All You Need to Know About Calorie Deficit Diet

Losing weight is a big decision to make. Plus, nowadays, knowing how to lose weight is tough. There are so many different ways to do it with so many diets to follow. It can be incredibly overwhelming picking a diet that will suit you, yet choosing the right one is so crucial. Finding a diet that works for you, increases your chances of losing weight, but importantly increases your chances of keeping it off too. Successful weight loss is all about finding the right scheme that you enjoy as much as possible and, almost, do not notice you are on a diet at all.

Here, we look at the calorie deficit diet. It is one of the oldest diets around and has been used to good effect by countless individuals looking to lose weight. It works by, as suggested in the name, limiting the amount of calories a person eats in a day. In doing so the individual needs the body to use fat stores to have enough energy to operate. It is recommended to find out how many calories you need according to your gender and height, and, then, eat 500 calories less a day. Over the course of 7 days, that should amount to losing a pound a week. Many people want to lose weight quicker than that, but doing it slowly means you are more likely to keep it off for good.

How to Stick to The Calorie Deficit Diet

The calorie deficit diet can be quite tough at times as it essentially limits your intake of food in comparison to what you were previously eating. You can improve the chances of success by employing the following principles below.

Know your baseline calorie intake needs

Before you start, it is crucial to calculate your body’s calorie needs. That means the amount of calories your body needs to function without putting on weight. A basic rule of thumb is that women need 2000 calories a day, men need 2500 calories per day. However, it is often better to research how much a person of your sex and height needs as if you are very tall, you may need more calories, and less if you are short. By knowing what your baseline is, you can then determine how many calories less a day you need for your body to begin using your fat stores for energy.

Go for lean protein

One thing that many followers of this diet struggle with is that they can get hungry quite quickly. To stop that from happening, it is important to maximise how filling each calorie you consume is. A bar of chocolate, for example, does not fill you up for very long and will also mean you use up a huge fraction of your daily calorie intake allowance.

One of the best foods you can eat to keep you fuller for longer will be lean protein. So think grilled chicken or fish.

Don’t always go for low fat, low sugar alternatives

Low fat, low sugar alternatives can be so tempting on this diet. So, for example, eating a low fat, low sugar greek yoghurt as opposed to the traditional full fat version. However, this can be a bit of a false economy. Those foods tend not to have much nutritional value and also don’t keep you full for very long. It means you are still satiated, if not craving food, even when you have eaten. Instead, increase the amount of whole foods in your diet.

‍Stay hydrated

A lot of hunger is actually misinterpreted thirst. When your stomach starts to rumble, which may well often be the case at first on this diet, try drinking water instead. It will often minimise hunger and may keep you going until your next meal. Also, drinking water with your meal is often recommended. Firstly, it is, again, filling when ingested with food. Secondly, it is a way of slowing down how quickly you eat too. Studies have shown that if you eat too quickly, you end up eating more than you really need. The brain needs about 20 minutes to register that food is filling the stomach. As a result, if you eat too quickly, it may not register that you have already eaten the majority of your meal - thus meaning you want more.

Plan ahead

Planning ahead is vital for this type of diet. You have to have very exact calculations for the diet to result in weight loss. It means you need to know how much you are eating at all times which is why planning can be so helpful. Using a meal kit delivery service can really take the hassle out of that as kits come to your door in pre packaged, pre portioned sizes. Companies also provide you with the calorie count of each serving size. So, not only is it difficult to over eat, you also know how much you have eaten too.

Try to variety

Another way that meal kit delivery services can really help keep you on the straight and narrow with the calorie deficit diet is because it is a simple way to add variety to your day. Often, people get bored on this diet as they only know a very limited amount of dishes that are low enough in calories. Healthy meal kit delivery kits have a plethora of options that are low in calories that can really help increase the types of dishes you try on a weekly basis.

The Calorie Deficit Diet In Summary

The calorie deficit diet can be technically difficult to follow at first, but it is easy to find your groove after a week or so. The key is to eat a large variety of fruit and vegetables, and lean protein. Also, you may find it beneficial to increase your activity levels more when following this diet. More activity means you need more calories to answer the increased demand on your body. It means you can either eat slightly more, while still losing weight, or slightly quicken the pace of your weight loss. Plus more exercise is great for your mental health too, and can help increase confidence, which is so often vital when losing weight.