How Many Calories Do I Need To Burn To Lose Fat?

When it comes to losing weight, you have two main options: either you exercise more or you eat less. While weight loss plans aren't always that simple, clever diets that promise you will lose weight or fat without any effort, dieting or exercising tend to promise more than they can deliver.

Considerations

According to the Weight-control Information Network run by the National Institute of Heatlh, the formula for weight loss is very simple. You need to measure the amount of calories you consume through food every day against the amount of calories you burn daily, either through living your life or exercising. If you eat more than you burn, you will gain weight, while if the amounts are equal, your weight will remain constant. Burn more calories than you eat and you will start to lose weight.

Significance

The bigger the difference is between what you burn and what you eat, the higher the rate of weight loss you experience will be. According to the Department of Agriculture, one pound equals 3,500 calories; in order to lose large amounts of weight, you need to exercise or diet significantly.

Exercise

As you exercise, your body consumes the reserves of carbohydrates stored as glycogen in your muscles. When these are consumed, your body will begin to burn fat. However, it is hard to get to this point unless you exercise intensely or for a long time. Intense exercise not only consumes energy faster, it also creates an effect called afterburn that raises your metabolism and causes you to burn fat and calories at an increased rate throughout the day as your body recovers and repairs itself after exertion. Any food consumed during this time is used by your muscles rather than stored as fat.

Diet

Diet is important to losing fat. The greatest cause of fat being stored in the body is actually excessive intake of simple carbohydrates, such as sucrose, which is found in processed carbohydrates such as candy, white bread and potatoes. Simple carbohydrates are processed so quickly and are so calorically dense that the excess energy is easily converted and stored as fat in the body. A balanced diet involving slower-digested proteins and complex carbohydrates, such as vegetables, is best for weight-maintenance or loss.

Alternate Factors

Often, losing weight is more complicated than simply trying to eat as little as possible and exercise as much as you can, especially if you are seeking to minimize a loss of muscle and focus on burning excess fat. Eating too little throughout the day will cause a starvation effect within your body. In a starvation mode, your body recognizes its lack of nutrition and consumes your muscles rather than your fat in order to preserve its energy stores. Exercise and diet are best combined in moderation.