Understanding Fat Burning: A Guide to Calorie Deficits

Everything your body does requires energy, and it obtains that energy by burning calories. When your body takes in fewer calories than it needs, it gets that energy from other sources, such as stored fat. Burning fat is a matter of figuring out your body's daily calorie needs, then creating a deficit that causes your body to burn the fuel it has stored.

Instructions

• 1

  Calculate your daily caloric needs. A doctor or dietitian can do this, but healthcare resources such as the Mayo Clinic website have reliable calorie-needs calculators. Your daily requirement depends on your age, height, weight, gender and level of activity.

• 2

  Cut empty calories. Creating an energy deficit causes the body to begin burning whatever fat it has stored. Non-nutritional calories such as those from sugar or fried foods often is a healthy place to start.

• 3

  Increase activity. Along with cutting calories, the way to burn fat is to increase your body's energy needs. Performing a workout that burns a few hundred calories widens the gap and causes your body to burn more fat.

• 4

  Build muscle. Muscle turns your body into a calorie-burning machine; a pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day.