Calories
Needed to Lose Weight
Calories
needed to lose weight?
The generally accepted answer is to simply eat
fewer calories than you
burn off...But is this the best advice?
There are approximately 3500 calories in one pound
of body fat. It
seems fair to say that if we burned off 3500 more calories than we took
in we would lose one pound. Many people advise eating 500 fewer
calories a day for one week
to accomplish this. By eating 500 fewer calories a day, at
the end of the week you will
have taken in 3500 fewer calories so you should, theoretically lose one
pound...Right?
Consider a situation where an overweight individual does not consume an
adequate amount of calories. If they follow
the advice and begin eating 500 fewer calories a day they will find
that in most cases the weight does not come off. In fact, their weight
problem may get worse.
Contrary
to popular belief, obesity
is not strictly caused by eating an excess
amount of calories. There are many overweight
individuals who do not take in a lot of calories and still gain weight.
Cutting back on calories will not help these people lose weight!
Your body needs calories to burn calories. In many cases, the
answer to
the question of how many calories do you need to lose weight is the
exact opposite of
decreasing calories...
In many cases increasing
the amount of calories
that you eat is a far
superior approach.
What I have found is that increasing caloric intake
by eating more weight
loss foods, combined with
increasing the amount of calories that are burned produces great
results. Increasing the amount of calories burned can be
accomplished through an
increase in physical activity, changed eating habits and other
lifestyle patterns.
If you have found that decreasing caloric intake is not
producing
weight loss results then it is time to take a different approach. The
best answer to the question of calories needed to lose weight may be to
increase your caloric intake along with increasing the amount of
calories that you burn.
From
Calories Needed to Calorie Counting Page
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