Articles / Dieting & troubleshooting
Dieting & troubleshooting
Deficits, rates, plateaus, water weight, logging accuracy — the practical side.
How big should a calorie deficit be?
A deficit sized from a weekly rate of body weight, not a round number: the 0.3 / 0.5 / 0.75 percent rates, the 35 percent cap and the floors, worked for 75 kg.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting4 minIs a 500-calorie deficit right for everyone?
Where the 500 kcal deficit comes from (3,500 kcal per pound), why it fits a 90 kg person and not a 55 kg one, and how a percent-of-body-weight rate scales.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting8 minHow fast should I lose weight?
Rates of loss as a percent of body weight per week — the 0.3, 0.5 and 0.75 settings, what a faster rate cost in one athlete trial, and picking a rate to hold.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting5 minDoes a calorie deficit have to be daily, or does weekly count?
Weekly counts. Why the week is the planning unit, how a 2,891 kcal weekly deficit can be spent unevenly, and why one high day does not undo a week.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting5 minWhy has my weight loss stalled?
Four causes of a weight-loss plateau in order of likelihood: expenditure that fell with your weight, logging drift, water hiding the trend, and a stale target.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting5 minWhy do calorie calculators stop at 1,200 or 1,500 calories?
Calorie floors explained: what the 1,200 and 1,500 kcal limits protect, how the standard and lower settings differ, and what happens when a target hits one.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting5 minHow to reverse diet after a cut
A reverse diet is a slow gain goal with attentive tracking: what the method claims, the simple version at the conservative rate, and reading the trend line.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting12 minDo refeeds, diet breaks and carb cycling work?
Refeeds, diet breaks and carb cycling defined, and what 5 randomised trials found: fat loss the same or better than dieting straight through, but not faster.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minHow accurately do you need to track calories?
Two kinds of logging error and why only one matters: a steady bias gets priced in, a half-logged day distorts three weeks of estimates. The honest minimum.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting7 minWhy did I gain 2 kg overnight?
Two kilograms overnight cannot be fat — that would take 15,400 kcal. What it is instead, what a 7-day-half-life trend does with the spike, and when it is real.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting11 minCan you lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?
Yes: body recomposition showed up in 4- to 10-week trials, most clearly in beginners. Why fat and muscle are not an even swap, the calories, and how to tell.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting6 minDoes one bad day of eating ruin a diet?
No — here is the arithmetic. What a 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 kcal day does to a week's deficit, why the scale lies the next morning, and what to log afterwards.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting6 minShould you weigh food cooked or raw?
Either, as long as the weight matches the database entry. Why cooking changes grams but not calories, the ways to mix them up, and a method for batch cooking.
Method / guideDieting & troubleshooting6 minWhat should you eat when you're sick or on a deload week?
Expenditure arithmetic for a light week: what the activity multiplier can and cannot see, why protein does not move, and three ways to set the calorie target.
First principlesDieting & troubleshooting9 minAre restaurant calorie counts accurate?
On average, yes: 269 chain-restaurant dishes tested in a lab were within 10 kcal of the menu. But 19% held at least 100 kcal more than stated. Here is why.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minCan AI count calories from a photo?
Roughly. In a 2025 test on 195 dishes, a general AI model missed by 123 kcal on average from the photo alone, and by 53 kcal when given the full recipe.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minCan you spot-reduce belly fat?
Mostly no: 6 weeks of ab exercises left belly fat unchanged in a trial of 24 adults. One newer trial of 16 men found a small extra trunk loss. The evidence.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minIs cardio or weights better for fat loss?
In an 8-month trial of 119 adults, cardio lost more fat than weights on average; weights added lean mass instead. What 32 longer trials add to that answer.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minDo nuts make you gain weight?
In 86 trials in adults, eating about 45 g of nuts a day for a median 8 weeks did not change body weight vs control (+0.09 kg, not significant). Here is why.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting9 minDo you eat more than you think?
Often, yes. Dieters who reported very low intakes under-reported what they ate by 47% on average, and even athletes logged about 19% less than they burned.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting10 minDoes alcohol stop your body using fat for fuel?
Alcohol does not stop fat burning outright: in a chamber study of 8 men, fat use fell about a third on drinking days, only while the alcohol was processed.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minDoes dieting slow your metabolism when you are already lean?
A little, less than feared. Lean adults on a moderate deficit showed no clear change in resting energy use; lean dieters over 2 years ran about 80–120 kcal low.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minDoes drinking water help you lose weight?
A little, with a diet: in a 12-week trial, water before meals added about 2 kg of loss on average. Across 8 trials, extra water alone made no clear difference.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minDoes fasted cardio burn more fat?
During the session, yes: fasted cardio uses about 3 g more fat. Over 4 weeks of dieting, fat loss showed no clear fasted-vs-fed difference. Why both are true.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minDoes fiber help you lose weight?
In 345 adults on reduced-calorie diets, the rise in fiber was the strongest predictor of weight change over 6 months. It predicted the result, not proved it.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minDoes keto beat carbs at the same calories?
In 6 trials with matched calories, keto groups lost about 1.5 kg more than higher-carb groups, but not clearly once protein was matched. Low certainty.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minDoes lack of sleep make it harder to lose fat?
In a lab trial, dieters lost the same weight on 5.5 or 8.5 hours in bed, but with short nights they lost 55% less fat and 60% more fat-free mass. What it means.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting9 minDoes smoking keep you lean?
Only partly. In 499,504 UK adults, smokers were a little less likely to be obese (odds ratio 0.83), but heavy smokers were more likely. What the studies show.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minFlexible or rigid dieting: which works better?
In a 10-week trial of 23 lifters on the same calorie cut, a flexible macro diet and a fixed meal plan changed weight and fat mass alike. What else is known.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minHIIT or steady cardio for fat loss?
Across 54 trials, interval training and steady cardio changed fat mass by the same amount. Intervals took about 28 minutes a week against 120. The details.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting8 minIs intermittent fasting better than cutting calories every day?
Across 99 trials in adults, fasting and daily calorie cutting lowered weight about equally. Only alternate-day fasting edged ahead, by 1.3 kg, a trivial gap.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting6 minIs breakfast the most important meal of the day?
Not for weight: in 13 trials, adults assigned to breakfast ate about 260 kcal a day more and did not weigh less than those who went without. What that means.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minIs diet soda better than water for weight loss?
Slightly: after 52 weeks, a diet-drinks group kept off 7.5 kg on average against 6.1 kg with water, a gap the authors called not clinically significant.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting6 minIs eating late at night bad?
Eating the same food 4 hours later raised hunger and cut waking energy use by about 60 kcal a day in a lab trial. Over 4 weeks, weight loss did not differ.
Human trial dataDieting & troubleshooting7 minLow carb or low fat: which works better?
In a year-long trial of 609 adults, healthy low-carb and low-fat diets ended 0.7 kg apart on average, a gap chance could explain. What the other research adds.
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Zyra is a training and nutrition tracking tool. Nothing on this page is medical advice, a diagnosis, or an individual prescription. The numbers are estimates from published formulas and the apps' own rules — consult a qualified professional for decisions about your health, and a coach for your training.