Burning Calories

I'm not particularly an advocate of counting calories, although we all know that if we are looking to lose some weight, we need to have fewer calories in than we burn each day. So how many calories do you have to burn to lose weight?

Of course, the answer here is first eat less calories than you burn. To lose 1 pound you have to burn 3500 calories. Keep in mind that this means if you eat 2000 calories a day you have to burn 5500 calories to lose a pound. This feels a bit futile in my estimation. Also, keep in mind, to calculate how many calories you burn depends upon your current weight, the activity and the duration of the activity. For example. for a 170 pound person with 30 minutes of walking at 2 miles per hour ( so you walk a mile in the 30 minutes) you burn about 97 calories. That really feels pretty disheartening. To burn 3500 calories, you would need to walk 36 miles! That's not likely to happen.

Now you can see why I'm not an advocate of calorie counting. Best to eat sensible, stay away from the high fat and sugar foods and exercise regularly.