Skiman
Super Freak
Today I want to look at setting up caloric deficits for fat loss. So we’re clear, I’m going to start from the assumption that you must create some form of deficit (e.g. an imbalance between your intake and expenditure) for fat or weight loss to occur. I know that there are a lot of arguments that this is not the case but simply, decades of research says that it is.
I’m also going to assume, and realize that this is more for simplicity than anything else that whether you create the deficit via diet or activity, the end result is basically the same. Note that this is absolutely not a correct assumption. But to save space and keep things less confusing, I’m going to work from that basic assumption; at some later date I’ll address that particular issue in more detail.
What I want to look at is the various pros and cons of using small, moderate and large caloric deficits when setting up a fat loss diet. As is usually the case you can find people arguing adamantly that only one or the other is appropriate; as usual I take a little bit different view: each approach can be relatively more or less appropriate for a given situation.
For the sake of this argument, I’m going to define the deficits as follows:
* Small: 10-15% below maintenance
* Moderate: 20-25% below maintenance
* Large: anything bigger than 25% below maintenance
Note, I’m not saying that these definitions are the exactly right ones, they are simply how I define the terms.
As I examine each, simply for the sake of putting some real world numbers to what I’m talking about, I’m going to use two sample dieters. The first is a relatively ‘average’ female who weighs 130 lbs and has a maintenance caloric expenditure of 1950 calories per day (15 cal/lb or 33 cal/kg, let’s just call it 2000). Our male weighs 180 lbs with a maintenance caloric expenditure of 2700 calories/day. I’ve discussed why and how I came up with the value of 15 cal/lb in the article How to Estimate Maintenance Calories.
Finally, I’m going to estimate weekly fat loss for each of the deficits as I go through. I’ll use the standard estimate of a 3500 calorie deficit equaling one pound of fat loss. I’ll only note that real-world fat loss will never actually achieve the estimated value, it’s always a little bit lower. I’ll explain why this is the case in a future article, for now simply accept that that’s the way things work.
And on with the show.
Small Deficits: 10-15% Below Maintenance
It’s not unheard of to hear of athletes or bodybuilders using very small caloric deficits to generate fat loss with a 10-15% deficit below maintenance being used. As well, some diet experts tend to recommend small deficits for even the general dieting public. Before looking at the pros and cons, let’s look at how this deficit will end up impacting on caloric intake as well as estimated weekly fat loss.
Dieter Maintenance Calories Total Deficit Estimated Fat Loss
Female 2000 calories 200-300 calories 0.5 lbs. per week
Male 2700 calories 270-405 calories 0.5-0.8 lbs. per week
Notice that the male, by simple dint of having a larger maintenance requirement will end up with a larger caloric deficit than the female and a larger predicted fat loss. This was actually one of the reasons that I argue for using percentage based deficits in my first book The Ketogenic Diet, they take into account the individual needs of the diet. That’s compared to either giving people absolute caloric recommendations or telling people to reduce their calories by some fixed amount.
First, some of the pros of this approach. Clearly the deficit is fairly small and can be achieved relatively easily. A small food restriction will usually accomplish it and often times, the deficit can be achieved by making simple qualitative changes in the diet (e.g. replacing 2% milk with fat free milk may save 40 calories and across three meals that’s 120 calories).
Even if absolute food intake has to be restricted, the difference is relatively small compared to normal eating patterns. For some people, this is beneficial behaviorally since they tend to do better with small non-intrusive changes.
It’s also often argued that this type of tiny deficit will have less of an impact on some of the counter-regulatory responses, the metabolic slowdown and such that can occur. There is arguably some truth to this although the compromise for this is much slower fat loss (discussed next).
Finally, related to the fact that the adjustments are often small, it is often argued that long-term adherence may be better than more extreme diets; since there is less overall restriction involved in the first place, the odds of the person slipping or losing control is lower. Again, there is some truth to this.
Finally, for performance type athletes, since there is never much extreme dietary restriction, the odds of hurting training or performance are lowered. Big deficits can destroy training or at least require that it be modified to avoid the person crashing hard. Small deficits generally avoid that.
But what about the cons? The biggest issue with this approach is that the fat loss is so exceedingly slow. Typically when I have seen people use this approach it is with folks who are relatively lean and don’t have much fat to lose in the first place.
A contest dieter (bodybuilder or figure person) who is starting close to their goal may only need to drop 10 pounds of fat to get into shape. Of course, for our female, that still may require 20 weeks of straight dieting. But for some people, and this is usually with folks who really know their bodies, this may work better.
For larger individuals, even with the relatively faster rates of fat loss, the slow rate of loss may be discouraging and frustrating. As I discussed in another context in The Full Diet Break, individuals who have 50-100 or more pounds to lose often have a great deal of psychological struggle to overcome; losing a mere 1-2 pounds per week can make the diet take forever and that can lead to failure.
The final con with this approach is this: it’s real easy to screw up. The small deficit makes it possible for even tiny mis-measurement of true food intake to obliterate the deficit. I discussed this idea in a different context in the Q&A on Not Losing Fat in a 20% Deficit but it is potential problem.
Again, in my experience the people who make this approach work are absolutely meticulous with their diet, they measure everything to the gram. Otherwise, it’s altogether too easy for what you though was a 300 cal/day deficit to be nothing but a 100 cal/day deficit.
For the most part, I think the small deficit approach is best for the type of dieter I’ve described a couple times above: advanced dieters and/or athletes with relatively less fat to lose who are obsessively meticulous with their calories. For others, a moderate or large deficit will probably be a better choice.
I’m also going to assume, and realize that this is more for simplicity than anything else that whether you create the deficit via diet or activity, the end result is basically the same. Note that this is absolutely not a correct assumption. But to save space and keep things less confusing, I’m going to work from that basic assumption; at some later date I’ll address that particular issue in more detail.
What I want to look at is the various pros and cons of using small, moderate and large caloric deficits when setting up a fat loss diet. As is usually the case you can find people arguing adamantly that only one or the other is appropriate; as usual I take a little bit different view: each approach can be relatively more or less appropriate for a given situation.
For the sake of this argument, I’m going to define the deficits as follows:
* Small: 10-15% below maintenance
* Moderate: 20-25% below maintenance
* Large: anything bigger than 25% below maintenance
Note, I’m not saying that these definitions are the exactly right ones, they are simply how I define the terms.
As I examine each, simply for the sake of putting some real world numbers to what I’m talking about, I’m going to use two sample dieters. The first is a relatively ‘average’ female who weighs 130 lbs and has a maintenance caloric expenditure of 1950 calories per day (15 cal/lb or 33 cal/kg, let’s just call it 2000). Our male weighs 180 lbs with a maintenance caloric expenditure of 2700 calories/day. I’ve discussed why and how I came up with the value of 15 cal/lb in the article How to Estimate Maintenance Calories.
Finally, I’m going to estimate weekly fat loss for each of the deficits as I go through. I’ll use the standard estimate of a 3500 calorie deficit equaling one pound of fat loss. I’ll only note that real-world fat loss will never actually achieve the estimated value, it’s always a little bit lower. I’ll explain why this is the case in a future article, for now simply accept that that’s the way things work.
And on with the show.
Small Deficits: 10-15% Below Maintenance
It’s not unheard of to hear of athletes or bodybuilders using very small caloric deficits to generate fat loss with a 10-15% deficit below maintenance being used. As well, some diet experts tend to recommend small deficits for even the general dieting public. Before looking at the pros and cons, let’s look at how this deficit will end up impacting on caloric intake as well as estimated weekly fat loss.
Dieter Maintenance Calories Total Deficit Estimated Fat Loss
Female 2000 calories 200-300 calories 0.5 lbs. per week
Male 2700 calories 270-405 calories 0.5-0.8 lbs. per week
Notice that the male, by simple dint of having a larger maintenance requirement will end up with a larger caloric deficit than the female and a larger predicted fat loss. This was actually one of the reasons that I argue for using percentage based deficits in my first book The Ketogenic Diet, they take into account the individual needs of the diet. That’s compared to either giving people absolute caloric recommendations or telling people to reduce their calories by some fixed amount.
First, some of the pros of this approach. Clearly the deficit is fairly small and can be achieved relatively easily. A small food restriction will usually accomplish it and often times, the deficit can be achieved by making simple qualitative changes in the diet (e.g. replacing 2% milk with fat free milk may save 40 calories and across three meals that’s 120 calories).
Even if absolute food intake has to be restricted, the difference is relatively small compared to normal eating patterns. For some people, this is beneficial behaviorally since they tend to do better with small non-intrusive changes.
It’s also often argued that this type of tiny deficit will have less of an impact on some of the counter-regulatory responses, the metabolic slowdown and such that can occur. There is arguably some truth to this although the compromise for this is much slower fat loss (discussed next).
Finally, related to the fact that the adjustments are often small, it is often argued that long-term adherence may be better than more extreme diets; since there is less overall restriction involved in the first place, the odds of the person slipping or losing control is lower. Again, there is some truth to this.
Finally, for performance type athletes, since there is never much extreme dietary restriction, the odds of hurting training or performance are lowered. Big deficits can destroy training or at least require that it be modified to avoid the person crashing hard. Small deficits generally avoid that.
But what about the cons? The biggest issue with this approach is that the fat loss is so exceedingly slow. Typically when I have seen people use this approach it is with folks who are relatively lean and don’t have much fat to lose in the first place.
A contest dieter (bodybuilder or figure person) who is starting close to their goal may only need to drop 10 pounds of fat to get into shape. Of course, for our female, that still may require 20 weeks of straight dieting. But for some people, and this is usually with folks who really know their bodies, this may work better.
For larger individuals, even with the relatively faster rates of fat loss, the slow rate of loss may be discouraging and frustrating. As I discussed in another context in The Full Diet Break, individuals who have 50-100 or more pounds to lose often have a great deal of psychological struggle to overcome; losing a mere 1-2 pounds per week can make the diet take forever and that can lead to failure.
The final con with this approach is this: it’s real easy to screw up. The small deficit makes it possible for even tiny mis-measurement of true food intake to obliterate the deficit. I discussed this idea in a different context in the Q&A on Not Losing Fat in a 20% Deficit but it is potential problem.
Again, in my experience the people who make this approach work are absolutely meticulous with their diet, they measure everything to the gram. Otherwise, it’s altogether too easy for what you though was a 300 cal/day deficit to be nothing but a 100 cal/day deficit.
For the most part, I think the small deficit approach is best for the type of dieter I’ve described a couple times above: advanced dieters and/or athletes with relatively less fat to lose who are obsessively meticulous with their calories. For others, a moderate or large deficit will probably be a better choice.
