Weight loss

I’m looking for some advice on getting into calorie deficit, does your resting calories burnt also count towards this or if I ate 1200 calories would I need to do exercise to burn purely the 1600 calories to get into deficit? I’m abit lost on whether the resting calories burnt also contributes to weight loss

Resting Calories counts of course. I thinking it's something like the average female needs 2000 calories and the average male needs 2500 calories just to get through the day. You should be eating under these amounts, not by a lot, but by a little to start. So lets say your the average man you should probably try to aim for 2300 calories a day to start losing fat. You can choose to eat less which will obviously get rid of weight faster but this can be dangerous and you can also start to lose muscle mass if your body does not have enough fat to get through the day.

Okay so if you ate 1200 for instance as a woman and burnt this of resting and then burnt 400 of exercise this would count as being in deficit, obviously you won’t burn this resting but hypothetically speaking

Yes resting Calories counts. I thinking it's something like the average female needs 2000 calories and the average male needs 2500 calories just to get through the day. You should be eating under these amounts, not by a lot, but by a little to start. So lets say your the average man you should probably try to aim for 2300 calories a day to start losing fat. You can choose to eat less which will obviously get rid of weight faster but this can be dangerous and you can also start to lose muscle mass if your body does not have enough fat to get through the day.

OP working out her TDEE would be a lot more accurate than by following an 'average' womans TDEE.

I’m looking for some advice on getting into calorie deficit, does your resting calories burnt also count towards this or if I ate 1200 calories would I need to do exercise to burn purely the 1600 calories to get into deficit? I’m abit lost on whether the resting calories burnt also contributes to weight loss

Obviously but when your're tying to explain something to someone who doesn't know a subject very well you usually start off with the simplest explanation which is why I used the average female calorie intake.

Yes, it all counts. The majority of your energy expenditure (calories burnt) is actually your resting calories - you might see this described as BMR or basal metabolic rate. This is the energy required just to keep you alive, and is much larger than most people think. The other major component is energy required for voluntary activity, and this is something which people tend to overestimate. Both your BMR and 'activity' calories add up to your total requirement, and it's usually about 2000kCal a day. By cutting about 500kCal from this, you will lose weight.

The 'scientific' way of going about this would be to use formulas to calculate your energy expenditure (estimating your activity and that calorie cost), and then to keep a food diary to be able to calculate your energy intake. You'd then make the appropriate adjustments in a very mathematical fashion. Whilst this approach is undeniably effective, TSR often forgets that most people just aren't that mathematically or scientifcally minded, and just want to lose some weight without all that fuss and bother. This is a perfectly reasonable point of view, and if you want to do it that way, I suggest you try eating less of the foods you are currently eating which are high in fat, sugar and salt, and replacing them with wholegrain, starchy carbs, fruits and vegetables. Choose plenty of low-fat dairy and avoid 'diet' foods. There is no need to avoid sugar like the plague, but it is sensible to restrict your intake of added sugars such as fizzy pop, cakes and confectionary. You will probably find you still lose weight doing it in this 'non-scientific' way, which is the outcome you want, after all!

Sorry for the replies, so say I burnt 2200 calories through both resting and active calories and ate 1600 would I be in deficit to help lose weight? This is metaphorically speaking