Weight loss is a topic that is extremely common in our current society. With many individuals are extremely overweight, and wanting to improve their health and how they look. Weight loss is largely a behavioral endeavor, meaning that you need to change your current health behaviors to lose weight. When it comes down to it, however, weight loss is all about the amount of calories that one consumes on a daily basis. If your lifestyle behaviors allow you to eat less calories on a daily basis than you need to maintain weight, you will of course lose weight. During weight loss conversations I have with individuals, I often get asked “how many calories in a pound of fat?” This is a valid question, and can help us realize what we truly need to do to lose, maintain, or even gain weight.

How Many Calories in a Pound of Fat?

The amount of calories in a pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories. You might be asking, “what does this mean for me?” If you are somebody who is trying to lose weight, this means that to lose one pound of fat, you need to eat 3500 calories less than your body needs on a daily basis to maintain weight. Of course, we would never do this all in one day, and typically spread this out through a week. A standard goal that most individuals have when losing fat from their body is to lose a pound of fat in a week. This means that we need to simply divide the amount of calories in a pound of fat (3500) , with the amount of days in a week (7). When this calculation is done, we can then see that to lose one pound of fat during a week, we need to eat 500 less calories a day than we currently are eating. It should be noted that although you are trying to target fat when losing weight, you won’t be losing strictly fat. Naturally, your body will lose a little muscle throughout the process. Resistance training during weight loss is the best way to maximize the amount of fat you lose, and decrease the amount of muscle you lose.

Overall, knowing the how many calories are in a pound of fat is a good starting place for losing, maintaining, or gaining weight. The behaviors that leads to this weight loss will ultimately get you the results that you would need. Focus on changing your behaviors, and the weight loss will come!

#inclusivefitness   #weareallstrong  #dontjustsurvivethrive  #allstrongfitnessllc    #individualswithdisabilities  #specialneedsfitness  #seniorfitness #allstrong #healtheducation #lowimpactworkout