According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), to lose one 1 lb. a week, you need to subtract 500 calories from your diet each day. You can lose an additional pound in one week if you burn 500 calories daily. There are some easy ways to slash and burn calories quickly without going on restrictive diets or spending hours at the gym.
Count Calories
By cutting 500 calories a day, you can easily drop 1 lb. in a week. Counting calories by keeping a food journal will help you reach that goal. Calorie information is on the nutrition label of prepackaged foods. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database also lists calorie and nutrition information for thousands of packaged, raw and fresh foods. Be sure to count the milk you add to your coffee, the honey you add to your tea, the cheese you sprinkle on your pasta and all those other extras that can easily slip under the radar.
Cut the Fat
Try cutting the fat whenever you can. The Kids Health website indicates that 1 gram (g) carbohydrates contains 4 calories, 1g protein has 4 calories, while 1g fat has 9 calories. Just one large fatty meal a day could be the difference between gaining and losing a few pounds. One hamburger patty, not counting the bread, cheese and other extras, can cost you 923 calories and has more than 63g fat. A chicken burger, on the other hand, has 287 calories and 20g fat. By just sacrificing a hamburger one day a week, you're slashing more than 600 calories and 40g fat from your diet.
Beware of Your Beverage
Trading in your regular cola for the diet variety can save you hundreds of calories each day. But trading in your sugar-free soda for water or seltzer could help you drop even more weight. A study conducted by Ramachandran Vasan, M.D., study senior author and professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, and reported by the University of Rochester Medical Center in 2007, explained that drinking more than one soda a day--sugar free or not--was linked to metabolic syndrome, a condition that causes significant weight gain. The study followed 6,000 patients and spanned more than five decades. The results showed that people who consumed more than one soft drink a day increased their chances of developing metabolic syndrome by 44 percent.
Change your Sedentary Ways
In 2008, researchers at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, found that obese women moved half as much as lean women. The results may not be a surprise, but they are promising. In a study that lasted 14 days, the researchers found that women who are lean stood two and a half hours more than obese women, they were sedentary two hours less, and lean women participated in an activity twice as long as the obese subjects, showing that if the heavy women could motivate themselves, they would burn an extra 300 calories per day.
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