By the strictest of definitions a calorie deficit means ‘any amount of calories that falls short of the amount of calories needed to fuel the energy needs of your body’. Or, put another way: A calorie deficit is any amount of calories that is unable to maintain a persons body mass.A calorie deficit is ANY amount of food that results in loss of body mass.By this definition you cannot be in a deficit if you are not losing body mass. You can be eating less, a little, not much, and not lose body mass since these are all subjective descriptions of an amount of food, but if you are eating less food than is required to provide the energy you need to power your daily activities then a loss of mass must occur. The loss may be small, barely noticeable except by the most advanced of scientific equipment, but it needs to be there.. and if it is there, then you were eating less calories than you needed.It does not matter if you were eating 700 calories or 7,00 Calories of some special super-scientific diet… If a loss of body mass occurred you were in a deficit, if it didn’t then you were not in a deficit.This is where experts and gurus prey on people – by playing with the meanings of words. A deficit is NOT a number less than what a calculator told you to eat
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The truth about Calorie Deficits | Brad Pilon's 'Eat Blog Eat'