Have you just started a diet plan? If so, you are probably anxious to rid yourself of those extra pounds and start fitting into the clothes at the back of your closet as soon as possible. Not so fast! Losing weight takes commitment, knowledge and patience. Most importantly, it is best to be realistic about how quickly you can get to your goal weight.
Losing One Pound of Body Weight
So you just stepped on the scale after a week of dieting and it shows you’ve only lost one pound. Don’t be discouraged! Let’s review what it took to get to that scale’s needle to move one notch, and why it’s not such a bag thing!
1. How many calories equal one pound? One pound of lost body fat requires an intake of 3500 calories less than expended per week or 500 per day. To determine how many calories you would need to cut daily to lose that one pound, use Mayo Clinic’s calorie calculator to determine your current daily caloric requirement and subtract 500 calories.
2. How long do you need to exercise to lose one pound? Use the Health Status calculator to determine how many minutes are required of a particular activity to lose one pound. You enter your age and weight and will be given a list of answers to choose from. For instance for a 50 year old, weighing 150 pounds, losing one pound would require 353 minutes of bicycling at 12-14 miles per hour, or 440 minutes on the stair machine, or 1,014 minutes of bowling.
3. What does it cost per week to keep that one pound around your middle? Using Caloriecount.com and Safeway.com’s websites as resources, 3,500 calories equals 2.3 pounds of Sirloin Steak at $4.99 per pound ($11.48), or 23.3 ounces of Lay’s Potato Chips at 75¢ an ounce ($17.48), 34 twelve ounce cans of Coors Lite at $15.99 for an 18 count case ($30.20), or 219 teaspoons of granulated sugar at .005 cents per teaspoon ($1.10)
4. Long term results if you lose one pound a week. If you can eat less than your activity level by those 3,500 calories each week and keep losing pound after pound, week after week, you’ll be 52 pounds lighter in one year!
One pound is more significant than you thought, right?
What Equals a Pound of Fat? Five Pounds? Ten?
Sometimes picturing the weight that we carry around is helpful to make us want to take it off. While composition of these items is different than human fat, the weight is the same. So think of how much weight you should lose, and imagine wearing each of these items all day long around your middle, strapped to your back or over-hanging your belt. It’s enough to make celery sound delicious!
Things That Weigh Approximately One Pound:
Package of butter (4 sticks)
1 football
1 package of bacon
1 box of brown sugar
Approximately Three Pounds:
Two-slice toaster
Steam Iron
Can of Crisco Shortening
Box of Wine
Approximately Five Pounds:
Mr. Coffee 12-cup Coffeemaker
A pair of Men’s size 10 Hiking Boots
A Two Liter Bottle of Soda
Bag of Sugar
Approximately Ten Pounds
9 Ft. Market Umbrella
Large Bag of Potatoes
6 Ft. Aluminum Step Ladder
Adult Maltese Dog
Approximately Fifteen Pounds
19-inch Flat Screen TV
Bowling Ball
2000 paint balls
Medium Bag of Dog Food
Approximately Twenty-five Pounds
19 inch Flat screen TV and a Two Liter Bottle of Soda
5 bags of sugar
2 bags of potatoes and a pair of men’s hiking boots
25 footballs
I could go on, but you get the idea. When embarking on a weight loss program, the goal should be to lose weight consistently, simultaneously establishing a long term exercise and eating plan that can be maintained. Losing one pound a week is a healthy and realistic goal, and doing so should be celebrated each week!
How you go about losing that pound is your choice. You can reduce daily caloric intake by 500 or exercise to burn 500 calories a day, or split it up, eating 250 calories less and exercising off 250 calories. However you go about it, be happy with every pound that takes you in the right direction on that scale, and eventually you won’t have to carry around all that baggage!
