I’ve recently been thinking a lot about slow, sustainable weight loss. The problem with most weight loss programs is that people are impatient. They make major changes in hopes of losing weight quickly, but ultimately get frustrated by their lack of progress and/or tired of their huge sacrifices, and wind up quitting.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, you can lose significant amounts of weight — and keep it off — without going to heroic lengths. Don’t believe me? Consider the following…
As I’ve noted in the past, there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat. Thus, by trimming just 100 calories per day, you can lose a bit over 10 pounds during the upcoming year (365 days x 100 calories/day = 36,500 calories = 10.48 lbs).
That’s it. Just 100 calories per day. How you get rid of these calories is entirely up to you. Eat less, exercise more, whatever. Sure, a year is a long time, but we’re also talking about a miniscule change here. Make a slightly larger change and you’ll see proportionately larger results. Just don’t be overly-ambitious.
The point here is simply that small changes can yield significant results when maintained over long periods of time. And guess what? The small changes are the ones you’re most likely to stick with.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a great point…just be aware that there’s a tipping point where it no longer works.
Cutting 100 calories a day will most likely help you lose your 10 pounds in a year in a safe and sustainable way.
However, cutting 1000 calories a day will not help you lose 100 pounds, unless your caloric intake is so far above your base metabolic rate (the amount of calories you would burn if you did nothing but lie in bed all day) that I wonder how you even stay get it all in…
If you have too much of a caloric deficit (too many calories out through BMR and exercise compared to too little calories in) then your body will think that you are in a famine and will actually store fat more efficiently, so that when the food runs out you will be able to live longer.
Your best bet is to have a small caloric deficit and to eat frequent smaller meals throughout the day to convince your body that there is plenty of food stores available and to reduce the fat it has stored.
Blaine: Yep, there’s a fine line that you don’t want to cross… Not to mention that such drastic cuts would make you so miserable that you wouldn’t be able to sustain them even if they did work.
All comes down to eat less move more eh.