Ultimate Weight Loss – How To Lose 3 Pounds of Fat Per Week
When I discuss weight loss, I almost always give the example of losing one pound of fat per week. The reason I do that is because I believe that for weight loss, the healthiest way and the way that leaves you most likely to keep your weight down in the long term is to lose a pound per week.
Why do I believe that? It’s because the same way a lot of people who become rich overnight aren’t able to handle the wealth and squander it quickly, a lot of people who lose weight quickly aren’t able to keep it off and immediately start putting it back on. More than that, if you’re losing weight extremely quickly, in a way you’re starving your body, and I can’t imagine that those kind of eating habits can be healthy for you.
That being said, I know that there are a lot of you out there who have some sort of occasion coming up and you’re desperate to lose weight. And while I don’t recommend trying to lose a lot of weight quickly, if you’re going to do it, you might of well do it as healthily as possible and you might as well learn how to do it from me. After all, that’s what I’m here for, right?
The Raw Reality Of What It Takes
Before we begin, I think I owe you a full explanation of the task at hand. One pound of fat is equal to about 3,500 calories. To lose 3 pounds of fat, not water, per week, you’re going to have to have a calorie deficit of 1,500 calories per day. That means if you’re not doing any exercise at all and to maintain your weight you need 2,000 calories per day, you’re going to have to be eating only 500 calories per day.
Before I continue…
Before I continue, let me warn you. In no way do I suggest going on this intensive fat loss diet. In fact, I recommend that you don’t! The best course of action in losing weight is to stick to losing one pound a week, and you can find more about that under the weight loss category on this site. If you’re still set on trying to lose 3 pounds a week, read on, but let me just emphasize that you shouldn’t do this diet, and if you do, you shouldn’t be doing it for more than a week to a week and half.
The Meal Plan For Losing 3 Pounds Per Week
In order to create a 1,500 calorie deficit per day, you’re going to do something that will change your life and how you feel for the better (this is the part of the diet I highly recommend). You’re going to cut out all processed foods from your diet. No soda (even if it has “zero calories”), potato chips, dip, cookies, or cakes. Now that we have those foods out of the picture, dieting becomes a whole lot easier.
The next stage is to have a strict diet of 3 meals a day, with each meal consisting of 300 calories. Seem impossible to make a meal out of 300 calories? Not so, and if you don’t believe me, check out this great list of 300 calorie meals with photos from the girls over at diet blog. So now that we’ve got that covered, you’re only taking in 900 calories a day, losing over 2 per week without even exercising! But I promised you that you would lose 3 pounds per week, not 2, so here’s the kicker…
Burning The Last 400 Calories Of Fat With Exercise
This is the part that makes me advise people not to follow this diet plan. This for the pure reason that there’s no way of losing 3 pounds of fat per week without being a little hungry. I mean, why go through so much for that extra pound when you can lose two pounds of week without going too crazy? But if you really have your eyes on losing 3 pounds per week, here’s the exercise you can do to burn off the remaining 400 calories…
1) Swim: You’ll lose around 300 calories per half hour of solid non stop swimming. To lose that other 100 calories, I recommend speed walking for around 25 minutes to burn off that last 100.
2) Bike: One hour of solid biking with some walking dispersed throughout the day should burn off the 400 calories.
3) Take a dance class: If you can afford it, take a dance class. One hour of dance class burns around 265 calories. If your dance class is next to the pool (like it is where I live, even though I don’t dance), go ahead and finish off the class with a 15 minute swim to burn off the rest of those calories.
Why Losing 2 Pounds Of Fat Per Week Is A Good Compromise
As you can see, it’s definitely possible to lose 3 pounds of fat per week, but in my opinion, it’s not especially healthy and it’s more difficult than dieting should be. If you are content to lose 2 pounds of fat per week instead of 3, you either don’t have to exercise to lose the weight, or alternatively you can keep exercising and have one 600 calorie meal for either lunch or dinner. It may be easier, but sometimes easier is indeed the better approach!
Great post. I just have to add my $0.02 on the ‘Exercise’ section. I’m not against swimming, cycling or dancing but if you’re serious about fat loss then those activities should be seen as complimentary exercises.
What one needs to focus on is full body strength exercises. Pull ups, push ups, dips, lifting free weights. These exercises will help your body to burn fat even when your not working out, kind of supercharging that fat loss effort!
Elliot, I have to disagree with you. Doing exercises like pull ups or lifting free weights alone is not close to as effective for fat loss as swimming, biking, or dancing, which all both burn a tremendous amount of fat during the activity and build muscle after as well.
The only time I would recommend for people to do free weights or body weight exercises for fat loss, is when done with interval training in order to get the heart pumping and more effectively burn fat. The fat loss programs I sell in my Ten Dollar Store are a perfect example of this, since they combine interval training with body weight exercises and weights to maximize fat loss and tone muscle.
Just for fun, I did some calculations to see what I’d have to do to lose 3 pounds a week. I’m a 5’2″, 110 pounds, and active (running, free weights, and bodyweight exercises 4-5 days a week). My maintenance caloric intake is roughly 1200 a day (8400 a week). So, to lose 3 pounds a week, I’d have to eat nothing all week AND create a calorie deficit of 300 per day through exercise. No thanks!
Palidor – Ha, well in some ways that’s good since at 5’2 and 110 pounds you probably don’t want to lose anymore weight.