eat over your maintenance for calories then you will gain weight until your calorie maintenance is the same as your calorie intake over a long period of time.

The trick is also to get your body to burn fats rather than muscles, which can be tough.

Hence when someone says he wants to lose weight, I will tell him that he should concentrate on losing body fats than weight.

A good eg is me (mid 30s) vs my dad (high 60s).

He is lighter than me and appears skinny but he has a higher body fat % (22%) than me (18%).

You continue to burn more calories than resting AFTER you stopped working out so that's something to consider for your calculations.

Also, putting on muscles means your resting calorie count go up too.

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