You've probably heard that if you want to lose weight, that you need to get into a
caloric deficit, but the question is first off, how do you do that? And second off,
how do you do that and not feel like you're starving all the time.
For those of you that don't know me, my name is Dustin Williams and for the best nutrition,
health, and fitness advice, make sure to subscribe to my channel and hit that little notification
bell so that you're notified every time that I post a new video, when people want to get into a
caloric deficit, it's not uncommon for them to go on ultra low calorie diets. The problem with these
is that they typically slow your metabolism. They're going to cost you lean muscle mass.
They're really difficult to adhere to most of the time because you're not eating very much. And
generally, you're going to get weight gain later on. So it's not really sustainable long-term.
So in order to get into a caloric deficit, the first question that we have to ask you is what
is a caloric deficit? Basically what it means is that you are taking less energy in than you
are expending relatively pretty simple, right? For the most part, it's not quite that easy,
but at the same time, it kind of is. Making sure that the amount of calories, because a calorie
is essentially just, it's a unit of measurement of energy and making sure that the amount of calories
that we're taking out is less than the amount of calories that we're using are burning on a
daily basis. We take calories just to exist, um, you know, for digestion and for breathing and for
brain function just to exist, requires calories. If you're doing intentional exercise, if you're
doing non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is, I tend to move my hands a lot. Whenever I
talk that burns calories, uh, the type of food that we're eating, um, like higher levels of
protein can, can end up burning more calories whenever you're taking in higher protein diets,
different things like this. And we have to focus on making sure that the amount of calories in
are less than the amount of calories that we're burning every day.
This puts you into a caloric deficit. This is what's going to lead to weight loss. So
how do we get into a caloric deficit? There's essentially two different ways to figure out
what you need to do. The first thing is to get an idea of what your maintenance calories are.
So maintenance calories means how many calories can you eat on average, on a day-to-day basis,
and not lose weight or gain weight. You pretty much stay about the same body composition. Doesn't
really change much. The question is how many calories you need to do. If you figure that out,
that is your maintenance calories. The easiest way to figure out your maintenance calories is
to actually just start tracking what you're eating on a regular basis, track what you're eating day
to day for about a week, maybe two weeks to get an idea of how many calories you're taking in
and not seeing any change for the most part on a scale minus, you know, water fluctuations.
And that is one of the best ways, in my opinion, to get your maintenance calories,
not one of the easiest and definitely not the quickest, but it's one of the
best ways to do this. Once you get an idea of how many calories you need on average,
based on your lifestyle from there, you know, that you can take in less calories than that and
start to be in a caloric deficit. Now, as far as tracking your calories, there are apps out there
that can do this. I've already done a video on what I consider the best calorie tracking apps.
I'll link to that into the description for you. Just take a look at that. If you're not already
using one or see if you want to see the ones that I recommend, but use the calorie tracking apps,
it makes life so much easier. You scan the food in, you put stuff in, you spend a few minutes,
a day easiest way to track your calorie intake, utilizing this one of the best ways.
In my opinion, as I said, to figure out what your maintenance calories are. The second thing that
you can do is using I calorie calculator online. And I think that these are great. I've also done
a video specifically on how to use a calorie calculator. I will link to that in the description
below as well. So you can check that out. I think that they're great. But one of the things that you
need to understand about a calorie calculator is it's really just an educated guess. We don't have
an accurate way of truly knowing how many calories you are going to need exactly to lose weight until
you start playing with the numbers and figuring it out. So you can check the calorie calculator out,
you use these things, they give you an idea of what they think your maintenance calories are.
They'll give you an idea of how much, uh, how many calories they think you need to
take in order to lose one pound a week, two pound, a week's so on and so forth.
I think that utilizing this can also be a great way. It's not always going to be as effective
in my opinion as the first version, but it's a lot easier. And it's definitely a lot quicker
because what you can do is you can start off with the calorie calculator, see where you're at,
and then see how your body responds. Now, understanding how to get into a caloric
deficit. How do you get into this caloric deficit without feeling like you're starving?
And this is kind of what I mentioned a little bit ago, where I said most people end up going
on ultra low-calorie diets because they know that they're going to see the scale very quickly. And
because there's no guesswork in this, if you're eating 900 or a thousand calories a day, you're
just about guaranteed to be in a caloric deficit. So you don't have to try to figure it out.
You don't have to know your maintenance calories. You don't have to calculate anything. You just
don't hardly eat. And guess what he was way, not the way that I recommend that you do things
for multiple reasons that I've already mentioned before. So, as I said, with the ultra low-calorie
diets, this is why most people jumped in on these because they are definitely effective, not really
effective long-term, but they will guarantee fat loss. But doing these also low-calorie diets are
pretty much going to guarantee that you are going to feel starving all the time, which is one of the
main things that we're trying to avoid, right? So in order to avoid that, here's my recommendation,
your calorie range that you're on should make it to where you are losing per week, a maximum
of 1% of your body weight. And when I say 1%, that's, I mean, I'm talking to the upper end.
It really should probably be a little bit less than 1% of your body weight a week. So,
as an example, if you were a 200-pound individual, two pounds a week, that's 1% is the absolute max
that you want to lose on a weekly basis. Ideally would probably be a little bit less. Most of the
research is pointing to this being the ideal amount for weight maintenance so that whenever
you lose the weight, trying to keep it off for keeping your metabolism a little bit higher
because of metabolic adaptation, your metabolism is going to adapt. If you go super, super low
calories, okay? It's also easier to maintain if you are eating more food. So if you can lose 1% of
your body weight a week and eat 1800 calories, why eat a thousand? Now, if you ate a thousand, you'll
probably lose more than 1% of your body weight. But as I mentioned, you're going to lose lean body
mass. Your metabolism is going to slow even more. You're probably going to see more weight gain,
you know, all the things that we're trying to avoid, right? So around 1%, preferably less
should be the absolute maximum. If you're staying in that range, you should be avoiding feeling like
you're starving. Now I can't guarantee that you're not going to feel hungry on occasion. Sometimes
that just comes with gaiety. Whenever you're in a caloric deficit for very long periods of time,
your body is going to start to feel hungry. That's normal, but there's a difference between feeling
like you're a little hungry and you wish you could eat more as compared to feeling like
you're starving or you're getting nauseous or you're having stomach pains or any of the
issues that come along with that. So now that you have a good idea of what a caloric deficit is and
about the amount of way that you need to lose in the calorie range that you probably need to be in
in order to be there to not feel like you're starving, there's always more steps, right?
Whenever it comes to fat loss and nutrition, in order to make it a lifestyle, it's more than just
using an app to track calories. That's a huge step. It's a very important one, but it takes
more than that. And because of this, I've actually created a free guide that I want to give away to
you. It's my yo-yo dieting cure guide. As I said, absolutely free. I'll put a link to it below in
the description. You can click on it and go to it. 10 steps, uh, more so than just calculating
calories that I think is super beneficial in order to be able to lose weight, keep it off,
and eliminate this whole cycle of yo-yo dieting is so many people go through. So check that out. Let
me know what you think about it. If you liked this video, I would really appreciate it. If you would
hit that like button subscribe to my channel, but otherwise, I'll see you guys in the next video.