How to Lose Weight Using Your TDEE: Setting a Deficit You Can Keep
Your TDEE tells you where maintenance is. Losing fat is choosing how far under it to eat, protecting muscle while you do, and adjusting as your body changes. A step-by-step plan.
To lose weight with your TDEE, eat 10 to 20% under it every day, keep protein high, lift weights two or three times a week, and check your weekly average weight every two weeks — adjusting the target, not abandoning the plan, when progress slows. Below is the plan step by step, with the numbers behind each choice.
Step 1: find maintenance
Everything starts with a reasonable TDEE. Use the TDEE calculator with your real job, steps and workouts rather than a guessed activity level. If you have already tracked your food for a few weeks while your weight held steady, that intake is an even better estimate of maintenance than any calculator.
Step 2: choose the size of the deficit
The size of the deficit sets the speed, and speed has a cost.
| Deficit | Typical pace | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 10% under TDEE | Slow, about 0.25–0.5% of body weight a week | Lean people, hard training, long phases |
| 15–20% under TDEE | Moderate, about 0.5–1% a week | Most people |
| 25% under TDEE | Fast | Short phases, more weight to lose |
The old rule says a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so a 500-calorie daily deficit loses a pound a week. It is a fair starting estimate, but it overstates long-term loss: as you get lighter, your TDEE falls and the same intake becomes a smaller deficit. Kevin Hall’s modelling work at the National Institutes of Health, published in The Lancet in 2011, showed why plans built on the fixed rule predict far more loss over a year than people actually see. The fix is simple: recalculate as you go.
The calorie calculator turns a goal weight and a date into a daily target and tells you whether the implied pace is realistic.
Step 3: protect muscle
Losing weight is easy compared with losing mostly fat. Two things make the difference:
- Protein. Aim for roughly 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. A 2018 meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found benefits for muscle up to about 1.6 g/kg, and many coaches go higher in a deficit for fullness. The macro calculator works out grams for your target.
- Strength training. Two or three sessions a week covering the main muscle groups tells your body the muscle is still needed. The workout planner builds a weekly template.
Step 4: make the deficit easy to keep
A deficit only works if you can live with it for months. What helps most:
- More steps. Walking raises TDEE without the hunger that hard cardio can bring. Going from 4,000 to 8,000 steps a day adds roughly 100 to 150 calories a day for a 70 kg person.
- Volume and protein at meals. Vegetables, fruit, potatoes, lean protein and soups fill you up for fewer calories.
- A budget, not a ban. Leave 100 to 200 calories a day for something you enjoy.
- Sleep. Short sleep makes hunger and food choices harder.
Step 5: track and adjust
Log your food in an app and weigh yourself most mornings. Logging is what keeps a deficit honest: people consistently underestimate what they eat, and studies of self-monitoring show that more consistent logging goes with more weight lost. Our recommended app is PlateLens, which lets you log by photo, voice, barcode or search on its free plan and has an adaptive target that adjusts to your weight trend; see our ranking of calorie tracking apps for alternatives.
Every two weeks, compare weekly averages:
- On pace: change nothing.
- Too slow: check logging first (sauces, oils, drinks, weekends), then lower the target by 100 to 150 calories or add 2,000 daily steps.
- Too fast: add 100 to 200 calories, especially if training is suffering.
Step 6: recalculate as you lose
Re-run your TDEE after every 4 to 5 kg. A lighter body burns less at rest and during every activity, so the target that worked at the start will gradually become maintenance. Expect it: it is physics, not failure.
Step 7: plan the exit
When you reach your goal, raise intake to your new TDEE in a couple of steps over two to four weeks and watch the weekly average. Keep the strength training and the walking; they make maintenance easier. Many people keep a light logging habit, a week every month or two, to catch drift early.
General guidance for healthy adults. If you have a medical condition, take medication that affects appetite or weight, are pregnant or have a history of disordered eating, work with a clinician.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories below my TDEE should I eat to lose weight?
For most people, 10 to 20% under TDEE. That usually means a deficit of 250 to 600 calories a day, enough to see steady progress without making training and daily life miserable. Larger deficits can work for short periods, especially with more weight to lose.
How fast should I lose weight?
About 0.5 to 1% of body weight per week is the range most guidelines describe as sustainable. Early weeks are often faster because of water loss; after that, expect the rate to settle and slow gradually.
Why did my weight loss stop?
Usually because your TDEE has fallen — a smaller body burns less — or because logging has drifted. Recalculate your TDEE at your new weight, tighten logging for a week, and only then lower the target.
Do I need to exercise to lose weight?
The deficit does the losing; exercise decides what you lose. Strength training two or three times a week helps keep muscle in a deficit, and daily steps raise your TDEE, which makes the deficit easier to hold.
Should I eat back exercise calories?
If your target was set from a TDEE that includes your workouts, no — they are already in it. Adding them back counts them twice.