If you want to lose weight the healthy way and keep the pounds off for good, you should slim down at a slow and steady rate. Most experts recommend that you lose roughly one to two pounds per week, even though you may not consistently lose two pounds every week. So how do you reach that goal? You adjust your energy balance to reach the correct calorie deficit.
To lose one pound per week, you need to reach a total calorie deficit of about 3500 calories per week or 500 calories per day. To lose two pounds per week, you need to double that number. So you need to reach a 1000-calorie per day deficit or 7000 calories per week. Sound complicated? It’s not too hard, once you get the hang of it. And you can use a calculator like this one to figure out how many calories you should be eating for weight loss.
Budgeting your calories is like budgeting money. If you can budget your calories to come up “short” by 500-1000 calories each day, you’ll lose weight.
Creative Ways to Reach a Calorie Deficit
The math is simple, but changing your habits to eat less and move more is hard. So, to take some of the guesswork out of the process, Mandy and I put our heads together and came up with 10 simple ways to create a 500 to 1000 calorie deficit each day.
Each point below contains a creative calorie “budgeting” combination to help you reach your goal. You’ll see options for a 500-calorie per day deficit to lose one pound per week or a 1000-calorie per day deficit to lose two pounds per week. As always, calorie counts are estimates, so your exact numbers may vary. And each activity or food swap must result in a deficit. That means you can’t compensate for your diet-friendly behavior with extra food or nap time. But each combination should put you one step closer to reaching your goal.
1. The Morning Cleanse + Couch Workout
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
Start your program with a tiny cleanse. On your first day of your healthy diet plan, swap out your breakfast and your mid-morning snack for two smoothies. Then by noon, you will already have reached a 200-calorie deficit. To reach a full 500-calorie deficit, get active when you watch TV in the evening. Believe or not, a super-fun living room workout can burn 300 calories or more.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
At lunch and dinner, skip the starch. Don’t each chips with your sandwich at lunchtime and skip the baked potato with your dinner. The starch itself isn’t necessarily a huge calorie expense. A baked potato, for example, only provides 150-200 calories. But the toppings that you add can easily total several hundred more.
2. The No-Excuses Workout
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
Go to the gym! It sounds simple, but we all come up with reasons to avoid it. Don’t make excuses. Choose a fat-burning cardio exercises that you can quantify so you know exactly how many calories you are burning during your session. Set a goal to burn at least 300 calories. Time your visit to the gym with your favorite TV show (or TV marathon) so that when you’re running or walking on the treadmill or elliptical, you can just zone out and rack up the miles.
Then instead of rewarding yourself with dessert, skip the sweets and reward yourself with an additional 200 calorie deficit to reach your total 500-calorie deficit for the day.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
At lunchtime, skip the bread on your sandwich and wrap it in lettuce instead. Iceberg or bib lettuce works well. Some dieters even use a hollowed out cucumber instead of bread. And since you don’t have bread, you won’t need the usual condiments either. Without bread and mayo, you’ve cut your lunch total by 250 calories.
To burn an extra 250 calories, jack up the speed or increase the incline when you’re on your cardio machine at the gym. Just a small adjustment can add up to an extra 200-300 calories during your workout.
3. Party With Your Pooch
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
Your dog is the perfect weight loss coach. He’s always ready to help you burn calories to slim down. To burn 250 calories, take your pooch for a brisk one-hour walk.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
To turn your dog walking session into a dog workout, take your pooch to the park for a parcourse workout. You’ll find these fit trails at many local parks and community centers. It’s a great way to burn calories and build strength.
4. Saturday Night Savings
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
You can easily save calories when you go out with friends. For a diet-friendly restaurant meal, bring your own low-cal salad dressings, condiments, cheeses, and other accouterments out to dinner with you. You’ll save beaucoup calorie bucks. Who cares if you look like Mary Poppins extracting all these treasures from your purse? You’re about to be skinny! And tell the waiter to skip the bread. Without bread or high calorie sauces and dressings, you’ll easily save 500 calories (or more).
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
You can also save mega calories by skipping the alcoholic drinks. In fact, you can easily lose weight if you give up drinking either temporarily or permanently. Each drink contains anywhere from 100-300 calories or more. Add an hour on the dance floor and along with your diet-friendly restaurant meal, you’ve reached a 1000-calorie deficit for the day.
5. The Math and Miles Plan
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
One simple way to make sure you are reaching your calorie deficit each day is to calculate your BMR. Your BMR or basal metabolic rate is the number of calories your body needs to perform basic functions like breathing. If you eat only that number of calories and then walk about five miles throughout the day, you should reach a 500-calorie deficit. Walking to work, running on a treadmill, taking an evening stroll, choosing the stairs, doing housework, chasing after your kids, it all counts Get an activity monitor and track movement. Five miles is easier to accomplish than you’d think, especially if you’re somewhat active already. This is the healthiest system, and the steady vision to aim for.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
If you are already quite active during the day, add more movement. You can turn your housecleaning chores into a workout to tidy up and tone up at the same time. Or turn your evening stroll into an interval walking workout. Intervals are a great way to improve fitness and burn more fat.
6. Drink Water at Work
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
Drink water instead of typical flavored beverages to save hundreds of calories during the day. Beverages like soda, flavored coffee, and even sports beverages are filled with sugar and other fattening ingredients. And some of those drinks contain hundreds of calories. Head to the water cooler instead to reach a 500-calorie deficit.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
Burn an extra 500 calories by completing a one-hour stair climbing workout. If that sounds too challenging, don’t worry. You don’t even need a gym membership to complete this workout. In fact, you can lose weight at work with this simple routine. Just take hourly breaks and walk the stairs for 7-10 minutes. After several sessions, you’ll have a full one-hour workout completed.
7. Burn Calories With the Kids
500-Calorie Deficit to Lose 1 Pound per Week
Got kids at home? Put them to work? Kids love to play games and they love to run around. So put that boundless energy to work. Take the kids to the park for a game of tag. This interval style workout can burn 300-400 calories in an hour. Then head to the playground equipment for a family-friendly workout to reach your complete 500-calorie deficit.
1000-Calorie Deficit to Lose 2 Pounds per Week
Pack a healthy picnic to bring to the park but keep your calories in control by cutting all of your portions in half. If you do this during two of your meals during the day you can cut another 400-500 calories to reach the calorie deficit you need to lose 2 pounds per week.
One last thing… you should try this 2-minute “after-dinner ritual” that
burns up to 2 pounds of belly fat per day…
“All
this by a 2-minute “after-dinner ritual?” I asked.
I
met an old friend for lunch last month and I was super impressed with how good
she looked.
She
said, “It’s not so much about the “after-dinner ritual”, but more about how it
gives you a regenerative form of deep sleep that is responsible for everything
we need to dramatically increase our fat burning metabolism and improve our
health and appearance.”
Even
though I was skeptical, I’ve been struggling with my weight over the last few
years, so I gave it a shot and watched the same video she did.
Well,
it’s only a couple weeks later and you know what they say about how “you can’t
transform your body overnight”…
They’re
right – it actually took me 16 days to lose 22 pounds.
Now
it’s my girlfriends asking ME what I’M doing differently 💅
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