It is fairly widely recommended that about 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week is possible in a maintainable and healthy manner. To aim for a much greater speed of weight loss, you can end up attempting to reduce your calorie intake by too much. By introducing too great a calorie deficiency, you may see rapid weight loss, but your body will resuce your lean body mass and then burn less to maintain itself. As a result, you may see the well known ”yo-yo effect” where you may end up weighing more than you did originally once you have begun a normal diet again.

The real key is to be able to continue your weight loss until you reach a healthy weight, and aiming lose 1 to 2 pounds a week is much more realistic for this. With this goal, you will be more able to stick at your weight loss plan for the time it takes to reach a healthy weight and then maintain that healthy weight.

So as you can see here, the real question is what speed can you lose weight while being able to maintain your weight loss until you are no longer overweight.

In order to achieve this speed of weight loss, it is good to understand the role of calories. One to two pounds of weight loss a week would typically be achieved by introducing a calorie deficit of 500 to 1000 Calories a day. That is you would consume 500 to 1000 calories less than you burn each day. You will need to start to keep track of the calories you intake and the calories you burn to be able to establish a calorie deficit. Also, always be sure to consult your doctor about your weight loss plans as this will let you get any advice that may be specific to your own situation.

If you want to lose weight by counting calories, you need to pay close attention to how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn during the day. Maintaining a diet journal is an good way to count the calories in the foods you are eating and you can total the calories of the foods in your journal to see the the total calories you are eating. To get an approximation of the calories you burn there are a number of approaches.

A first approximation of the calories you burn a day can be achieved through the use of an online calorie calculator.  Here you input some basic information about yourself such as your gender, weight, height, age and you overall level of activity and you will see an approximation of the number of calories you are burning.  It is also useful to be able to see the calories burned during any given exercise or activity.  Calculators have been developed which can give an estimate of this value derived from both your weight, and the length of time you have spent on an exercise.

These calculations utilise a metric called the activities Metabolic Equivalent (MET) to determine the calories burned. An activities Metabolic Equivalent is basically a measure of the energy expended during an activity calculated as a multiple of the calories you burn at rest, or your resting metabolic rate (RMR). For example, while sleeping, it has been measured that people burn about 0.9 times the calories than when at rest, and as such, sleeping has a MET of 0.9. Walking at a moderate pace has a MET of about 3.3 while running up stairs has a MET of about 15, indicating these exercises burn 3.3 or 15 times the calories burned while at rest. You can convert the MET values to see how many calories you burn during an activity by using an an online exercise calorie counter. These calculators operate by multiplying an activities duration in hours by the your weight in Kilograms and the exercises MET value to get the calories burned.

If you are counting calories it is beneficial to become familiar with the typical calories burned in your common activities.  The calculated calories burned in an activity should not be added to the more general calculation of your total calories burned by a typical weight loss calculator, as such calculators already include you activity level and provide an estimate for a twenty-four hour period. Alternatively, you may want to add the calories you burn in your total activities over a twenty-four hour period to give an alternative estimate of your total calories burned for a day.