3 ms·
After causally seeing popular weight loss advice in US media over the years offering all variety of silver bullets (One Weird Trick etc), I was flabbergasted an
by jitl 3y ago
After causally seeing popular weight loss advice in US media over the years offering all variety of silver bullets (One Weird Trick etc), I was flabbergasted and betrayed to learn how simple the math of weight loss is once I finally looked into it 4 months ago.
Very roughly, there’s 3500kcal in 1lb of body. Given that fact plus your current weight and calorie intake, you can build a spreadsheet in 30 mins to compute the calories per day to make your body any weight you want in a reasonable time frame (losing >1% a week is generally viewed as unhealthy and risky).
Of course adhering to the plan is the challenging part - and then it’s helpful to consider strategies like TRE, once you understand the metric target part.
I wrote the comment as a reaction to the editorialized headline suggesting to some degree that TRE is a silver bullet / One Weird Trick. Maybe it is effectively that for many people - but in case there’s a casual reader scrolling past I want to give them a bit more of the ground truth that’s somehow not popular knowledge.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago> Very roughly, there’s 3500kcal in 1lb of body. Given that fact plus your current weight and calorie intake, you can build a spreadsheet in 30 mins to compute the calories per day to make your body any weight you want in a reasonable time frame emphasis on the very roughly ... a significant part of body mass is tissue you do not want to lose: bone, brain, organs
- anthonypasq 3y ago1lb of fat is ~3500 calories and that is simply 9 calories per gram of fat X 453 grams in a pound. its actually closer to 4000 but people just use 3500 because that means you would need a 500 calorie deficit per day to lose a pound a week.
- steve1977 3y agoIt’s even easier in the metric system, where a 500 kcal (daily) deficit should roughly amount to a 500 g (weekly) weight loss. And AFAIK this is calculated based on body fat actually corresponding to around 7.7 kcal per gram, not 9 (that is for food).
- bobmaxup 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome