Calories / Pound of Fat

There are 3500 calories / pound of fat.

In theory that means to lose one pound of stored fat you need to burn off a minimum of 3500 extra calories.

In practice that doesn’t happen…

Losing 10 pounds of weight does not mean you have lost 10 pounds of fat. You might have lost fat, muscle or water, but most likely some combination of the three.

In most diets, especially crash diets, weight loss far exceeds fat loss, the majority being water loss.

Your fitness also becomes a factor…Your fitness level dictates which combination of fat and carbohydrates your body cells will burn for fuel during rest and during exercise.

At rest your body can burn mainly fat, but when exercising the body cannot supply enough oxygen to burn only fat and so it needs to use carbohydrates as well.

The end result is you need to burn a far more than 3500 calories to burn off one pound of fat.

Filed under Weight Loss Dieting  |  Tags: Calories, Fat Burning, Fat Loss