How to Lose Weight
If you are overweight or obese, losing weight can significantly improve your health and wellbeing. Being overweight puts you at risk of many health conditions, including high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and many types of cancer.
You can check if you are overweight or obese by using a BMI calculator. The WHO’s Healthy Lifestyle Recommendations says that people should maintain bodyweight with a BMI of between 18.5 and 25. The BMI measure is suitable for most people, although athletes with high lean body mass may be incorrectly classified as overweight or obese.
To lose weight, you will need to maintain a calorie deficit over an extended period of time. A calorie deficit simply means you eat fewer calories than your body burns in a typical day. For most people, it’s recommended to lose 0.5 lb to 1 lb per week, which requires a deficit of 250 to 500 calories.
What are calories?
Calories are a way to measure how much “energy” is in the food and drink you consume. In most parts of the world, calories are measured in kilocalories, or kcal for short. These are the numbers you see listed in the nutritional information section on food and drink items.
Your body uses the energy that comes from your diet to keep everything working normally. This includes basic functions like breathing and digestion, as well as powering your muscles for movement and exercise. Your body uses energy all the time to power different kinds of chemical processes. We call this your metabolism.
The calories in the foods you eat all add up through the day. If you total the number of calories you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as any snacks, you can calculate your daily calorie intake. Understanding your daily calorie intake, as well as how many calories your body burns, is the key to weight management.
How many calories should I eat per day?
In general, a typical woman of healthy weight should aim to eat around 2,000 calories per day. For a man, the number is 2,500 calories per day. These calories, for most people, are sufficient to maintain a healthy weight.
However, the correct number of maintenance calories will vary from person to person. The main factors that affect your maintenance calories are your age, gender, height and current weight. If you are overweight or obese, your maintenance calories will typically be greater than 2,000 or 2,500 calories per day.
If you wish to lose weight, you will need to eat a calorie deficit relative to your maintenance calories. For example, if your maintenance calories are 2,500 calories, you can reduce your daily calorie intake to the following:
- To lose 0.5 lb per week: Reduce by 250 calories. Eat 2,250 calories per day.
- To lose 1 lb per week: Reduce by 500 calories. Eat 2,000 calories per day.
- To lose 1.5 lb per week: Reduce by 750 calories. Eat 1,750 calories per day.
- To lose 2 lb per week: Reduce by 1,000 calories. Eat 1,500 calories per day.
To calculate your own calorie deficit, we recommend using a calorie deficit calculator. These calculators use your age, gender, height, current weight and activity level to produce a range of deficits from 0.5 lb per week to 2 lb per week.
A woman should never eat less than 1,200 calories per day, and a man should never eat less than 1,500. Extreme methods of weight loss are dangerous and can have serious health consequences.
What happens if I eat more than my maintenance calories?
If you eat more than your maintenance calories — that is, you eat more each day than your body burns — your body will store the excess as body fat. Fat is stored around your organs and beneath your skin, which provides your body a long-term store of energy.
The healthy amount of body fat depends on your age, gender and other factors. For men, a body fat percentage between 18% and 24% is considered acceptable according to the American Council on Exercise, while those with a good level of fitness may achieve 14-17%.
Women need a higher percentage of body fat to support reproductive functions and hormonal balance. The acceptable range for women is 25 to 31%, while fitness enthusiasts may have a range between 21 and 24%.
If your body holds on to too much body fat, you may become overweight or obese. Having too much body fat has been linked to a higher risk of developing serious health conditions, including:
- Inflammatory diseases – Excess fat is associated with inflammation in the body. This can lead to chronic inflammatory diseases like arthritis or asthma.
- Cardiovascular disease – Visceral fat — that’s the fat around your organs — produces inflammatory substances that can damage your blood vessels, increase your blood pressure and increase your risk of heart attack or stroke.
- Type 2 diabetes – Because visceral fat interferes with insulin production and increases your body’s insulin resistance, it can lead to high blood sugar levels and eventually type 2 diabetes.
Can I lose weight by exercising?
When it comes to losing weight, diet is the most important factor. The easiest way to create a calorie deficit is by eating less. So long as you eat below your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), you will lose weight over a period of time.
However, since a calorie deficit is just the difference between your daily calorie intake and your TDEE, there is another way to create a calorie deficit and lose weight. Since your TDEE includes calories burned from physical activity, you can also create a calorie deficit by doing more exercise and physical activity.
Increasing your activity level from sedentary to lightly active, which means doing some light exercise 1-3 days per week, raises your TDEE by more than 14%. This can be hundreds of calories per day, which add straight into your calorie deficit, helping you lose those extra pounds.
The Physical Activity Guidelines recommend that healthy adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week.
Simple ways to burn more calories
Even a small amount of exercise can have a big impact on your weight loss goal. Walking to the store instead of driving, getting off the train one stop early or taking the stairs rather than the elevator are simple, everyday activities most people can do. All these activities burn additional calories, which can make it easier to stay in calorie deficit.
Even if you burn an extra 100 calories per day, over a week you will have burned 700 calories. That's equivalent to 0.2 pounds of extra weight lost. Compound this over months and it starts to have a real impact on your weight loss journey.
Our 100 calorie fat burners are small amounts of exercise or physical activity that burn 100 calories in a short amount of time. Doing these exercises every day can help you keep active, as an alternative to a structured workout routine.
Workout routines
Although not necessary to lose weight, you might consider a structured workout routine while you diet. Workout routines can help you lose weight and see you maintain or build muscle as you lose weight. To maintain muscle while losing weight, you should include regular resistance training in your weekly routine.
Our 90 day workout plan is designed to losing weight and building muscle. It targets your whole body and takes just 30 minutes per day. The plan starts with a 5 week foundational stage to build some basic strength, before moving onto a routine combining high-rep strength training and fat-burning cardio.
Also check out our 5 day workout routine for women, designed to burn fat and tone muscle. It combines full-body workouts with HIIT, bodyweight strength circuits and cardio circuits. The cardio is great for burning calories, while the full-body workouts help you build new muscle.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). The health effects of overweight and obesity. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/effects/index.html
World Health Organization. (2010). A healthy lifestyle – WHO recommendations. World Health Organisation. https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/fact-sheets/item/a-healthy-lifestyle—who-recommendations
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Piercy, K. L., Troiano, R. P., Ballard, R. M., Carlson, S. A., Fulton, J. E., Galuska, D. A., … & Olson, R. D. (2018). The physical activity guidelines for Americans. Jama, 320(19), 2020-2028.