Anybody who tells you that losing extra fat is easy is probably one of those annoying skinny people who have five percent body fat and can eat anything in sight without gaining an ounce. Losing weight is never easy, but it can be simple, because weight changes follow the basic laws of physics. In order to gain or lose weight, you have to cause an imbalance in your body’s use of energy. To lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories in food than you burn in your daily activities. To gain weight, more calories must be taken in than burned off. Simple, even if not easy.
In order to lose a pound of body weight, you have to burn about 3500 more calories than you eat. Taking in 500 calories less every week than you burn, you will lose a pound about every seven weeks. In order to lose fifteen pounds in a year, you need to eat about 1000 fewer calories per week than you burn. A calorie deficit can be created by either eating less, exercising more, or some combination of the two.
Let’s consider a simple approach to losing fifteen pounds in the next year. To lose those fifteen pounds, you need to achieve a calorie deficit of 52,500 calories in the next year. This may seem like an enormous number, but you can achieve this by simply combining exercise with a reduced calorie intake.
If you normally drink the equivalent of two sweetened soft drinks every day, at a whopping calorie count of 150 calories per twelve ounce can, all you have to do is cut one of those out every day to lose 15 pounds in a year (150 calories times 365 days divided by 3500 calories per pound equals just over fifteen pounds). Be careful, though, what you substitute for that daily soft drink. There is increasing evidence that drinking diet sodas contributes to weight gain, so it is better to drink pure water or unsweetened tea or coffee instead of regular soda.
If you increase your daily exercise by walking an extra one and a half miles (a 155 pound person walking three miles per hour burns about 100 calories per mile), you will also lose fifteen pounds in a year.
You could also combine the two by eliminating one soda every other day and walking an extra mile and a half every other day in order to get the identical result. Even better, eat less and exercise more every day and lose thirty pounds over the course of a year!
Although this is an example of how simple it is in theory to lose weight. In the real world, it is much more complicated. The key to achieving this weight loss through cutting calories or increased exercise is not to inadvertently add new calories somewhere else. You may need to adjust your eating habits or consider using glucomannan supplements to help with cravings. It’s important to have the correct mindset to be successful in losing weight. It may help to have a good weight loss program at hand to help you develop your personal weight loss program.