To lose weight and burn fat, you must create a "calorie deficit" (eating fewer calories than your body burns). One common method is to eat fewer calories, expend more calories, or do both. You must burn as many calories as are contained in one pound in order to lose one.
Even with all the diet programs available, controlling your weight still boils down to how many calories you consume and how many you burn off.
You can be promised by well-known fad diets that the key to losing weight is to avoid eating carbohydrates (carbs) or to consume a lot of grapefruit. But ultimately, if you want to lose weight, you just need to consume fewer calories than your body requires.
Number of Calories to Burn if You Want to Lose Weight
If you want to lose weight and are tracking your caloric intake, you must burn more calories than you consume in order to create a deficit. When doing this, you should consider your basal metabolic rate, or the number of calories your body burns while at rest. After that, consider how many calories you consume each day.
It has long been assumed that losing one pound requires 3,500 calories more than what is consumed. Then, you must establish a calorie deficit of 500 each day to do this in one week. In contrast to what this simple calorie deficit formula says, research has shown that weight loss is more complicated.
As a general rule, you should try to work out five days a week to burn between 400 and 500 calories. Although your actual calorie expenditure during exercise will vary depending on your weight, sex, age, and many other factors, this amount serves as a reasonable starting point. In the same workout, a man who weighs 200 pounds will burn more calories than a woman who weighs 130 pounds.
Ways to Achieve Calorie Deficit
It is true that in order to lose weight, you must expend more calories than you consume, even though the 3,500-calorie guidelines may not be totally correct. You can take a few actions to create this calorie deficit.
Reduce calorie intake
Any weight loss method that involves cutting calories during the day can be quite effective. But it's crucial to provide your body with the nutrients it requires to function properly.
Cutting calories too drastically will slow your metabolism and make weight loss even more challenging. Extremely low-calorie diets can also cause you to lose more muscle mass, which will make it harder for you to lose weight.
Maintain a balanced diet even if you are reducing your calorie intake. It can be beneficial to cut out empty calories from junk food and concentrate on calories that are high in nutrients.
Burn Calories
Although exercise is a crucial component of weight loss, it is not a miracle cure. One to two pounds per week of weight loss is considered safe and healthy. If you are losing weight more quickly than that, you may also be losing too much muscle mass.
Your calorie burn is affected by a number of variables, such as:
- choice of activity (the type of exercise you do)
- amount of effort (speed, intensity)
- time spent working out
- your present metabolic rate
Workout
You can employ a combination of calorie restriction and exercise if you don't have the time or stamina to burn 500 calories per day through exercise. For instance, if you exercised daily and expended about 300 calories, you would also need to consume 200 fewer calories than is recommended.
Of course, since everyone's needs vary, it's crucial to determine how many calories you require each day. The weight loss calculator can provide you with an estimate of the number of calories you need to eat in order to lose weight.
Wrapping Up
Many people believe that in order to burn calories throughout the day, they must exercise vigorously.
While engaging in physical activity does result in significant calorie burn, your body also burns calories while you go about your daily activities. Your weight has an impact on how much energy you expend.
Keep in mind that how many calories you burn at rest depends on your activity habits. While resistance exercise may boost the resting metabolic rate for up to 14 hours after exercise, aerobic exercise may burn more calories throughout the training session.