To create 1 pound of fat, you will need to consume 3,500 calories, an extremely easy feat if you frequent such lovely establishments as the Cheesecake Factory. (One order of the beer battered fish & chips and you’re easily closing in on that 3,500 with its whopping 2,160 calories. And that’s all in one meal! It should at least take you two days worth of food to get you to that 2,160. Stay away my Factory fans, stay away!)
If you’re trying to lose weight, and the safe and extremely effective way to do that is to lose 1 – 2 pounds per week, then you need to work on limiting your number of calories each day. By decreasing your calories by 500 a day, by the end of the week you should have been able to shed at least a pound.
Another way to look at it is to reduce your caloric intake by 250 calories a day, and also burn 250 calories through exercise a day. To burn 250 calories you need only 20 to 30 minutes a day, if that, depending on your intensity. Not a lot to ask for great results!
3,500 calories = 1 pound of icky fat.
Post that on your corkboard!
Anne Marie Costanzo is a nationally certified personal trainer and owner of Little Black Dress Personal Training. She can be reached at am@littleblackdresspt.com or (914) 841-1121.
