What is a Calorie Deficit? And is it the Best Approach to Lose Weight?

Calorie deficit: The great contradiction

If you have ever looked for help with weight loss, you are likely familiar with the concept of a calorie deficit. But, how does a calorie deficit work, exactly? And why, despite its sound logic, does it often fail? The experience of a calorie-restricting diet often leaves well-intentioned dieters feeling like they did something wrong. We go to diet solutions for help, but they often cause us to experience more distress than the weight we are trying to lose.

How does a calorie deficit work?: The accounting explanation

Caloric deficits are the most basic answer to the “How do I lose weight?” question. It goes like this —eat less, exercise more. When you eat less food, and exercise more, you will lose weight.

Does this explanation satisfy you? Me neither.

How does a calorie deficit work?: The behavioral explanation

Calorie Deficits Teach People to Ignore their Bodies

In behavior analysis we call it generalization, but it just requires attending to the signals in your natural environment. To eat better, and lose weight, it is critical for people to pay closer attention to their bodies, not less. This is how weight loss may be maintained.

Asking “How?” questions is a great way to attend to body and environmental cues.

How does snacking help you solve problems in your day?

How is your motivation affected when you are thinking about food all the time, and spending more time on your phone writing it all out for your calorie calculator?

Paying more attention to your body will provide insights into your motivation and help clarify the role eating plays in your daily life. In order to follow a restriction diet, that focus shifts from your own body to the rules set by the calorie counter.

Calorie Counting Cannot be Maintained

What happens when you stop counting, tracking, and budgeting calories? Can you do this forever? The question I like to ask, the one that ultimately lead me to quit calorie counting programs was “How is the counting, tracking, and budgeting affecting my daily life?” The answer is that I was becoming less satisfied with my life and feeling more like a failure, even when I lost those temporary eight pounds.

For me, the idea of labeling my day as a success or a failure based on a number a calorie calculator told me to stick to wore thin. I didn’t like how the diet program was affecting how I experienced my daily life. (See Watermelon Calories for more on how calorie-counting and happiness are ultimately not compatible).

Low Calorie Diets Create a “Holding it Together” Feeling

Most dieters are familiar with the holding it together feeling. Everyone has their own way of visualizing this feeling. For some it is a tightrope, for others it is a weight that slowly gets heavier, and eventually drops. For me, it is stacking hay on the back of a camel in a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back way. I imagine the hay stack, wide at the bottom when the stacking was easier, now hay is barely sticking and an avalanche is coming soon. Like a huge wave, building up before it breaks, a caloric deficit streak can feel like climbing to the top of a building and then having further to come down when it is time to recover.

Did you ever feel like you had to recover, emotionally, from a diet program based on caloric deficit?

An Alternative to Calorie Counting: The Behavior Analysis No Weigh Approach

The alternative is essentially the opposite. The No Weigh approach teaches users to pay more attention to their bodies, go about it in a way that is completely natural to their daily lives, and follow their own lead in a way that creates motivation.

Rather than Following Rules, Break Them

Here are two important things behavior analysts know about change: 1.) change is learning, they are the same thing and 2.) the learning process is highly individualized— it must have personal meaning for the individual. Following a prescribed set of rules is not consistent with what behavioral science knows to be true about change.

Rule-breaking is the first thing users are told to do when they begin No Weigh. Rules are any response that an individual tends to do. These include responses that they believe they should do (like, finish your plate), responses that are habits (such as using snacks to unwind), and responses that intend to regulate the way a person feels, such as using food to get through tiredness or eating to settle an agitated mood.

Rule-breaking is trying something once to experience how it feels.
And it feels like freedom.

There is No Success or Failure, Only Information

Point-of-view is a major the theme of taking a behavior analytic approach to weight loss. It is the ability to step outside your own experience to see what is going on. Consider trying to find your way out of a bad mood, using the POV of the bad mood. It becomes very difficult to see a solution when the frustration, anger, or sadness are leading the way. It is helpful to visualize a looking-in-on POV, such as from the perspective of a giant. A looking-in-on POV can see the entire context with objectivity. When the entire context is viewed, the way forward presents itself. It is less like untangling a complicated problem and more like viewing a maze from above. The solution is clear, you only have to view it from the most useful angle.

Authentic Self is the Only Way

Identifying and addressing barriers to weight loss means experiencing your life as you. For many, this requires getting real about unfair expectations, practicing self-acceptance, striving toward self-love, and a commitment to get out of your own way. Self-doubt and feeling critical of others are two indicators that an individual is struggling to access feelings of authenticity.

Rather than a goal to achieve, authenticity is more like a new opportunity each day. It feels like a peaceful calm. It feels like happiness.

In the End, the Calorie Deficit Occurs Naturally

When unhelpful habits are minimized or replaced, an individual will eat less food. Feeling more authentic will also lead individuals to pursue exercise in a way that does not require heavy doses of motivation. When the barriers are removed, a person can enjoy their daily life the way it was meant to be, without all the excess. This is how a caloric deficit is created, naturally.

Are you ready for something different?