How to Know if You're in Caloric Deficit or Surplus
You probably already know that to lose weight, you need a caloric deficit, and to build muscle, you need a surplus. But have you ever carefully counted your calories, sure you're in a deficit, only to see the scale stay the same? Or maybe the opposite happens—you eat a lot to gain muscle, but your weight doesn't budge. So, what's going on?
I'll level with you. If you're not losing weight, you’re not actually in a deficit, no matter what you think. Similarly, if you're not gaining weight, you’re not in a surplus, despite how much you’re eating. It's really that straightforward.
Before we dive deeper, I want to stress that hitting this wall doesn't mean you're not working hard. It just means you might need to tweak things a bit. The first step is figuring out whether you're in a deficit, surplus, or just maintaining. I’ll guide you through that in this article. But first, let’s define what maintenance is.
What Are Maintenance Calories?
Before we get into the calories game for losing or gaining weight, let's talk maintenance calories. Think of these as your body's baseline—the point where you start adding or cutting calories. Maintenance calories are just the number of calories you need to keep your weight steady. Another way to say this is your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
Components of Maintenance Calories
Maintenance calories can get pretty complex with many factors involved, but let's keep it simple today. Here are the four basic components of your TDEE—also known as your metabolism or maintenance:
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): This is the energy your body needs to stay alive at rest, and it is influenced by gender, age, height, and weight.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): These are the calories burned doing everyday activities like household chores and even fidgeting.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): This is the energy it takes to digest your food.
Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT): This is the energy burned during your workouts.
It's important to remember that the calories your body needs to maintain your weight can change from day to day. Things like how active you are and changes in your diet can affect how many calories you burn. So, it's tough to pinpoint an exact number for maintaining your weight.
Realizing Maintenance Is a Spectrum
Think of your calorie needs as a range, not a fixed number. For example, if you're maintaining your weight at around 1,800 calories per day, eating 1,801 calories won't make you gain weight, just like eating 1,799 calories won't make you lose weight.
Since maintenance is a range, if your estimated daily target to keep your weight steady is 1,800 calories, you might actually maintain between 1,700 and 1,900 calories. It's almost impossible to predict the exact range your body will adjust to, so take these numbers with a grain of salt.
Understanding that your metabolism is dynamic can help explain why small caloric adjustments sometimes don't work. Sometimes, the change isn't big enough to move you out of your maintenance range.
Why Calorie Adjustments Can Crash and Burn
Your body’s main job is to keep things balanced and stable inside, known as homeostasis. It’s really good at handling small changes, often so well that you don’t even notice.
For instance, if you tweak your calorie intake just a bit, you might not see any change in your weight. But when you make a big change, like cutting 500 calories a day, your body can't fully compensate for it and your weight will start to shift.
With all these factors at play, figuring out your maintenance calories, or whether you’re in a deficit or surplus, can feel overwhelming. But don’t stress—despite how tricky it sounds, finding out your caloric needs is actually pretty straightforward.
How to Figure Out Your Calorie Needs
Fortunately, there's an easy way to tell if you're in a deficit or surplus just by looking at your body weight. While there might be a few exceptions, they’re pretty rare. Here’s the deal:
Gaining weight? You’re in a surplus.
Losing weight? You’re in a deficit.
Maintaining weight? You’re at maintenance.
No joke, it’s really that straightforward—at least in theory. In practice, there might be some rare exceptions. The first step to figuring out if you’re in a calorie deficit or surplus is to regularly log your weight. In the next section, I’ll show you how to record and analyze your weight trend so you’ll know exactly what to do.
How to Start Tracking Your Weight
To start tracking your weight, weigh yourself daily for at least two weeks. The longer you track, the more accurate your analysis will be. While two weeks is the minimum, three or four weeks is even better. At the end of each week, take all your weights and figure out the average.
As you log your data, don’t stress too much about the individual numbers. Small fluctuations are normal, so try not to worry about those. Instead, look for clear and consistent trends by comparing your weekly averages. Since there’s some math involved, using a spreadsheet makes it easier to track your data.
How to Set Up a Weight Tracking Spreadsheet
Let's talk about tracking your progress in a spreadsheet. It might seem a bit tricky, but it's actually pretty straightforward. Just enter the date in one column and your weight in the next. To get the weekly average, use the formula =AVERAGE(B2:B8). Adjust the cell references for the cells that cover your week.
Next, compare week to week by subtracting the first week's average from the second week's. For instance, if your first week's average is in cell C8 and the second week's is in cell C15, you can use the formula =(C15-C8) to find the difference in the weekly averages.
Then, use =(C15-C8)/C8 to calculate the percent change. Don't forget to format the cell as a percentage, or just multiply the whole formula by 100 like this: =((C15-C8)/C8)*100.
Ready-Made Weight Tracking Spreadsheet
If you're not up for making your own spreadsheet, don't worry—I’ve got you covered. Here's one I made that you might find useful. Just enter a start date in cell F5 and put your daily weights into the light blue cells from E18 downward. The spreadsheet will handle the rest!
You can’t edit this one, but you can save a copy to your Google Drive for your own use. Just click the button above from a desktop browser, then choose "Make a copy" from the File menu. That'll put a personal copy on your Drive.
If you're making your own, you can calculate daily changes like my template does in columns F and G. Just keep in mind that comparing day-to-day can be misleading, so don't stress too much over those numbers. A more useful way to compare your data is by looking at seven-day moving averages.
How to Calculate Moving Averages
Moving averages are a simple yet powerful technique. Just average the previous seven days' data using the =AVERAGE() formula, then drag that formula down your column. By doing this, the cell references update automatically to always average the latest seven days.
The difference and percent change for seven-day averages are way more meaningful than daily values. This method helps smooth out data noise, giving you a clearer view of your progress. If you'd like to use my spreadsheet as an example, check out how I analyze moving averages in columns I through K.
Notice how the fluctuations are much smaller when we look at changes in moving averages (columns J and K) instead of daily weights (columns F and G)? That's why we focus on averages rather than individual days.
How to Interpret Your Weight Data
After collecting your data for at least two weeks, ideally three or four, you can check the trend to see if you're in a calorie surplus, deficit, or maintenance. The simplest way to do this is by plotting the moving averages or weekly averages on a line chart and adding a trendline.
If the trendline is pretty flat, like the middle line in the chart above, it means you're maintaining. If it points up, you're in a surplus; if it points down, you're in a deficit. You can use my spreadsheet with a chart already set up for you.
But you don't have to make a chart. You can just eyeball the percentage changes between weeks or check the seven-day moving averages. Generally, you're probably maintaining if your weight isn't changing by more than 1% in either direction.
That said, don't freak out if one of your daily weigh-ins spikes or drops by more than 1%. Just wait and see if it balances out in a few days, which it usually will. Be patient and focus on the averages.
Making the Most of Your Weight Data
Now that you've got all this data, what should you do with it? First, set a goal. Are you looking to lose fat, build muscle, or maintain your current physique? Each goal requires a different calorie plan, so decide on this first.
If you want to lose fat, eat fewer calories than you burn. For maintenance, match your intake with your expenditure. To gain muscle, consume a bit more than you burn.
Don't get discouraged if things aren't going as planned yet. This data is awesome feedback that helps you tweak your calorie intake to better hit your goals.
What to Do When Your Goal Is Fat Loss
If your weight is staying the same or going up, but you want to lose weight, it's time to create a caloric deficit because your body is telling you that you're not in one. A safe and manageable deficit is about 500 calories per day, which can theoretically lead to a weight loss of around one pound per week.
But don't feel like you have to jump straight into a 500-calorie deficit. There's no rule saying you have to lose one pound per week, especially if one pound is more than 1% of your body weight. Fitness is a marathon, not a sprint, and losing weight more slowly can help you keep muscle and stick with it longer.
You could start with a 200-300 calorie deficit daily, then hold steady and see how it goes for a few weeks. If that leads to a weight loss pace you're happy with, awesome! Keep at it and only tweak if needed. But if it doesn't seem to be working, make another small change, like cutting an extra 100-200 calories daily, and check in again after a bit.
What to Do When Your Goal Is Muscle Gain
If you want to build muscle but are maintaining or losing, you’ll need to up your calorie intake. Muscle gain happens much slower than fat loss, so you don’t need to add as many calories to create a surplus as you would remove to create a deficit.
Like fat loss, muscle gain is a marathon, not a sprint. Actually, it’s more like an ultramarathon. Our bodies can only gain muscle at a certain rate, and eating extra calories above what’s needed for muscle growth won’t speed things up. The extra energy will just get stored as body fat.
This might mean adding as few as 25-50 calories a day. It could be more, but start slow and see how it goes. Try adding a snack or making your portions slightly bigger, then monitor for a few weeks and add more calories only if needed. Aim to gain about a pound per month. (Yep, you read that right. The weight gain for adding muscle is per month, not per week.)
Things to Remember When Tweaking Your Calories
Instead of making drastic changes to your calories, try making the smallest adjustment that still gets you results. Tweaking your intake in small steps lets you keep things under control, reducing the chances of gaining too much fat when bulking or losing muscle when cutting. Make a change, stay consistent, and watch your weight trend for a few weeks before tweaking again.
Don't forget that while the number of calories matters, so does the quality of what you eat. When cutting calories for weight loss, load up on healthy foods to ensure your body gets all the vitamins, minerals, and fiber it needs. On the flip side, when building muscle, stick to your usual healthy foods but go for slightly bigger portions. This helps you gain weight without packing on too much fat.
Remember, it's not a one-and-done deal. Your body adapts as you lose or gain weight, so your calorie needs will shift. Keep an eye on your weight trend and reassess regularly. That way, you can tweak your intake if you're not hitting your goals.
And don't forget about those non-scale victories! How do your clothes fit? How are you feeling? How's your performance in the gym? These little wins can tell you a lot more than numbers sometimes can.
Wrapping It Up
In a nutshell, changing your body composition successfully comes down to understanding and adjusting your calorie intake based on what your body needs. Remember, your calorie maintenance level isn't a fixed number; it varies depending on things like how active you are and any changes in your diet.
The best way to figure out if you're in a calorie deficit, surplus, or just maintaining is to keep an eye on your weight trends over a couple of weeks—ideally three or four—and see which way the averages are moving.
If you're gaining weight, you're in a surplus.
If you're losing weight, you're in a deficit.
If your weight stays about the same, you're at maintenance.
Adjusting your calorie intake based on your weight trend is a dynamic process. You’ll need to regularly reassess your caloric needs as your weight changes and fine-tune accordingly. It takes patience and attention, but once you get the hang of it, you'll feel more in control of your fitness journey.
And don't forget, reaching your goals is about more than just numbers. It's also about learning, improving, and making sustainable choices that support your fitness and overall well-being. Keep a positive mindset, be patient with yourself, and you'll be on your way to hitting those goals!
