It's All About Burning Calories

Light Exercise & Weight Loss

It's hardly any secret that burning calories can help you to slim down. The fact of the matter is that most people become overweight because they simply take in more calories than their bodies will be able to burn in one day and when there is a ‘surplus’ of calories, these will be deposited as fat.

Depending on how much you need to lose, you can roughly determine how many calories you will need to consume in order to get rid of one pound of fat. As a rule of thumb, men require in the region of 2500 calories per day to remain the same weight whereas women only require about 2000.


Learning how to count calories should provide you with a good idea of how many calories you are eating during the day and keeping a food diary can be an excellent way of managing your weight in the long term.


Exercise is a great way to slim down and nearly everyone can lose weight walking. How many calories you burn when walking a mile will depend on several factors: how much you weigh and how fast you are travelling. Heavy individuals will find that burning calories from walking has a greater impact than it will on those who are thinner.


A person who weighs 300 pounds, for example, will burn about 180 calories if they walk one mile and in order to burn the necessary calories to lose one pound, this dieter would have to walk almost 20 miles. This can be done over a number of days or weeks, however, and as long as more food is not added to the diet, the pound of fat should disappear.


Quick weight loss will be even easier if more strenuous exercise is engaged in. Running will use up approximately 500 or more calories per hour depending on your pace. Other factors including sex, weight and age will also be important in determining how many calories to lose one pound must be burned off. For instance, while a 150lb woman who is 30 will burn about 500 calories running at 6 mph, she will nearly double that amount if she runs at 10 mph.


Even a few days of light running can make a difference fairly quickly in your weight, especially if you combine the exercise with some food restrictions and make sure that the calories being used are greater than the calories being taken in.


Making some adjustments to your diet can help a great deal with quick weight loss. Certain foods such as raw vegetables and fruit can help you to lose weight because they contain no unhealthy fats. Berries are also a great way to help your digestion operate at its peak. If you are overweight you should keep a list of everything you eat or drink during the day – you will probably be very surprised at how quickly those lattes and chocolate milk shakes add to your daily total.


Cutting back on some of these high calorie snacks is another good approach to burning calories that will be easy and relatively painless to use if you don’t want to follow a specific diet plan.


If however, you would like that extra bit of help burning calories that only a program can provide, make sure you check out our diet reviews on the left of this page to see which type best suits your lifestyle.

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