Still trying to make sense of this ---

[FeeFee]

Folks, i have always heard this term, but what exactly does it MEAN? Please bear with me....
How exactly do you 'burn MORE than you eat'?
Say for example you need 1,500 calories just to survive, sitting on the couch all day, doing nothing...if you end up eating say 1,800 calories per day, does that mean you need to just burn off the extra 300 in order to loose weight? Or do you try to burn off more than the entire 1,8000, if you are in effect trying to burn MORE than you eat? I hope I dont sound silly, but I just have never been quite sure what that means.

[swanso5]

your on he right track...l me use money as an example where you can go 1 or 3 ways:

1 - to save money you need to spend less than your earning

2 - if you spend the dame that you earn but no more than you will never save nor be in debt

3 - if you send more than you're arning than you are getting in debt

now for money number 1 is good but for the body and in the case of fat loss its't as because there are ample calories (money) or little activity (spending) it has no need to dip into fat stores (savings)

number 3 on the other hand is the opposite, in particular for fat loss, as this spending (increased activity) is good as you'll need to dip into your savings (hopefully)

When the body is in debt, it still needs "money to spend" to function. This money will hopefully come in the form of fat stores if exercise is intense enough and calories clean.

does that make sense?

[FeeFee]

Yes, this is perhaps the best explanation i have so far.....thanks alot Swan...I still have another question ----if I consume say 1000 calories and burn 1,200 because I'm trying to create a deficit....what is left in body for survival? ---what i mean is...if i am dipping into the fat stores by consuming more than the total number of calories that i haev consumed...wouldnt that mean i'm leaving body bereft of any calories that i'll need for normal functions, such as brushing teeth, walking, sitting up, etc...hope i'm kaing sense

[Boss Man]

I still have another question ----if I consume say 1000 calories and burn 1,200 because I'm trying to create a deficit....what is left in body for survival? ---what i mean is...if i am dipping into the fat stores by consuming more than the total number of calories that i haev consumed...wouldnt that mean i'm leaving body bereft of any calories that i'll need for normal functions, such as brushing teeth, walking, sitting up, etc...hope i'm kaing sense

You'll have a problem there anyway, as 1,200 calories a day is too low, unless you're training for a contest, and realistically whlst yes in your example you would create a deficeit, at that low level of calories, the body would just create a starvation mode, and hang onto Fat, but essentially could cut some muscle, depending on what the 200 calories were.

If you do eat that many, you need to bump them up A.S.A.P, or probably get little meaningful progress.

[FeeFee]

I still have another question ----if I consume say 1000 calories and burn 1,200 because I'm trying to create a deficit....what is left in body for survival? ---what i mean is...if i am dipping into the fat stores by consuming more than the total number of calories that i haev consumed...wouldnt that mean i'm leaving body bereft of any calories that i'll need for normal functions, such as brushing teeth, walking, sitting up, etc...hope i'm kaing sense

You'll have a problem there anyway, as 1,200 calories a day is too low,

No, I know...1,200 is just a general number i'm using for the purpose of this discussion

[Boss Man]

That's fine then. Just couldn't ascertain that at the time .

[swanso5]

well ir depends on your maintenance calorie number (this is the number of cal's required to maintain your current wt when exerciseing etc) which will be easily 50% higher than your base metabolic rate so you'll still have plenty in reserve...it also why you don't and shouldn't drop your cal's too low but rather clean up your food choices and timing and train harder