If you're trying to lose weight, you need to read this. Remember last week when I wrote about calories and how each of us has different calorie needs and we need to consume the right amount of calories for our body to nourish? But what if we're trying to lose weight? If we cut down our calories, will it cause damage to our body? Let me share with you about calorie deficit and how it's going to help you to lose weight.
Calories deficit is a way of losing weight by consuming less calories than you burn. It's recommended to gradually cut off 500 kcal to 1000 kcal from your maintenance calories. The key here is consistency as it will help your weight loss process to be more sustainable. However, it's advisable not to consume less than 1200 kcal for female and 1500 kcal for male in order to lose weight healthily. The weight loss rate that is considered healthy is between 0.5kg to 1kg per week so if you consume too low calories with the intention to lose weight faster, it might cause damage to your body. So, how to perform calorie deficit safely and healthily?
First of all, you need to know your maintenance calories. Maintenance calories is the amount of calories needed by your body to maintain your current body weight. You can calculate your maintenance calories by tracking your body weight and daily usual calories consumption, specifically from 2 weekdays and 1 day from the weekend, while maintaining the same physical activity level. You can take the average calories from the 3 days as your maintenance calories and cut off 500 kcal from it to achieve calorie deficit.
Sounds too much to process? No worries, let us do the calculation and plan the meals that contain just the right amount of calories for you. Trust the process and you'll love the results.