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Weight Loss 101, Part 1:

How to Calculate Your Calorie Intake

The question I get asked most, throughout the years, is:

It's clearly something that many people struggle with. So I've decided to dedicate the next 6 issues to breaking it all down for you. Step-by-step. This series is called "Weight Loss 101" and I'll be going in-depth on the 6 key steps I followed (which I’d recommend you do as well 😉).

Alright, let’s party:

Look, it took me a while to realize this, but after a ton of trial and error, losing weight is actually pretty straightforward. It's definitely not easy, but at its core, it’s simple. For today, we're tackling the big, scary word that constantly comes up and is found on the back of every food item you buy: calories.

Calories? TDEE? Huh? What are they and why should I care?

Here's the deal - your body needs a certain amount of energy each day to…do stuff. Everything from breathing to working out requires energy. This energy is measured in calories.

Now, the total amount of energy (or number of calories) your body burns over a 24 hour period is called your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Your TDEE is an estimate of how many calories you're burning through basic bodily functions, physical activity, metabolizing food, etc.

I know, more jargon...but stick with me: Your TDEE is important because it essentially tells you how many calories your body needs each day to maintain your current weight.

So, if your diet supplies more calories than your TDEE, you'll gain weight. Those excess calories get stored as fat since your body doesn't know what to do with the leftover energy. This energy is stored for later.

But if your diet has fewer calories than your TDEE? You'll lose weight. Because of this deficit, your body turns to its fat reserves for energy and gets rid of those fat deposits.

The former is called a calorie surplus, the latter is a calorie deficit.

You've probably heard of a million and one diets out there. But here's the truth - any diet that actually works is achieving weight loss or gain in the same way: by manipulating your calorie balance.

To lose weight, you can create that calorie deficit either by increasing your TDEE through exercise or by decreasing the calories you eat through diet. So if you wanted to, you could even lose weight through diet alone.

So how do I estimate my TDEE?

Calculating your TDEE perfectly is impossible - it's going to vary day-to-day. No TDEE calculator is 100% accurate, so treat them as estimates. Don't get fixated on what some calculator tells you if it doesn't line up with what you're actually seeing on the scale. We can (and likely will) make adjustments along the way. For now, we just need a solid starting estimate to calculate our maintenance calories.

When you hop on an online TDEE calculator, it'll ask you to input data like age, height, gender, and activity level. Be as honest as you can here! It literally doesn't make sense to fudge the numbers, since you'd just be cheating yourself.

Here are some TDEE calculators I’ve used:

• https://tdeecalculator.net/ (as the name suggests lol)

• https://www.calculator.net/tdee-calculator.html

• https://calculatortdee.com/

I now have my TDEE but what do I do now?

My recommendation? Pick one TDEE calculator you like and trust. Then set your initial calorie target based on your goal - in this case, weight loss.

So how do you choose a target calorie deficit? Well, a pound of fat is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories. That means if we want to lose 1lb of fat per week, we'd need a 500 calorie daily deficit (3500 / 7 days = 500).

To lose 1lb per week, you'd aim for a 500 calorie deficit from your maintenance level each day.

When I first started my journey, my deficit was wayyyy too extreme. I was eating at approximately a 1500 calorie deficit per day! I absolutely do NOT recommend going that low. I do not recommend going more than 500 calories below your maintenance level every day. Going into too much of a deficit can make it hard to stick to your diet long-term. If you over-restrict all week, you run the risk of spiraling, eventually binging, and over-consuming. This is unsustainable, so again, I do not recommend going far more than 500 calories below your maintenance level every day.

Once you know your estimated calorie target, stick to it religiously for 2-3 weeks. During that time, weigh yourself consistently - either every morning (and take the weekly average) or once per week under the exact same conditions.

If over those 2-3 weeks your weight is dropping at the expected 1lb per week rate, boom! You nailed your numbers. But if your weight isn't moving or the loss is way slower than expected, simply decrease your calorie intake by 100-200 and run it back for another couple weeks.

Keep making those small 100-200 calorie adjustments as needed until you finally see your weight trending down at your ideal pace.

Be patient, trust the process, and you'll eventually dial in the perfect sweet spot. Don't get fixated on that initial TDEE calculation - use it as a starting point and let the real-world results guide you.

Let me walk through an example using my own stats:

Step 1: I went to https://tdeecalculator.net/ and input:

• Gender: Male

• Age: 27

• Weight: 170 lbs

• Height: 5'11"

• Activity: Moderate Exercise (3-5 days/week)

The calculator estimated my maintenance at 2,741 calories.

Step 2: To lose 1lb per week, I'd aim for a 500 calorie deficit. So 2,741 - 500 = 2,241 calories per day.

Step 3: I'd stick to those 2,241 calories for 2-3 weeks, weighing myself every Saturday morning under the same conditions. Then I'd adjust my calorie target up or down based on my actual weight change over that period until I dialed in that ideal 1lb per week fat loss.

Be patient and make adjustments based on your actual weight loss results over time. Don’t overthink it—use the TDEE as an initial guide, then adjust as needed. As the weight goes down, it’s normal to continue making adjustments! In the next issue, we’ll talk about diet and actually tracking these calories and macros.

Thank you for joining me on today's newsletter.

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