How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit Without Counting Calories
As a fitness coach who has coached hundreds of people to lose weight, I’m going to share with you exactly how to know if you’re in a calorie deficit without counting calories.
You’ve probably heard things like…
“You can only lose weight by counting calories!”
“Counting calories is the best way to get into a calorie deficit!”
“A calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight.”
And with so much more conflicting and confusing information out there, you probably don’t know who to trust or where to start.
So I want you to read this article in its entirety, no skipping around.
But here’s a hint: the first two aren’t true, but the last one is.
And we are going to cover so much more including:
- How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit – The Cold, Hard Truth
- How To Get Into A Calorie Deficit (With And Without Tracking Calories)
- How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit And Stay In One
How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit – The Cold, Hard Truth
Here’s the thing. You must be in a calorie deficit to lose weight.
Also, when I say weight, I of course mean fat because let’s be honest, no one I have ever known says they want to lose weight and lose muscle, bone density or water weight. They want to lose unwanted body fat.
There is no way around it. No amount of weight loss gimmicks like wrapping your belly, drinking tea that makes you have to sprint to the toilet or special diets or exercise programs you weren’t aware of.
This means that if you aren’t losing weight, you’re probably not in a calorie deficit.
(If you need further help troubleshooting why you’re not losing weight even in a calorie deficit, check out my other article HERE.)
Now you’re probably thinking, “Well thanks asshole, now what do I do?”
A common fallacy a lot of people have is that “I just need to eat healthily and cut all of the junk food in my life and then I’ll start losing weight.”
While yes that is an awesome start and I congratulate you on your efforts to lose weight and better your health, eating healthy certainly helps but it’s not the piece of the puzzle that you’re missing.
You also need to be aware of the concept of energy balance, because as far as weight loss is concerned, you must be taking in fewer calories than you are burning consistently to lose weight.
And this is regardless of whether you choose to track calories or not.
How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit – The Methods
If you’ve done any research into a calorie deficit, you’ll see a lot of people recommend tracking calories.
And while yes, this can certainly help make the process much easier and streamlined, it is certainly not a requirement.
There’s a saying in the evidence-based part of the fitness industry.
It’s that:
“Whether or not you choose to count calories, you must always know that calories still count.”
This means that it doesn’t matter if you choose to track calories using an app, website, or sheet of paper, you must always know that the calories you eat and burn will count towards or against your goals.
So in this section, we’ll cover how to actually get into a calorie deficit both with and without tracking calories.
How To Find Your Calorie Deficit With Tracking Calories
I put this approach first is that there are very few reasons why you shouldn’t track calories.
The main reasons I argue for tracking calories (and why I start all of my online coaching clients with tracking) are:
- Educates you on what real serving sizes look like
- Teaches you the calorie density of foods so that you can choose foods that fill you up while staying within your “calorie budget”
- Shows you how to actually build a flexible and sustainable diet that includes all of your favorite foods
The Most Accurate Way To Find Your Calorie Deficit
Here’s the most accurate way to find your calorie (which is, unfortunately, is going to require some guesswork and more effort on your part).
But think of it as a time investment rather than time-consuming.
So here are the steps you need to take:
- Use a tracking app and record everything you are eating and drinking for 3 whole weeks. You don’t need to change up your diet yet, but you need to know how many calories you’re eating daily. And yes, everything that goes into your mouth hole.
- Weigh yourself every morning before you eat and drink anything and after you pee and/or poop and record that weight.
- Once you have your 3 weeks worth of data, find your average calorie intake and compare it to your average weight trend. At your current average calorie intake, is your weight trending up? Down? Staying around the same?
- Depending on how your weight is trending, that calorie intake means you are in a surplus, deficit, or maintenance depending on whether it’s trending up, down, or staying the same, respectively.
- That’s it! You now have a ballpark figure for how many calories you should be eating and you can adjust accordingly depending on your goals.
The Less Accurate Way (For The Lazy)
Just as a fair warning, if you’re thinking, “I’m too lazy to find my calories. Just tell me how many calories to eat instead!” I still got you, but don’t go thinking that this way is going to make things any easier.
Sure, you might not have to play around with the numbers, but no single calculator out there is going to be 100% accurate. You’re still most likely going to have to adjust depending on how your body responds.
With that said, I have a completely free calorie calculator you can access HERE.
Just plug in your stats and it will tell you a rough estimate of how many calories you need to lose weight, maintain, or be in a surplus.
Now, that you know how to get into a calorie deficit with tracking, let’s talk about how to get into a calorie deficit without tracking.
How To Find Your Calorie Deficit Without Tracking Calories
Now, I do understand that there are some people who would like to get into a calorie deficit to lose weight but simply can’t track calories due to:
- Previous experiences where tracking has worsened disorder eating habits (tracking can exacerbate disordered eating, but it does not cause them)
- Lack of time because of too many commitments
- Lack of control over their meals
Also, I do have an entire article dedicated to how to lose weight without tracking calories, which you can find HERE.
With this one, it’s going to be a bit tougher because you don’t have tangible numbers to work with.
It’s going to require you to focus more on food quality.
It’s also going to only take you so far because you can’t really get into the minutiae of it.
But if you’re just someone who wants to lose some weight to improve your overall health, this can totally work for you.
However, if you’re someone who wants to get a bit more serious about changing your body composition, then I highly recommend tracking as an educational tool to kickstart your progress, as it is just that and not something I recommend doing for the rest of your life.
Now, these are best practices to get into a calorie deficit as proven by my online coaching clients and millions of others (bookmark this page!)
- Have 3 meals a day
- Have one plate full of food at every meal – be reasonable with this, don’t go trying to squeeze as much food onto a plate as you can just because “Austin said I could have one plate!”
- Each plate consists over at least 50% lean protein, fruits, and/or veggies
- The rest of the plate is your carbs and fats sources
- Limit liquid calories (soda, juice, alcohol, etc.)
- Try to prepare at least 80-90% of your meals (you can also eat out with the following guidelines above)
- Limit snacking to 2-3 times a day – if you must snack, make sure it fits into the palm of your hands
- Bonus points if snacks are a protein, fruit, or vegetable source
- Strength train 3-4x a week with the goal of getting stronger (you can learn how to build your own workout routine HERE)
- Walk 5k+ steps a day
Of course, another FAQ I get is “What should I be eating to lose weight??” Don’t worry I’ve got ya covered with two more articles I’ve written HERE and HERE.
(If you have any questions or feel like I missed something, please email me!)
But ultimately to be real with you, tracking doesn’t really take that much effort.
Once you get over the learning curve, it literally just takes an extra 5 minutes of your day.
5 minutes a day to teach yourself a skill that will change the rest of your life? Priceless.
How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit And Staying In One
Keeping Track Of Your Progress
Alright, so now that you have all of the methods and you’ve applied them, how do you know it’s all working? Do you just simply keep track of your scale weight?
First off, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using the scale, don’t let people fool you into thinking the scale is evil, lying, or whatnot. It’s literally a piece of plastic with a number on it. As long as you view it as data, it’s not going to affect you.
But with that said, just using the scale weight isn’t the most accurate form of data.
This is because the scale weight can fluctuate and spike up for so many reasons like:
- Water retention from:
- Higher salt intake than usual
- Higher carb intake from usual
- Hormonal changes (like menstrual cycle)
- Stress
- Being sick
- Having an intense workout session
- Building muscle mass while simultaneously losing fat
- You haven’t taken your massive dump yet
- Food weight
The list goes on and on, but the point being is that when the scale spikes up it’s not pure fat gain and can mask your results.
So along with using the scale weight, I recommend taking body measurements and progress pics.
For body measurements, measure your waist around belly button level, and for progress pictures, you can take it from multiple angles but always make sure to use the same angles, lighting, and areas to ensure consistent tracking.
Simply put, if you are in a calorie deficit, you are going to see one of these measures go down over time.
And I cannot stress this enough, being in a calorie deficit for 42 minutes doesn’t warrant you life-changing results.
This is something that is going to take months and years to see significant changes, but if you are in a consistent calorie deficit for at least 3-4 weeks, you should some changes in scale weight trend, measurements, and progress photos.
How To Stay In A Calorie Deficit
Alright so by now you know that getting into a calorie deficit is an extremely important part of the process, but I would argue what’s even more important part is staying in one because like I have said over and over, consistency is going to give you results.
Because let’s be honest, people get into calorie deficits all the time.
Whether it’s through following fad diets like keto, paleo, Atkins, carnivore, or drastically cutting half of their calorie intake and doing tons of cardio, they are technically getting into a calorie deficit.
But how long are these people staying in these approaches to a calorie deficit?
1 week, 2 weeks, maybe 30 days tops?
Therefore, finding an approach that helps you stay in a calorie deficit is just as important so that you can become a success story rather than becoming a “back in my glory days” story.
So what are the best practices to stay in a calorie deficit?
Ultimately, this will vary from person to person because we all have different needs, wants, schedules, and likes/dislikes when it comes to diet and exercise, but best practices that have helped both my clients and me succeed are:
- Being in a small calorie deficit (whatever amount allows you to see a good rate of progress, but also doesn’t detract from your life)
- Including high protein and other high satiation foods (again, I have an article on this HERE)
- Not completely restricting yourself from your favorite foods, knowing that all foods fit (this concept is called flexible dieting, which I have another article on this HERE)
- Strength train 2-4x a week to encourage muscle building or retention so that you increase/maintain your metabolism, strength, and lean body mass (more on this HERE)
- Use cardio as means for improving your health, not burning calories (cardio doesn’t burn as many calories as you think it does, but it is a great tool for improving heart health, I also have an entire article written on cardio HERE)
- Realize that taking action and being consistent matters more than staying motivated or being perfect (motivation comes and goes and perfection isn’t realistic, more on this in my other article HERE)
Final Thoughts on How To Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit
Firstly, thank you so much for making it through this article.
I really hope that this has helped you get a better idea of how to know if you’re in a calorie deficit both with and without tracking calories.
Secondly, the most important thing I want you to realize is that even if you follow and apply everything in this article to a tee, you still need the most important of all: patience.
Truthfully, this is the one thing that causes a lot of people to fail.
Not because they don’t have enough willpower or don’t know what to do.
They just simply aren’t patient enough.
The absolute worst thing you can do is do everything right and see progress, but give up because you don’t think it’s happening “fast enough.”
So do the hard shit, stay consistent, and be patient.
And the results will show up, I promise.
Until next time,
-Aus
