You need to burn 3500 calories a day to lose one pound a day, and you need anywhere between 2000 and 2500 calories in a day if you are doing your routine activities. That means you need to starve yourself the whole day and exercise as much as to lose the remaining calories.
And if you eat fewer calories and burn more calories through physical activity, you lose weight. In the past, research found about 3,500 calories of energy equaled about 1 pound (0.45 kilogram) of fat. So researchers thought burning or cutting 500 calories a day led to losing 1 pound a week.
Therefore, aiming to lose 1 pound (0.5 kg) per day may be unsustainable, unrealistic, and potentially dangerous. Losing 1 pound (0.5 kg) per day involves drastically reducing your calorie intake and increasing your physical activity. Very low calorie diets and excessive exercise may both be unhealthy and unsustainable.
Losing 5 Pounds a Week
To lose 1 pound a week you need to reduce your intake by 3,500 calories over seven days, to lose 5 pounds you need to create a weekly deficit of 17,500 calories — or about 2,500 calories per day.
1 pound, or approximately 0.45 kg, equates to about 3,500 calories. As such, in order to lose 1 pound per week, it is recommended that 500 calories be shaved off the estimate of calories necessary for weight maintenance per day.
Generally to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day, through a lower calorie diet and regular physical activity.
But the average weight loss that most people see on the 1200 calorie diet is about one to two pounds per week.”
Medical studies have proven that if a person reduces their calorie intake by 500-1000 calories per day, they are likely to lose 1-2 pounds of weight per week (3). For most women, this comes down to an intake of 1200-1500 calories per day and for men, 1500-1800 calories per day to promote weight loss at a healthy pace.
The first place men typically lose weight is the belly, while women tend to lose weight all over, but hold onto weight in their thighs and hips, Dr. Block explains.
Running is the winner for most calories burned per hour. Stationary bicycling, jogging, and swimming are excellent options as well. HIIT exercises are also great for burning calories. After a HIIT workout, your body will continue to burn calories for up to 24 hours.
It takes 20 steps to burn 1 calorie, therefore walking 10,000 steps burns off about 500 calories, which can then be added to your total calorie budget for the day. The recommended daily calorie requirement is 1,800 for an average female and 2,200 for an average male.
Many studies have shown that following low calorie diets, including 1,200-calorie diets, can promote weight loss. For example, a study in 2,093 people with obesity demonstrated that a medically supervised 1,200-calorie meal replacement diet resulted in an average fat loss of 4.7% over 12 months ( 6 ).
Five pounds per week is an aggressive, unrealistic, and potentially unhealthy weight-loss goal. You did not put all the weight on in one month, so you should not expect to lose it all in one month either! As a general rule, you should aim for 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week.
Example: If you exercise more to burn an extra 500 calories each day, you'll lose about one pound of fat in a week (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories).
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025, the average adult woman expends roughly 1,600 to 2,400 calories per day, while the average adult man expends 2,000 to 3,000.
1 pound (around 0.5 kg) is about 3500 calories (5), so if you stick to a 1000 calorie meal plan, and your normal needs are 2000-2500 calories per day, you may burn as much as 7000-10 500 calories per week, thus losing from 2 to 3 pounds (1-1.5kg) a week.
While losing 10 pounds in a month may seem like a lofty goal, it's entirely possible by making some small modifications to your diet and lifestyle. Taking it one step at a time and making a few small changes each week can help you lose weight safely and keep it off long-term.
While everyone loses weight differently, dropping as little as 3 to 5 pounds can show up on your face first, Eboli says.
Step 1: Make a commitment.
Making the decision to lose weight, change your lifestyle, and become healthier is a big step. Start by making a commitment to yourself.
For some people, the first noticeable change may be at the waistline. For others, the breasts or face are the first to show change. Where you gain or lose weight first is likely to change as you get older. Both middle-aged men and postmenopausal women tend to store weight around their midsections.
You can't lose weight on 1200 calories a day because you're no longer in a calorie deficit. Your body has adapted to what it's been doing and plateaued. If you start your diet with a 500 calorie deficit per day, your body adapts to this in various way so that over time your energy requirements are reduced.
If you're a man, woman weighing over 164 pounds or a female who regularly exercises and you aren't losing weight eating 1,200 to 1,500 calories daily, it may be time to see a doctor. Hormone imbalances – such as underactive thyroid – can decrease your body's metabolism and inhibit or prevent weight loss from occurring.