The One Fact

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The One Fact

Your body requires a certain number of calories per day in order to maintain your current weight. This is known as your calorie maintenance level. It's the number of calories required by your body to do everything it needs to do (intense exercise, brushing your teeth, pumping blood, keeping organs functioning properly, etc.). Calories are what our bodies use for energy, so in order to do what needs to be done, a certain number of calories are needed.

As you already know, we supply our bodies with these calories through eating and drinking. If we end up consuming exactly the same number of calories that our bodies need each day, our weight would remain exactly the same. For example, if your calorie maintenance level was 2500 calories, and you consumed 2500 calories per day, your weight would not change. All of the calories you take in would end up getting used (or "burned"). This is how you maintain your weight, by giving your body only the calories that it needs. No more, no less.

However, if you do consume more calories than this maintenance level, your body will store the excess calories as fat. So, for example, if your maintenance level was 2500 calories, and you consumed 3000 calories per day, you would gain weight. You are giving your body more calories than it would end up burning. This is what causes weight gain.

On the other hand, if you do the opposite and give your body less calories than it needs, your body will convert your stored body fat into energy and use that instead. This is what causes weight loss. Sticking with the same example as before, if your daily maintenance level is 2500 calories, and you consume 2000 calories per day, you will lose weight.

Basically, consume the same number of calories that your body needs/burns each day and you maintain your weight. Consume more calories than your body needs/burns and you gain weight. And last but not least... consume less calories than your body needs/burns and you lose weight. The One Fact: A caloric deficit is what causes weight loss.

Read that again if you need to. It is the one fact that practically all tips, hacks, methods and diets are based on... getting THAT to happen. This "one fact" is, in a nutshell, all there is to weight loss. Knowing and understanding it is the key. (From this point on I will refer to it quite simply as the "One Fact.")