What Is Reasonable Weight Loss?

If you read ads in the newspaper, watch infomercials on TV or click on internet pop-ups, youd assume that quick and easy weight loss is a piece of cake. Lose pounds in two weeks, Lose pounds in days, and Lose to pounds in less than six weeks are just a few of the claims that set our expectations for the task of melting away extra fat. But are those results really possible? According to the National Institutes of Health and the American College of Sports Medicine, one to two pounds a week is considered safe and appropriate weight loss. This guideline is often cited by the medical community to help dieters lose body fat without also losing lean mass and to avoid dehydration. Safe may be well and good, but one to two pounds a week sure sounds wimpy compared to what the weight loss industry has to offer! To sort through whats fantasy and whats real, consider first what it actually takes to use the energy that pounds of stored body fat represents. At , calories per pound, pounds of fat represents , calories of stored energy. The average person burns about calories walking or running one mile. So to lose the pounds in one week, a person would have to run miles or miles per day. This is assuming, of course, that eating habits arent changed while adding all that exercise. Can you imagine expending that much energy? Can you imagine covering miles and not being hungrier than on a day when you didnt? It is probably safe to say that losing pounds of fat loss in one week, by exercise alone, is nothing short of laughable. But what about losing pounds of fat in a week by dieting? Is there a way to avoid eating , calories in a week (, per day)? Considering that a typical middle-aged female (, pounds, less than minutes of vigorous exercise beyond daily routine activities) maintains her weight on about , calories per day, this too would be impossible. She cant possibly eat more than less than nothing! How about eating nothing and running only miles per day for a week? Now that would be a way to combine dieting and exercise to lose pounds of stored body fat. Again, laughable. Because pounds of body fat in a week is out of the question, how realistic is the two pounds per week safe weight loss guideline? Once again, to answer this question, lets go back to the numbers. Two pounds of fat weight is equivalent to , calories or miles of running/walking per week. Is it reasonable to expect someone to run miles per day every day of the week and at the same time consume the same food as usual? Or to eat , calories less than usual for seven days without going crazy? For our sample woman, cutting , calories would mean eating about half her usual and about calories less than what her body really needs to maintain basic functions at rest. By now it should be clear that even one annoying pound of fat holds a significant amount of energy. By cutting back food about calories a day and by adding a mile walk each day, a person could expect to lose one pound of body fat each week. If this new routine is kept up each day for a full year, it would represent a hefty pound weight loss. On the other hand, it takes adding only calories more each day (or moving calories less) to add up to an extra pounds in a year. No matter how you do the math, successful weight management involves setting reasonable and realistic goals. One days diet and exercise routine wont necessarily affect your weight the next day, and it may even take a few weeks for significant weight changes to register on the scale. Keep up with the habit changes, however, and theyre bound to pay off in fat loss as the energy deficits accumulate.