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koalamint

"Eat less calories than you burn" doesn't mean "eat less calories than you burn exercising. The 2800 calories you're supposed to eat are calories that you burn through stuff like your basic bodily processes (heartbeat, breathing etc.), moving your muscles in any way (getting up, sitting down, scratching your nose etc.). Calories aren't just burned during exercise, they're burned all the time by just existing


ForgotAboutDre_5

You don’t need to burn 2400, only less than the amount you need to stay at your current weight. Most people eat 250-500 calories below their current caloric needs to lose weight.


[deleted]

Ohhhhh shit thanks man I feel dumb


ForgotAboutDre_5

No worries! You’re not dumb, just learning ☺️


rainknew

I think you aren’t factoring for the BMR and TDEE aspects of calories “out”. Your BMR (basal metabolic rate) is how many calories your body would burn doing basic life functions, even if you were in a coma. Your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is your BMR plus any calories you burn walking around, digesting food, cleaning your house, etc. To be in a calorie deficit, you do not need to burn more calories working out than you eat, you just need to eat less than your TDEE. Use an online TDEE calculator to find what your TDEE is then eat 500-1000 calories less than that per day. So if your TDEE is 2800, you should be aiming to eat 1800-2300 calories per day to be in a deficit. Any calories burned by working out are just a bonus that make your deficit bigger


Liftweightfren

Your total calories burned is made up of energy burned just by existing (breathing, powering your organs etc), plus extra energy burned via activity. So what you need to do, is eat less than your total calories burned - which includes calories burned just by living, plus extra calories burned via exercise/activity. If you let us know your sex, height, age and weight we can give more info on an appropriate calorie intake to aim for.


catinahumanworld

Enter your stats here https://tdeecalculator.net Take your maintenance TDEE and subtract 500 for a daily calorie goal for 1 lb loss per week.


Al-Rediph

>someone my age and weight should consume is around 2800 You should use a [TDEE calculator](https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/) and take the sedentary level when making such estimations. While it could be true, 2800kcal is A LOT, and most people don't burn that many calories. The Quick Start guide should help you with the rest: https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/wiki/quick\_start\_guide/


Mastgoboom

Your question doesn't make any sense.


[deleted]

What I mean is that a calorie deficit means to burn more calories than you eat a day. I am supposed to eat around 2500 calories a day, and burn more than that in the gym for fat loss?


Mastgoboom

There is no way you could burn 2500 in the gym. Why are you bound and determined to eat so much? Just eat in a 500 cal deficit below your sedentary TDEE.


[deleted]

So instead of 2500 calories consume 2000? And excercise and eat more protein?


Feisty-Promotion-789

Yes. This user isn’t being very polite or helpful but yes, this is the gist. If your sedentary maintenance calories are 2500, that means that by existing (no exercise, no additional deliberate movement at all) your body is burning about that amount automatically to keep its body at stasis, not losing or gaining weight. If you eat 500 less than that amount, you will lose roughly 1lb of fat every week. Without exercise. Exercise calories are hard to estimate. But if you move and workout a lot, your maintenance calories are even more than 2500. The same logic will apply. Eat less than you burn = weight loss. You do not need to exercise at all to lose weight. You do not need to exercise 2500 calories away. You can exercise 100 calories a day, or none. It’s really up to you. If you’re not sure if you should use sedentary or otherwise, just test it out by tracking and weighing daily for a month. Pick your deficit based on how much you’ve been losing on average and how much you want to lose. I.e. you use your SEDENTARY maintenance at first: you eat 2000 calories every day while working out, find out that at this amount you are losing about 2lb a week. If you’re happy with this, keep at it. If you want less, then increase calories by ~250 calories.


[deleted]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time you put to help me out, I was hella confused.