How Much Weight Loss Is Healthy in a Week?

How Much Weight Loss Is Healthy to Lose in a Week?

Before answering the question of how much weight loss is healthy to lose in a week, let’s discuss weight loss first. The weight loss process is the same whether you want to lose weight in a week or a month – you have to burn more calories than you take in.

The best way to accomplish that is through a combination of eating fewer calories and burning more through exercise. Keep in mind it takes a 3,500 calorie deficit per week to lose one pound.

Most healthcare professionals agree that a 1 to 2 pound weight loss per week is safe. Calorie-wise, that means either eating 3,500 to 7,000 calories less per week than you burn, or burning that number of calories more than you eat, depending on how you look at it. Ideally, you’ll use a combination of both. Breaking that weekly figure down to each day, it comes out to 500 to 1,000 calories respectively.

And believe it or not, that kind of calorie deficient is not that hard to achieve. An 8 ounce can of soft drink has 95 calories alone. If you cut out drinking a couple cans per day, there are 190 calories with just one small change. Replace some high carbohydrate foods you eat with lower carb alternatives, add in some cardio exercise such as walking, running or swimming, and before you know it, you are at your daily deficit goal.

High Carb Foods to Avoid or Limit

• If you are trying to lose weight, some of the foods you’ll want to avoid are:
• Sugar found in soft drinks, ice cream and candy
• White Potatoes
• Trans fats found in many baked goods
• Low fat or diet snacks
• Dried fruits
• Fast or highly processed food in general

Low Carb Alternatives

• Instead of eating from the above list, try these tasty alternatives:
• Lean meats
• Eggs
• Fresh Fruit
• Fresh vegetables
• Healthy oils, such as olive oil
• Fatty fish, such as tuna, salmon, halibut and mackerel
• Nuts and seeds

Getting More Exercise

A good place to start is to get at least an hour’s worth of exercise per day with one day of rest per week. A 150-pound person walking for an hour burns about 240 calories.

So by walking an hour and cutting out two soft drinks per day, you are already at a 420 calorie deficit. Add in a couple of other small changes to your diet or exercise program and you’ll be at the 500 calorie mark and on track to lose a pound per week.

As you can see, by tweaking your diet and exercise program, you can lose 1 to 2 pounds per week the healthy way.