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
Remember, just living burns calories. Your body needs to breathe, pump blood, run your brain, and a million other things that all burn calories. The amount of calories your body uses just staying alive is called your basal metabolic rate, or BMR. Any calories you burn through exercise or movement would be added to that.
So, if you eat 1500 calories, that doesn’t mean you need to do 2000 calories worth of exercise. Let’s take me for example. I can use a calculator like [this](https://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/bmr) to estimate my BMR. For me (a tall guy) it’s 2000 calories. So even if I slept all day, I would lose weight on a 1500 calorie diet. If I use the caloric needs calculator on that site, which adds in the calories you burn from activity, it says I burn 2700 calories even if I’m sedentary, and 3000 calories if I am mildly active, so I could lose weight even on a 2500 calorie diet.
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