Decide on a realistic spin weight loss goal by working backward.

A spin is a one week period during which you aim to meet a set of goals established at the beginning of the spin. One common goal is the amount of weight you want to lose in a week. How much weight should you lose per spin?

When you have reached your long term target weight, then the amount of weight you want to lose in a spin is a very nice looking zero pounds. You just want to stay at your current weight so there’s no weight to lose.

If you haven’t reached your long term weight loss goal, then you need to figure out an amount to lose per spin than makes steady progress, doesn’t kick in the starvation response, and that you can successfully achieve given your nature.

How do you arrive at such a miracle number? By working backward.

First we figure out your daily calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is how many more calories you burn than you eat. Figuring out your daily calorie deficit will tell you how much weight you can be expected to realistically lose each spin.

Calculating Your Calorie Deficit–Using Fat for Fuel

The fat on your body is a form of energy storage. Calories you eat now that aren’t used are stored as fat for use later. Fat is like a gas tank. When your body needs more energy it will dip into the gas tank. What does your body need energy for? Everything it does: thinking, running, building muscle, breathing, and a thousand other activities. In our ancient past we might have gone many days without eating, so being able to store fat was critical for survival. When food was plentiful we would eat all we could and store up fat for the lean times when food wasn’t available, yet we’d still have to work to get more food.

Your fat came from eating more calories than you need. That’s called a calorie surplus. Only in our modern world, the lean times may never come so you have to artificially arrange the lean times by creating your own calorie deficit.

Two questions need to be answered about your calorie deficit:

1.      How big a calorie deficit do you need?

2.      How do you create a calorie deficit?

How big a calorie deficit do you need?

We don’t usually gain weight by eating thousands of calories extra a day. Instead, we slowly accumulate one to three pounds a year by eating 10–30 extra calories a day. Over ten years that’s an extra 10 to 30 pounds, made one slip-up at a time. From The Bad Estimation Threat, you can see how easy it easy to eat a few extra calories a day. Once you start counting your calories for a few weeks, you will definitely see how you are eating the extra calories that add up over time to obesity.

Dr. James O. Hill, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine Director, Colorado Clinical Nutrition Research Unit, estimates that 90 percent of weight gain could be stopped by having a calorie deficit of 100 calories a day. That’s not that much really. It’s one soda or a tablespoon of butter less a day.

Remember that a pound of fat has about 3,500 calories. If you create a daily calorie deficit of 500 calories, you will lose a pound week or about 50 pounds a year (remember the divide by 10 rule). A calorie deficit of 100 calories a day means a weight loss of about 10 pounds a year.

The goal of America on the Move (see the Walk the Walk strategy for more information) is to get people to have a daily calorie deficit of 200 calories. Some people might think losing weight at this level may be too slow, but slow weight loss is better. The weight took a long time to gain, give it some time to come off.

The slower you lose weight, the less hard your body will fight to keep the weight on because your body won’t see the weight loss as starvation. Remember the slowly boiled frog? Slow weight loss may also minimize the intense cravings you’ll get if you go faster.

Think back to the Minnesota starvation experiment. Eating too few calories slowed their metabolism down by 40%! So, by eating too few calories you can actually make yourself gain weight because your body thinks it is starving.

Many people suggest a maximum calorie deficit of 500 from reducing how much you eat. You can create a bigger calorie deficit by exercising more. The idea is to decrease your calories a little and increase your activity levels as much as you can.

A deficit of 1000 calories just from eating less will almost certainly kick in your starvation response.

You’ll have to decide for yourself which calorie deficit number is best. You can always start at 100 or 200 and work up. Whatever the number you pick it is one you’ll have to live with, so there’s no use lying to yourself by picking a number that’s too high.

How do you create a calorie deficit?

Once you decide on your target calorie deficit, you need to come up with a set of strategies for implementing your goal. It’s easiest to combine strategies that reduce the number of calories you eat and by increasing your exercise level.

Let’s say your calorie deficit goal is 500 a day. People seem to like that number because it means they’ll lose a pound a week which is a significant amount of weight to lose in one year. Now you need to decide how to meet this goal. Is it by eating less or exercising more?

Let’s split it down the middle. Let’s say you’ll reduce your calorie consumption by 250 and you’ll be more active for the remaining 250 calories. We’ll call the 250 calorie deficit from eating less your calories from eating less. We’ll call the 250 calorie deficit from being more active your calorie deficit from exercising more. You’ll need to remember both numbers for use in the How Many Calories Can You Eat Each Day? strategy.

You may be asking, reduce consumption by 250 calories below what? Good question. You’ll calculate the number of calories you should eat each day in the How Many Calories Can You Eat Each Day? strategy.

Creating a Calorie Deficit by Increasing Your Activity Level

Increasing your activity can mean something as simple as walking more. You need to add an extra 4500 steps a day to burn an extra 250 calories. Later we’ll talk about lots of strategies for increasing your number of steps.

Be careful when calculating your calories burned from exercising as everything may not be as it first appears. Walking a mile is typically said to burn 100 calories. So if you walk 35 miles you would think you should lose a pound of fat because there are 3,500 calories in a pound. But it doesn’t quite work that way.

You burn a lot of calories from just sitting around, even if you don’t walk. So that number has to be subtracted from the 100 calorie figure used for walking to get a more accurate number. Once you subtract the calories used by sitting, it turns out that walking really only burned an extra 54 calories per mile.

The 100 calorie per mile number is just an approximation anyway. A heavier person will burn a lot more calories than a lighter person. If you exercise on a treadmill or other equipment, the mechanical advantage provided by the machine means you don’t burn as many calories either.

If you are losing weight slower than you think, then your calorie deficit from exercise calculations may be inaccurate. You’ll have to exercise a bit longer or with greater intensity to make up for the fudge factor.

Creating a Calorie Deficit by Eating Less

Reducing the calories you eat can mean just switching from regular soda to diet soda. Stop eating that extra donut. It doesn’t have to be traumatic. As you read on, you’ll see a lot of strategies that will be able to help you reach your calorie deficit goal.

Your Calorie Deficit isn’t Related to Your Target Weight

Notice how your calorie deficit isn’t tied to what you may consider your ideal weight. It doesn’t matter if you want to lose 10 pounds or 100 pounds. You can only lose weight as fast as your calorie deficit will let you.

This has been my approach. I try to create a calorie deficit with the strategies and use the feedback techniques to fine tune my weight.