I’m just confused on how losing weight actually works. So if I cut myself down to 1500 calories a day, I would have to burn like 2000 calories to lose weight? That just seems like a lot of exercising to me, especially because I’m juggling a job and highschool still. Could you guys explain it to me in a better sense?
In: Biology
Your are burning calories simply by breathing, moving, pumping blood, thinking. Just being alive is burning calories. How many depends a bit on your age, size, and day to day lifestyle.
So the basic rule of “calories in calories out” is –
all about burning more than you consume.
A rough estimate of baseline calories for a guy that is 5’10”, 190lbs, 30yrs old, and has a pretty sedentary lifestyle is aprox 2100 calories a day. That means at 2100 calories a day he won’t really lose or gain. His BMR is aprox 1820 calories a day. That’s how much his body is burning just by being alive. So if he eats only 1800 calories a day he’s going to actually lose weight because he’s not just alive, he’s also thinking and getting up and moving around and showering and whatever else he’s doing. That’s why he needs those aprox 300 other calories to stay more of less then same weight.
That’s an over simplified explanation.
As for losing weight, it’s 95% diets 5% exercise. No mater how much you exercise you need to be at a deficit in the “calories in/out” equation. And exercise, for an average human, only burns a few hundred calories at best.
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