Weight Loss

I don't want to make my deficit from workout and and eating only certain foods to be too big. I don't want to lose my muscle. So how do you know when your deficit is too big? Help!

I've heard that anything over 500 is too much.  Hopefully someone can verify that for me.

You will likely get a lot of opinions on this, but the rule of thumb that I use:

• A deficit of more than 1000 calories will likely send your body into starvation mode (slowing your metabolism).
• A deficit between 500 to 1000 calories is okay - on occaision - but having this large of a deficit consistently, can also lead to starvation mode, or unhealthy rapid weight loss (which causes a whole list of other health problems, immune system, digestive system, etc.).
• Any deficit under 500, consistently each day, will yield good healthy weight loss.

a 500 calorie per week deficit should equate to a one pound per week weight loss (assuming you are eating over 1200 calories). A 1000 calorie per week deficit would equate to a 2 pound per week weight loss (same assumption).

It is generally not recommended to have a burn deficit greater than 1000 per day, nor to try to lose more than 1% of your body weight per week.

I know this link has been posted before, but I found it VERY helpful to calculate the deficit I should shoot for in order to maximize fat burn vs muscle loss.  It's more detailed than the stock line of "cut 500 calories a day" and gives you the numbers (the more info you put in the better it is).

http://www.phord.com/cc/

Hope this helps you!

I would never do over 500, if I did go over 500 I found that I was starving and light headed..... so that happened once or twice......

500-700 deficit is what you'd need

That would depend on your stats. From what I have read, you can safely lose no more than 1% of your weight per week.  So:

200lbs. = 2lbs./week = 1000 calorie deficit

150lbs. = 1.5lbs./week = 750 calorie deficit

125lbs. = 1.25lbs./week = 625 calorie deficit

You get the picture. Anyway a 1000 calorie deficit is not for everyone. You pretty much can't go wrong with 500. Then again, when you are my weight, you can safely have a much larger deficit (1405 - you can do the math if you want to, I'm not tellin).