It is a given that 3500 calories equals one pound of fat. That being said, in order to take off 5 pounds in one week you need to drop 17,500 calories in that week.
Seriously, if your average diet is 2000 calories per day, which is enough to keep you healthy, you only take in 14,000 calories for the entire week. You can take off one pound, but that won’t work to lose five pounds in one week, because you don’t have anything to keep you alive. Losing five pounds means burning everything you eat in a week, plus 500 calories that you don’t have every day. Or don’t eat for nine days. Obviously, if your goal is five pound per week, you can’t do it by diet alone.
Here’s what will happen when you stop eating: Your body recognizes that there is no food and goes into hibernation mode. This is not a conscious decision, it’s involuntary, like your heartbeat or breathing. The first thing it does is gives up water, and that means protein, which is 75% water, and constitutes lean muscle mass. After it depletes your water, it will start to burn carbohydrates, which causes you to store fat. In other words, you will start to gain weight. This is a metabolism thing, where your body reacts by slowing down the burn rate, and any food you take in is immediately sent to the fat storage unit. You have to change your metabolism or you won’t lose weight, you’ll put more on.
If you can’t diet off the weight then it stands to reason that you have to work on increasing your metabolism. Normally a diet gets you to take in fewer calories and what you burn slowly reduces your size. Actually, you are just losing water. As your metabolism adjusts, you stop losing and pretty soon you start to gain again. You are in hibernation. Any food you take in is converted immediately to fat to help you through this period of starvation. Store fat and slow down. A bear can sleep though an entire winter without eating.
When you cut out food, your body will throw all of it’s protein under the bus trying to protect itself. Without food, your body makes a bunch of decisions. (This is your body, not you. It’s a physiology thing.) After it takes all of the protein out of your muscle, (I’ll come back to body builders in a minute) your body will start to live on carbohydrates and when that happens you will gain weight! Your body will go into hibernation mode. You have to change the way your body works to make fat go away. It’s called METABOLISM. Your metabolism slows down and you won’t lose any weight, you’ll gain more.
Fact is, you can’t just diet and make fat go away, so you have to make a complete lifestyle choice. You want to lose weight? Start with a little exercise. Get your metabolism kicked up. Once that starts to take off a little weight, THEN you start your diet, and after that you increase your exercise. When you start AFTER you have increased your metabolism, the work will be more effective. The pounds will come off faster and more easily. The weight loss is a lifestyle change and more likely to stay off.
Understand that you put your weight on because you don’t burn everything that you eat. You store some of it, and over time, that weight builds up. Problem is, storage is driven by what you eat and that consumption is mostly about water. Protein is 75% water. When you go on a diet, after you clear out the water you burn protein from your storehouse.
You can’t just diet fat off because your body will give away all of it’s protein to protect itself, so you start to live on carbohydrates- and gain weight. When you lower your food intake, you lose protein, and this loss lowers your burn rate.
Ifyour diet come toms to be taking forever, remember that 3500 calories is one pound. Here’s your chance, come to my website at the link, or come to my blog. There’s lots of articles and the blog has some great stuff as well.