Losing Weight & Setting Your Caloric Deficits

Are you overweight? Did that weight creep up on you while you weren't looking pound by stealthy pound, donut by twinkie by slurpie drink? Before you know it that invisible tide of sugar and excess calories has made landfall on your hips and tummy and thighs and you've ballooned up to a size you thought you would never reach, and now you want to lose that weight, you want to drop it all, but should you go extreme or should you hold back from such radical measures and adopt a rather more moderate approach, trying to lose only a little at a time? Or should you try your patience and go really gradual, losing only a little at a time with a slight deficit? In today's article we are going to take a close and careful look at this question so as to best guide you through the rocks of dieting, allowing you the best and brightest chance to lose that weight and lose it permanently.

First, if we are to make this article's information as impactful and meaningful as possible, we need to ensure that the terms used are clear and understood by everybody. Thus caloric deficits means to consume less calories than are required by your body's maintenance needs which are what you need to maintain your current weight.  This can be done by either exercising more or eating less, and while in reality this would result in different effects, for this article's sake and that of simplicity we will assume the final result to be the same. When we discuss making this reduction either slight, moderate, or extreme, what we mean is to reduce your maintenance calories by either 10%, 25%, or anything greater than 25%.

So let's be clear: setting a small deficit will result in your losing weight in a gradual manner that will not affect your metabolism and will thus be the healthiest option for you. However it takes forever, and as a result you can easily slip and eat too much and erase your deficit. Second, a moderate deficit is probably best even though it will impact your metabolism. You will lose weight quickly, and while your metabolism will begin to slow down, you can overcome this by eating plenty of protein to prevent muscle loss. Extreme deficits are bad for you, as your metabolism will go haywire and you will need to eat basically all protein.

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