Calorie deficit, can you really have a 1000 deficit a day?!

[Blackbear10]

I noticed a post on an earlier thread and it got me thinking about calories and how many an average person actually uses every day.

So the poster said they have a calorie deficiency of 1000 calories a day, my question is how is this possible?

From researching it seems to be commonly regarded that an average woman doing an office job and then a small amount of exercise when you get home I.e. a two mile walk with dogs, uses 1600 calories a day (if you’re lucky)

Or a job that involves the majority of the day moving around then exercise after (like a 5 mile walk or decent run etc) uses 1800 calories per day.

The only way to use 2000 calories a day was to have a very active job (fireman/policeman, livestock farmer, labourer, yard work etc) and be moving constantly throughout the day doing physical lifting and breaking a sweat nearly all day, then run at least 5k 3 times a week and HITT type training the other days for 40 min at least.

I am seriously confused how anyone could have a 1000 calorie deficit a day, or am I missing something?

I do wonder if people have lost sight of how little calories a person actually uses per day on average.

Do you think making people more aware of average calories used would help with the obesity crisis?

Or have I missed son and actually it’s super easy to have a 1000 calorie deficit and I’m just fat and lazy compaired to normal people?

Last year I spent a maybe 3 weeks figuring out my expenditure & intake. Measuring food in & using a heart rate monitor & some calorie calculators.
My job is extremely sedentary. Am lazy at home, too.
I found a complicated TDEE calculator that fully agreed with my numbers.

2450-2500/day by all estimating systems. I'm stable weight (healthy BMI).
So 1000 deficit is possible for me. I'd be so damn grumpy, though :)

Do most people know how many calories they take in and use over the course of a day?

I have no idea. I also have two DDs and a DS, all adults, and I know for a fact that none of them know either.

We all eat well and sensibly, we're all reasonably active, especially the two DDs - one has a very active job and one has three small DCs one of them a breastfed baby - we're all slim.

If you move enough you'll burn calories, if you eat too much you'll put on weight.

If you cycle to work etc, then it would be easy to have a 1000 calorie deficit.

I used to easily have 600, when I weight lifted and did a daily kettle bell routine on top of walking a lot.

I worked with someone who would cycle, to/from work, then go for a swim everyday. I know they did other things as well.

The obesity problem around Europe is linked to being poor and having reduced life opportunities. High calorie food is cheap amd gives the brain a boost/makes us feel good or gives us something to look forward to.

Counteract that and the problem will be solved.

If I walk 10,000 steps, I burn 2150 per day.

Maybe I'm confused but walking 10K steps only burns around 500 calories.

Most people don’t know even roughly how many calories are in different foods, and that’s probably why so many people are overweight at least in part. If you’ve always been slim it’s easy to say you don’t need to know, but if everyone did self regulate we wouldn’t have an increasingly overweight population.
It should be covered at secondary school - not in a judgemental way but in a scientific, an average person needs x amount of calories, these foods contain x, also look at proteins, carbs etc.

I was one of those obese people who didn’t think they overate, couldn’t understand why I was fat, until I spent some time logging my food. That was not a good day. I mean I could see I was fat, obviously. I just did not link it to what I was eating, which was mostly healthy foods but in huge portion sizes with a couple of treats each day.

Maybe I'm confused but walking 10K steps only burns around 500 calories.

Yeah but you but calories by just being alive. I assume the poster means if they reach 10k steps, plus the calories they burn being alive it's around that figure.

Not that the 10k steps burns that amount.

Whether you can cope well on a low calorie intake depends a LOT on how you're getting those calories. Three Mars bars will give you 700 calories but you'll be starving hungry the rest of the day. Eat the same calories from veg, fat and protein and you'll be fine. That's how the BSD is so effective. Without eating carbs, you stop craving carbs and the relatively high fat and protein content keeps you feeling full.

Some days I do but not often. I may eat 600 carlories for the day and go for a run so guess I'd be 1,000 under what I should be.

I should say that the next day I may well eat 3,000 calories though 😂

I currently eat 800 calories per day 5 days a week and am finding it surprisingly easy. Porridge with fruit for breakfast, undressed salad for lunch maybe with a boiled egg then an apple and then a fish fillet with spinach for dinner. I'm losing around 1kg per week. I'm
also exercising 4 days a week. Weekend I eat what I like but actually am finding former treats too sickly and sweet so it's helping with my sweet tooth.

I did 16,500 steps yesterday which was around 7.5miles - combination of job on my feet 80% of the day and then walking the dog when I got home.

I'm reasonable confident my Apple Watch is accurate at 2,800 calories because it's programmed to my age, height, weight and measures from my heart rate.

I only ate 1,500 calories yesterday so that puts me at a 1,300 calorie deficit.

Even allowing for a margin of error with my Apple Watch I'm still in a big calorie deficit!

Today I've burned 2,200 calories because I did a 5.5mile run first thing, so far I've only had breakfast and lunch so I've probably only eaten around 1,000 calories

The OP is unclear.

Your Basal Metabolic Rate includes the energy needed simply to be alive. It “costs” energy for your heart to beat, for your breathing, to run your brain and even to digest food. Every cell in your body also needs energy to perform cellular reactions.

So your BMR + your activity level = your Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

If your estimated TDEE is say 2000cals and you eat foods totalling only 1000cals per day then your body finds the 1000calories by using stored glycogen and fat.
Result = you lose body mass yay!

I don’t get what is confusing you about this? People are doing it very successfully all of the time so it’s not really up for debate.

If I walk 10,000 steps, I burn 2150 per day.

I walk on average 25,000 steps a day and I burn about 2,470 calories a day so I'm not sure yours will be right? I struggle to eat enough calories in a day to maintain

mini it depends on your weight/size. The bigger you are the more calories you burn.

OP I'm not sure why you're confused and posting this. You don't seem to know what you're on about

@MrsPinkCock actually that science is rather outdated. Lots of new research shows the benefits of rapid weightloss on low calorie diets of around 800. It’s really not ‘crazy low’ in defined circumstances and can have really beneficial health effects.

I’m also don’t the blood sugar diet at the moment, supported by the scientific research. I’m eating around 800 calories a day, not hungry and doing just fine.

I walk about 8000-10000 steps a day, Fitbit reckons I burn about 2000-2200 a day living my life and walking that much, as well as an office job, and some light to medium exercise. It’s probably slightly overestimating but TDEE calculators put me just under that, so I probably have more than a 1000 calorie deficit most days

And OP, it’s not super easy but also nowhere near as difficult as you’re suggesting to have that deficit. The idea that women need 2000 calories a day is outdated, most don’t need anywhere near that many, but it really depends on a lot of factors like the size of the person and how active they are

In answer to your question, OP, if you are spending 1600 calories a day then you can have a 1000 cal deficit by consuming 600 calories a day.

HTH

miniHovis you are either very slim or very short. Probably both.

Walking 25000 steps a day and only burning 2400 cals per day means you BMR must be very low.

Thanks Tennessee, that’s exactly what I meant.

BMR + 10k steps = 2150 calories for me.

I think that a 1.000 cal deficit is a lot easier for someone who is taller, heavier, younger and more active.

According to details I've entered into fit bit I use up around 1350 cal a day doing nothing and around 1700-1800 a day with my average amount of steps.

Therefore for me I would need to go very low calorie for a 1,000 cal deficit but if I taller, weighed more or was more active I'd burn more calories . I see other posters saying they are using 2200 - 2500 or day so eating the same as I eat they would get a much higher cal deficit.

Walking a fat body around burns more calories than walking a thin body around. You have to move more weight with the first one, which means it costs more energy.

I maintain my weight at 2200 calories per day. Therefore,if I cut down to 1200 calories per day,I would have a deficit of 1000 calories.

Well you use something like 600 a day just breathing don't you?

I know that the whole 'starvation mode' thing has been debunked, but isn't there still thinking that low calorie diets do slow your metabolism and make it harder to then maintain an achieved weight? I'm in the process of losing weight myself, so know how hard it is and am not knocking anyone, but many nutritionists/personal trainers etc. still think that very low calorie diets are quite damaging to the metabolism in the long-term.

800 Cal's is not that low at all. It depends on what you are eating.

We have been told and fell literally a lie that we need to eat twice as much as we need