Can you not lose weight in a calorie deficit? I posted this question in my Skinny Fitalicious Facebook page recently and I did not realize how many individuals misunderstand how fat loss works.
If this is you, it's not your fault! With the number of diets and books on the market along with crazy social media people telling you to do this detox, drink this shake, eat these gummies and avoid specific foods to lose weight it's no wonder why so many people are confused.
We are not taught proper nutrition in school (I firmly believe we should be!) and we are also not taught how fat loss works and how to properly lose weight without crash dieting.
The sad truth is many individuals have done so much crash dieting that it has slowed their metabolism making weight loss harder and harder. Not impossible! You just need to work differently if this is you.
This is why I've been so outspoken about women needing to stop crash dieting and cutting calories too low. There are consequences to this!
When I asked in my Facebook page if it was possible to eat consistently in a calorie deficit and not lose weight, I was surprised that the majority of people said yes.
The simple answer is no. If you are eating in a REAL calorie deficit, you will lose weight. This is just how our bodies work. It's basic physics.
Now the complex answer is there is much more nuance to calorie deficits than just eating less food. These nuances make is harder for people to get into a real calorie deficit to lose body fat.
The sad truth is you may be burning much fewer calories than what an online calculator is recommending.
Most individuals start losing weight by calculating what their calories are using an online calculator then they try to follow that calorie number and either they are not consistent for 8-12 weeks, not patient enough, not tracking accurately or are in a theoretical deficit.
A theoretical deficit is not a real calorie deficit for your body.
The main issue I have seen with my weight loss clients is not understanding the difference between a theoretical deficit and real calorie deficit.
If you are in a real calorie deficit for your body accounting for all your body and lifestyle nuances, you will lose weight.
The bottom line is if you have not lost weight in a calorie deficit, you were NOT IN REAL CALORIE DEFICIT.
This is good news! It means there is not something wrong with your body and your body definitely does not defy science.
If you were not seeing weight loss in a calorie deficit, then it's time to investigate! Working with a nutritionist can help you figure out what's missing and how to get into a real calorie deficit for a short period of time for YOUR body.
I explain more detail about the nuances behind calorie deficits and three reasons why you haven't lose weight in a calorie deficit to help you. I recommend you listen to this podcast and take notes so you can investigate!
In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:
- If It's Possible To Be Eating in a Calorie Deficit and NOT Lose Weight
- Difference Between a Real Calorie Deficit and a Theoretical Calorie Deficit
- Nuances in the Calorie Deficit Equation
- Reasons Why Your Body's Burning Fewer Calories Than An Online Calculator
- Definition of Calorie Deficit, Calorie Maintenance, Calorie Surplus
- What Adaptive Thermogenesis Is (Most People Do Not Have This Problem!)
- The 3 Exact Reasons You're Not Losing Weight in a Calorie Deficit
Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotifyor Amazon Music
Related Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episodes
- Eating Too Little Is Making You Fat
- Are You Dieting Too Much
- Barely Eating and Gaining Weight
- Eating Healthy and Not Losing Weight
- How Weight Loss Works
- Fix Your Hormones to Lose Weight
- How Stress Makes You Fat
Can You Eat In A Calorie Deficit and Not Lose Weight Podcast Transcript
Hello Friends! Today we’re talking about can you NOT lose weight while being in a calorie deficit.
Last month, I posted on my Skinny Fitalicious Facebook page is it possible to eat in a calorie deficit consistently and not lose weight?
I was blown away by the responses and the arguments in the comments. 95% of the people in the responses got the answer wrong.
And I truly did not realize how very badly we needed this episode. I’ve been working with clients for 10 years and I took it for granted that people understood how energy balance works. I was wrong!
For today’s conversation, I ask that you keep an open mind so you can learn and hopefully, get unstuck and stop spinning your wheels with reaching your goals.
You may have some preconceived notions about this topic, and I am going to share the scientific facts and some of the nuances around this.
Before we answer this question. I’m going to share with you how we got here.
I’ve been working with a few clients the last couple months on maintenance phases and this one question kept coming up from my clients. Am I going to gain weight going back to maintenance?
And it felt so obvious to me like, well no, of course you’re not going to gain weight going back to maintenance. You’re eating at maintenance? Why would you think maintenance equals weight gain? Then it dawned on me.
Wow - women don’t understand how this works. Let me see if I can explain this concept very simply for you before, we get into answering the question about whether you can not lose weight in a deficit and the nuances that go with it.
Our bodies require energy to live. All the stuff your body does behind the scenes – liver function, digestion, pancreas function, hormone production, brain function, sleep, kidney function, reproduction, lung function, heart beating.
Your body utilizes energy to perform these tasks that are vital to your survival. If you were laying around in bed all day, your body would still need energy to keep your organs and processes functioning.
So, your body requires energy otherwise you cease to exist. Hopefully, we agree so far!
Now calories are simply a unit of measure of how much energy is in a food or drink. When you read a nutrition data label and it says 100 calories per serving as an example. That means 100 units of energy.
Now yes, some foods are more nutritious, keep you fuller, give you more energy and some are easier to overconsume.
Bottom line is the composition of all calories don’t have the same impact on us and don’t offer the same nutrients, but for now we are just talking about energy. Not composition of calories or nutrients.
Body fat is excess stored energy. That is all body fat is. Your body gets energy to perform its processes to keep you alive from the calories in the food you eat. Your body can also tap into stored body fat to use as energy.
Additionally, your body can break down muscle and other tissues, but again, I’m trying to keep this super simple, so you follow me and understand this concept.
Let’s use an analogy using your car. Imagine your car. Your car won’t go anywhere without gas because gas is the energy that makes your car run. Right?
And yes, some cars use electricity these days but for simplicity, let’s just stick with gas in this example.
Let’s say you use all your gas to drive your car daily. All the errands and tasks you must do for the day, requires you to use all the gas in your car otherwise you cannot do what you need to do.
Every morning you need to fill your gas tank to full to get all your tasks done and then at night it is on empty, and you must refill it the next day.
Your gas tank being at full and you using the entire gas tank for the day to do all your errands and tasks is like you being at maintenance.
Your gas tank is not overflowing and it’s not under filled. It’s at maintenance and you’re able to do everything you need to do each day on a full tank of gas.
Now let’s say your gas tank always overflows. Every time you go to the gas station, you always bring another can with you to catch the overflow. Then you carry that overflow can in your car just in case you ever run out and need it.
Overtime, you’ve got 10 or 20 overflow cans in your car from all the gas overflows. That’s a surplus. When you eat in a surplus, you accumulate stored energy that you carry around with you just in case your body needs it.
No different than if you were to carry the extra overflow cans of gas in your car.
Now let’s say you only fill your gas tank to ¾’s of the way full, but you still need a full tank of gas to get all your things done every day. What do you do now?
You don’t have enough? You have a deficit. In this scenario, you tap into your overflow cans for the other ¼ tank of gas you need.
Overtime, if you filled your car only ¾ of the way full and filled the rest of your gas tank with overflow you would reduce the amount of overflow cans you have, right?
This is no different when your body is in a deficit. In a deficit, you’re eating (as an example) ¾’s of the calories your body needs (something very moderate, nothing ever extreme) but your body still needs to do all its processes and tasks and requires a full tank.
Where does your body get the other ¼ tank of energy from? Stored body fat. Overtime, body fat decreases. Because your body used that stored energy, it was able to maintain its processes and keep you alive.
For those wondering how do I not gain weight when I go back to maintenance, this is why. You’re filling your gas tank back to maintenance. That’s all.
You are restoring your body to the full level of what it needs to keep your body doing all of its functions.
Now, if you have lost a significant amount weight your maintenance will change, but again we are keeping this super simple. Hopefully with this gas tank analogy you can understand maintenance, surplus and a deficit and you can see that you don’t need to be fearful of eating at maintenance.
You are simply restoring your body back to what it needs. A lot of women are scared that bringing their calories up to maintenance out of a deficit is going to result in weight gain. It doesn’t. You are just restoring to homeostasis.
Hopefully, you are still with me!
Now let’s get back to the original question. Is it possible to eat in a consistent calorie deficit and not lose weight? The simple answer is no. It’s not possible and the reason it’s not possible is because it is basic physics. It is how our bodies work.
If you believe the human body does not lose body fat in a calorie deficit, then you must think things like gravitational pull is made up and doesn’t exist. You must believe if you jump in the air, you will stay there. Basic physics.
I think what happens when you hear me say can you eat in a consistent calorie deficit and not lose weight, you probably think of all the extenuating circumstances that change this question. Hormones, menopause, medical conditions, thyroid conditions, PCOS, autoimmune conditions, age, too much dieting.
You begin thinking of these other things and it still does not change the reality of science. You cannot gain weight while eating in a REAL calorie deficit. People who starve to death, do not gain weight.
The problem that most people have is that they do not understand a real calorie deficit vs. a theoretical calorie deficit, and they don’t understand that the calorie equation is very nuanced.
Many of the individuals who were commenting on this post kept saying things like calories aren’t all that matters. Correct.
Calories are not all that matters and in fact, sometimes I think women focus too much on calories and not enough on building muscle, building a supportive mindset, and building lifestyle they can do until they’re 85 years old. They’re too focused on weight loss and calories.
But even if you have the slowest metabolism on the planet, you still cannot gain weight in a calorie deficit, and you can only lose weight in a calorie deficit. This is a scientific fact. I’m sorry for those of you who want to believe otherwise, but scientific fact.
Now what a lot of individuals do is go to an online calculator or an app or a coach and they were given a calorie number. That is a theoretical deficit. Let’s say it’s 1600 calories and you eat 1600 calories on average consistently over 2 months and do not lose weight. What that means is you were not in a calorie deficit.
You were in a theoretical calorie deficit. The theory did not work. It’s a hypothesis. We are hypothesizing that 1600 calories is where you SHOULD BE able to lose weight then we test the hypothesis by you eating 1600 calories for a period of time.
You do not lose weight so then we conclude 1600 calories was not a deficit for YOU.
When someone says I ate in a calorie deficit and didn’t lose any weight. You were not actually in a real calorie deficit. You were in a theoretical calorie deficit.
A theoretical deficit means nothing. A real calorie deficit is where your body is burning more calories than you are consuming.
It has no other choice than to tap into stored body fat for energy. We just talked about this with the gas in your car analogy.
Let’s say you’re burning 2,000 calories a day and you’re consuming 1,000 calories per day. Where is the other energy coming from to support your life? It’s getting it from stored body fat to create energy which does result in weight loss.
No matter what circumstance you come up with in your head – hormones, thyroid, age, menopause, autoimmune conditions, etc., you cannot circumvent this scientific fact.
You can say I’m eating very few calories and not losing weight. The answer is that those circumstances have put you in a position where your body just does not burn that many calories.
You have a thyroid condition; you’re burning fewer calories. You’re in menopause. You might be feeling terrible, not sleeping, are barely moving, you’ve likely lost muscle if you haven’t been strength training or eating sufficient protein. You’re burning fewer calories.
No matter what the extenuating circumstances are, it always comes back to you are burning fewer calories.
In addition to that, you may not be tracking your calories accurately. I see this all the time. Not tracking calories accurately.
This happened with a client recently. She SWORE she was eating 1500 calories and so I asked her to use a food scale and to weigh her food in grams and enter them in grams into a food tracking app for 2 weeks so we can audit her tracking accuracy.
She was somewhat resilient to it and couldn’t understand why her measuring cups and spoons wouldn’t be good enough. I said, just humor me and do this so we can check the box and be sure we are being accurate. You know what happened?
She was eating over 1800 calories! She couldn’t believe it. I could believe it!
Because I see it all the time! People tracking things in volume instead of weight. It makes a big different and when things are not happening, verifying your tracking accuracy is always the thing you must do before blaming your hormones, blaming your age and saying calorie deficits don’t work.
I swear I’d be a millionaire if I had $10 dollars every time I’ve seen this happen with a client. I’ve seen it happen a lot! It’s even happened to me!
Couple times I made pork chops thinking it was 200 calories and then I weighed them after cooking, and they were actually 400 calories. Twice the calories!
Think about this, if you eat 20 different foods every day and each one has a tracking error like this then it’s no wonder, you’re not losing weight. The calories you think you’re eating may not be accurate and you may be far from your theoretical calorie deficit just like the client I described.
She swore she was eating 1500 calories and was complaining nothing was working. See nothing’s working Megan. I’m doing all this work and nothing’s happening. She was super frustrated. Then come to find out she was really eating 1800 calories.
This is a very common mistake people make and it’s not something you just wouldn’t know because apps don’t tell you this. Unless you’re working with a nutritionist, you would have no way of knowing you need to use a food scale to verify your accuracy. Very simple mistake that you can make. Again, you’re not in a calorie deficit.
Now if we continue with the example of eating 1,000 calories and burning 2,000 calories your body will downregulate at some point. This is called adaptive thermogenesis. Your metabolism slows down from you dieting.
I’ve talked about this a million times on this podcast. Stop dieting so much and stop chasing weight loss all the time because you’re slowing down your metabolism. The Optavia podcast I did I shared a really clear example of how this happens.
You’re literally making it harder and harder to lose weight. This is why weight loss gets slower and slower for many of you. It’s not starvation mode because starving people don’t gain weight or maintain their weight.
People dying of starvation in Africa and concentration camps are literally withering away.
It’s adaptive thermogenesis. Your metabolism slows down when you diet too much or crash diet to preserve your life.
You will lose muscle, you will have increased hunger and other side effects as a protective mechanism for your body to try to keep you alive.
Adaptive thermogenesis again means you are burning fewer calories. It doesn’t change the fact that you would still need a deficit to lose weight. Let’s say your metabolism downregulates all the way down to 1,000 calories per day.
What used to be a well-functioning metabolism that was burning 2,000 calories per day is now a very slow metabolism that has adapted and is only burning 1,000 calories per day and now you’re eating 1,000 calories. 1,000 calorie is now your new maintenance.
This is why many individuals easily regain weight because your adapted maintenance is now 1,000 calories and if you eat above that now you’re in a surplus.
This is exactly why we don’t crash diet and exactly why we don’t stay in calorie deficits for too long because of this adaptive mechanism your body has. Very easy to regain weight.
Eating too little and crash dieting puts you in a susceptible position to regain body fat at a future date. But that doesn’t circumvent the science of a calorie deficit.
This is where many women don’t understand that their new maintenance is 1,000 calories so in order for them to lose any weight, they would now have to eat 800, 700, 600, 500, close to nothing.
That would be their new calorie deficit. It’s unlikely you’re going to be able to do that and it’s not something I recommend which is why putting yourself in this situation in the first place is something you should avoid at all costs.
This is where women say things like calorie deficits don’t work. Calorie deficits do work. You’ve just put yourself in this position where your metabolism has downregulated and now your new calorie deficit would be a ridiculously low number.
If you are eating in a true calorie deficit, it is impossible to gain weight. The only outcome is weight loss because where else is the energy coming from? It can only come from stored energy.
But what about PCOS? What about menopause? What about my age? What about this hormone? What about that hormone? What about hypothyroidism? I have an autoimmune disease. These were the majority of the comments in the Facebook post.
Here’s the thing if you do have certain conditions – hypothyroidism, an autoimmune disease, are in perimenopause or menopause or have some other condition – that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be chasing weight loss and dieting and living in a calorie defict most of the time!
That’s exactly why SHOULD spend more time in maintenance. That’s why you SHOULD spend more time building muscle and SHOULD build healthy habits you can do until you’re 85 years old.
I see a large number of women in my nutrition practice who have put themselves in this exact position and it’s why I’ve been so outspoken about women needing to stop dieting. Work on building sustainable habits you can do until you are 85, work on building muscle, work on sleep, protein, fiber, fruits and veggies, steps.
Work on the basics. Don’t be chasing fat loss all the time. Don’t be slashing your calories so drastically. Don’t do whacky diets like Optavia, Physician’s Weight Loss and other programs that are putting you on extremely low calories.
They are literally making it very easy for you to regain weight and much harder for you to lose weight in the future.
This is also why I stress to my clients to take maintenance as seriously as they take their deficit. Eat all your calories and spend a good amount of time in maintenance. The common behavior I see is women continuing to eat at their deficit.
If 1000 calories was their calorie deficit, they continue eating at 1000 calories and just stay there. That is working directly against you. It is causing your metabolism to downregulate and making it harder.
A lot of my clients are scared they will gain weight going back to maintenance. Maintenance is maintaining. I don’t understand why we think we are going to gain weight in maintenance.
You gain weight in a surplus. Not in maintenance. Go back to the gas tank analogy I spoke about earlier. This is exactly why I’m talking about this with you today because I think a lot of women don’t understand this.
You are literally making it harder to lose weight by doing this. I’m trying to help you see how you are making your journey harder, so you are aware.
I don’t think they teach you this at Optavia or Weight Watchers, Noom or Jenny Craig or whatever big box name diet you’re doing. The sad thing is these diet programs know exactly they are doing this to you and your metabolism.
And I wanted to see if people understood this basic science with that Facebook post because I suspected based on what clients were asking me that people don’t understand this.
95% of the people who responded to my Facebook post, got the answer wrong. So, there is a huge, gross misunderstanding in the general population about how energy balance works and how metabolic adaptations making losing body fat more difficult.
Calorie deficits work!
Unfortunately, your real calorie deficit is likely lower than where it should be because of all the dieting you’ve done and some of your conditions. It sucks!
One woman in the comments of that Facebook post told me when she eats nothing and starves herself she gains weight and I challenged her on this. I said were you really eating 0 calories? If so, how long were you eating 0 calories?
How was it possible you starved yourself and you survived? Interestingly, she never responded to my question. Probably because she wasn’t actually eating 0 calories. I have no doubt she was eating very few calories and super hungry.
But that is different than telling someone you were starving and eating nothing. I think sometimes we overdramatize instead of stating the facts.
Again, if it were possible to gain weight while eating in a calorie deficit starving to death would not be a thing.
Starving is not what I recommend you do to lose weight. I do believe that starving to death is a hypothesis that has been confirmed many times over.
If you stop eating completely, in a certain matter of time you will cease to exist. If your body was somehow able to hold onto body fat while you were eating nothing, you would survive but that’s not how it works.
I spoke to a woman in a consultation earlier this week and explained adaptive thermogenesis to her. She’s been eating 1000 to 1200 calories forever. She said to me that’s an interesting concept. It’s not a concept. It’s a scientific fact.
Again, I am not saying you should starve yourself and I am also highly recommending if you are in a deficit that you stay there for a short period of time and then go back to maintenance.
Anyone who tells you to just eat in a calorie deficit until you get to your goal weight, run. You shouldn’t be listening to them.
I also think telling someone who’s struggling to lose weight to just eat in a calorie deficit isn’t very help advice. But that was not the question I asked on Facebook.
I didn’t ask how do you lose weight? I asked is it possible to eat in a consistent calorie deficit and not lose weight and the answer definitively is no.
Does eating in a deficit too long, too frequently and too extreme make gaining weight easier? Absolutely!
Does eating in a deficit too long, too frequently and too extreme make it harder in the future to lose weight? Absolutely!
Do certain health conditions like hypothyroidism, autoimmune diseases, certain phases of life like menopause make it more challenging? Of course! Does that mean you have to be more intentional.
Yep! Does it change the science? No. Because you cannot eat in a real calorie deficit and gain weight or maintain weight.
The two most common reasons why you’re not losing weight in a calorie deficit.
Number one is you’re not actually eating what you think are eating. Like the client I mentioned earlier who swore she was eating 1500 calories and was eating 1800.
She wasn’t eating what she thought she was eating. Food scales. If you are tracking calories, you need to use a food scale to verify your data. Measuring cups and measuring spoons are not accurate.
Number two is you’re eating in a theoretical deficit. You are eating what you say you’re eating, and you know how many calories you’re eating and you’ve verified your data is accurate with a food scale. It’s just not a deficit for your body.
Could be adaptive thermogenesis or it could be your body is burning fewer calories than an online calculator or app because of health conditions, thyroid, hormones, lack of activity, loss of muscle, etc.
It’s really important to understand this scientific fact. And hopefully this is good news for those of you who’ve been stuck and wondering why.
I don’t know why this would be bad news for anyone. There’s nothing wrong with you if you felt like nothing worked for you or you felt like your calorie deficit didn’t work.
Now you understand how this works. How would you know about adaptive thermogenesis or theoretical calorie deficits unless you went to nutrition school? It’s not your job to know this. That is why I’m clarifying it for you, so you understand how this works.
I had no idea that this Facebook post would create so much confusion and outrage.
The majority of people, like I said 95% of the people who commented on that posted said yes, absolutely you can eat in a deficit and not lose weight, or you can gain weight in a deficit.
That is absolutely, scientifically not true for all the reasons I stated today – adaptive thermogenesis, theoretical calorie deficits and not eating what you say you’re eating.
Truthfully, this is why I focus a lot with my clients on behavior change and not on calories. Creating healthy, sustainable habits they can do until they’re 85 years old to support their health long-term as well as a mindset that supports these sustainable behaviors and habits.
And yes, I help them lose body fat in a calorie deficit. But I do that in an easy and reasonable way that isn’t strenuous on the metabolism, and my clients only do that for a short period of time because I don’t want to put them in a compromised state.
By the time most of my clients get to me, most of them of them have already been in a compromised state.
Now some individuals want there to be some magical fix or something they’re missing, but they’re just missing changing their behavior. You have to actual change your behavior if you want to lose weight permanently.
A lot of people want to focus on the supplements, a gut protocol, balancing their minerals, cutting out certain foods, what apps to use.
If you can’t change your behavior, none of that stuff matters. If you can’t be consistent with your nutrition, none of that stuff matters. You have to change your behavior first.
I had a client many years ago who did something similar to the client I mentioned today, the one who thought she was eating 1500 calories but was actually eating 1800.
This client made the same mistake not weighing her food on a food scale and her steps were also very low. Steps are incredibly important when trying to lose body fat. I mean they’re important for your health, but when you are specifically trying to lose body fat steps become even more of a focal point.
Not only was this client eating way above her calories, but her steps were also low. So, we reviewed the data, and she understood her next step was to work on these two things and I explained to her how it aligned with her goal of losing body fat.
Two weeks later she emailed me saying she was going to her doctor to have her thyroid meds adjusted and how she was going to ask her doctor why she was gaining weight.
I emailed her back re-iterating that the reason she is gaining weight is because she is eating above her calorie target and her steps are low and I reminded her that her doctor is not a nutritionist. Doctors get 2 classes in nutrition.
This is an example of someone not changing their behavior and who had the mindset that there must be some other magical fix or there must be something missing when the only thing missing was changing her behavior.
She eventually came around and understood she couldn’t avoid doing the work any longer, but some people are forever on this search for the missing thing.
I call this shiny object syndrome. You’re always looking for the next thing to try or do or what might be missing, but all you’re doing is avoiding changing your behavior. Your behavior is consistent with not being consistent.
You actually have to change your behavior if you want permanent weight loss and healthy habits you can do until you’re 85 years old and the basic boring stuff I talk about all the time works. It can be tricky figuring out where your real calorie deficit is and sometimes there is some trial and error in that process, but that’s why we get help when we get stuck.
It’s like when something breaks on your car. Do you search on YouTube it how to fix it yourself or do you take it to a mechanic to fix it? Maybe if you’ve been stuck for a while, consider getting some help.
One last thing before we leave today, I’m going to be doing a cookbook giveaway every month starting in April of 2024 and ending December of 2024. Once a month I will announce a winner on the podcast.
To enter the giveaway, go to Apple podcast and leave a 5-star rating and review of this podcast. Make sure you leave the written review, so I know who you are based on the username.
If you just leave a rating, I will have absolutely no idea who you are. Each month I will randomly select a winner and send you a copy of my cookbook.
Appreciate you guys and I’ll talk to you soon!
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