So you have a few extra pounds of goo around your midsection that you want to lose. I mean, you want to lose it fast! But is there too fast weight loss and is rapid weight loss healthy?
Let’s define rapid weight loss first. For some it may be £ 2 a week and for others it may be £ 2 a day. Anyone who has seen “The Biggest Loser” knows that double-digit weekly weight loss is possible. But to get double-digit weekly loss, you need to be extremely obese. You will also need to have personal trainers, nutritionists, and doctors at your disposal, as well as time to work out in the gym for about four hours a day. These conditions probably rule it out.
Let’s talk now in more realistic terms. A person who weighs more than 300 pounds has the potential to lose five or more pounds per week with the right diet and exercise plan. However, it will be difficult to maintain a loss of five pounds per week over a long period of time. This is because the less you weight, the fewer calories it takes to function. So you won’t burn as many calories in one day, which, assuming everything else stays the same, will reduce your calorie deficit, which is what determines how much weight you lose.
To calculate reasonable weight loss expectations, you can do the following. Go online and find a calorie calculator. This will calculate the number of calories burned in a day (commonly known as maintenance calories). It takes around 3,500 calories to burn one pound Benefits of Aloe Vera for Male Health of fat. So, if you want to lose five pounds in a week, you need to burn 17,500 more calories than you consume in a week, or a 2,500 calorie deficit per day. So let’s say your maintenance calories are 3,000 per day; you would have to follow a 500 calorie a day diet (500 – 3,000 = 2,500 calorie deficit) to lose five pounds in one week.
In general, a 500-calorie-a-day diet is considered unhealthy and could harm your body. So what you can do is add exercise to increase the number of calories you burn. One hour of cardio training burns about 500 calories (note this doesn’t have to be in one session, you can do two 30-minute sessions). So, if you add this exercise routine to your day, you could be on a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet and lose about five pounds a week. This would be a much healthier plan than a 500 calorie a day diet and are probably the best results you can expect. To set realistic and achievable goals for weight loss, I have a little rule of thumb: you lose about 1% of your body weight per week. So for the 300-pound person in our example, the 1% rule would equate to about three pounds per week. Now I know this may not match the expressed time frame you were hoping for, but remember that weight loss means being persistent and consistent. A steady and gradual weight loss will allow you to reach your ideal weight. At three pounds a week, you could lose 150 pounds in a year. Not bad at all! But of course, remember that as you lose weight, the amount of weight you will lose in a week will be less and less. This is just an unfortunate reality of life.