By: Chris Gates

The calorie deficit is both the most impactful and most mysterious thing in the entire fitness and nutrition world.

I’m kind of kidding, but also I’m not.

So many people want to be in a calorie deficit. I’m sure that you do, because you’re here reading this article.

It’s the key to weight loss.

But at the same time, there’s not an easy way to know if you’re in that magical place called the “calorie deficit.” There’s no “now entering: Calorie Deficit!” sign as you make your way there. You can’t fill out a survey, or download an app that will tell you whether or not you’re in one.

It’s confusing.

But I’m here to make it simple for you. In this article, you’re going to be able to answer this question for yourself: how to know if I’m in a calorie deficit?

First, let’s define a calorie deficit, and then we’ll move into the various techniques you can use to confirm whether or not you’re in a calorie deficit. I’ll also outline what to do if you find out you’re not in a calorie deficit, in order to help you make the right adjustments to get there.

Let’s dive in!

Calorie Deficit, Defined

To be in a calorie deficit, you need to be burning more calories each day than you are consuming from food.

Another way to describe it is you need to be in negative energy balance. Calories are a unit of energy, so all of the food you consume is energy going into your body. You need that energy going in to be less than the energy going out.

When energy in is less than energy out, your body has to search elsewhere in the body for energy to get through the day. This happens by converting tissue in the body into energy, and that’s how your body loses weight.

So ideally, you want to get in negative energy balance—aka a calorie deficit—for an extended period of time to give your body ample time to shed body fat.

The Most Effective Approach to a Calorie Deficit

There are just about a million different ways you can go about getting into a calorie deficit, but there’s really only one main way that I’d recommend: focus on your nutrition.

Many people mess up by trying to out-exercise their diets and attempt to burn as many calories as possible each and every day. That’s a flawed approach, and it’s one that can lead you down a really dangerous path.

For starters, it’s nearly impossible to use that approach successfully for any stretch of time. If you assume that the average person burns about 100 calories by walking a mile, that means you’d have to walk hundreds of miles a month just to remain weight stable. Or, it means you’d have to do hundreds of hours of intense cardio a month.

You may think you can do that, but I promise you it won’t last. I’ve seen it way too many times with my clients, as a lot of them have had to unlearn this approach to find successful, sustainable weight loss.

You’ll burn out, and quit, and continually yo-yo diet over and over again if you refuse to address your nutrition to get into a calorie deficit.

So instead of immediately trying to piece together an exercise plan to lose weight, I want you to focus on your nutrition. Focus on removing a few hundred calories from your diet, as opposed to trying to burn a few hundred calories.

It’s way easier to stop eating your daily donut than it is to try and burn that thing off.

It’s All About Tracking

The key to how to know if you’re in a calorie deficit is to track.

Everything.

And I know that sounds like a daunting task, but hear me out. Because it’s really not too difficult.

Here’s a list of what you should track if you really want to know for sure if you’re in a calorie deficit:

• Your nutrition
• Your bodyweight
• Your waistline
• Your appearance (progress photos)

Let’s dive into each one of those…

Tracking your nutrition is probably the most impactful step, and luckily there are free tools out there like MyFitnessPal that allow you to easily tally up what you eat each day. My article on how to track your macros has more details on using nutrition tracking to get into a calorie deficit.

As you track your nutrition, you’ll get a general idea of how many calories you eat on a daily basis, on average. When you combine that with tracking your body composition (bodyweight, waistline, progress photos), you’ll learn whether or not you’re in a calorie deficit.

Note: If you REALLY don’t want to track your nutrition, you can check out my article on how to know you’re in a calorie deficit without counting calories for more tips. But it’s not a route I recommend for you, simply because it will be much harder than actually tracking.

You should also track your bodyweight every 1-2 days, and this one is super simple. It just requires you to step on the scale each morning. I’ve got a complete checklist on how to weigh yourself properly, so give that a look to make sure you’re doing this correctly.

On a biweekly basis, you should also take waist measurements. These are simple as well. Simply grab a tape measure and wrap it around your body from the top of your hip bone.

And finally, you should take progress photos from the front, back, and side once a month. These are important, because sometimes you won’t see progress on the scale or with your waist measurements, but your body composition may be changing. You could be building muscle while burning body fat, and these photos will help you capture that type of progress.

By combining your scale weight, waist measurements, and progress photos, you’re going to capture each and every possible form of progress to determine if you’re in a calorie deficit. That’s really important, and here’s why…

You can be in a calorie deficit without losing any weight.

Here’s an example… Say you adjust your nutrition and get in a calorie deficit, and at the same time you start lifting weights as part of your exercise program. In this situation, it’s very likely you’ll lose body fat AND build muscle at the same time. Your scale weight may not change at all, because your body will be both losing tissue from fat and building new muscle tissue.

The scale won’t change, but your body composition will.

In that example, if you only track your bodyweight you may think you’re not making progress when you actually are. And that could lead to you changing your plan, or abandoning it altogether, which would suck. Because if you would have just paid attention to a few additional details, you could have kept going and made dramatic progress.

That’s where waist measurements and progress photos come into play and become very valuable when combined with your bodyweight.

How to Know if I’m in a Calorie Deficit

Once you start tracking the various aspects of your body composition—bodyweight, waist measurements, progress photos—along with your nutrition, it should become clear pretty quickly whether or not you’re in a calorie deficit.

If after a month you’re seeing progress with any one of those three body composition tracking variables, then you’re in a calorie deficit and you need to keep doing what you’re doing.

If your scale weight is dropping, and/or if your waist measurements are going down, and/or if your body is visually slimming down, you’re in a calorie deficit.

It doesn’t take all three of them to confirm that. Just one.

If you’re seeing progress with multiple aspects of your body composition tracking, even better!

If none of the items you track change after a month, then you’re most likely not in a calorie deficit and you need to make small adjustments to your nutrition.

Let me emphasize the “small” part of those small adjustments.

If you’re not in a calorie deficit, it doesn’t mean you should slash calories like a mad man. You don’t need to cut out half of your diet, or stop eating specific foods, or stop eating specific food groups, or cut carbs, or anything like that.

You just need to reduce your intake slightly, and continue to track your progress.

Remember what I told you at the beginning of this article? You need to be in a calorie deficit for an extended period of time to see progress.

In order to stay in a calorie deficit for an extended period of time, your diet has to be sustainable. And the most sustainable diet is always going to be the one that allows you to eat as many calories and types of food as possible.

The less you restrict, the longer you can diet. And the longer you can diet, the more progress you’ll make.

So if you want to lose weight, the best thing you can do right now is to start tracking and documenting your progress.

Download MyFitnessPal and start learning how to track your nutrition. Start getting an idea of how many calories you’re eating, on average, on a daily basis.

At the same time, start stepping on the scale in the morning every 1-2 days and log each weigh-in. Pay attention to the trend over time, and don’t make any rash decisions or adjustments based on weight fluctuations.

And start taking your bi-weekly waist measurements and monthly progress photos.

Do all of that for a month, and reevaluate. If you see progress with any of the body composition metrics that you track, then that’s exactly how to know you’re in a calorie deficit.

I hope this helps!

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Thanks for reading! I hope this article helped you develop a better understanding of what a calorie deficit is, and how to know if you’re in a calorie deficit when trying to lose weight. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to help!

And if you’re interested in getting personalized support and coaching to achieve your weight loss goals, visit my coaching page to learn more about what I offer to my clients, and fill out a coaching application form if you’d like to speak directly about your goals!

Talk to you soon!

~ Chris