If you aim to lose a pound a week and one pound of fat equals 3500 calories, then the maths are simple – you need to consume 3500 calories less per week than your body uses. That averages out at 500 calories a day. If you cut out 500 calories a day from your normal daily diet, and keep your activity at the same level then you can lose approximately one pound a week.

That may not sound a lot, particularly if you are more than 25 pounds overweight, but you’d be surprised. Study after study has shown that those people who lose weight gradually - at a rate of 1-2 pounds per week -are a lot more likely to keep the weight off and so maintain more of a normal weight over their lifetime.

So how do you measure 500 calories? If your plan is to reduce your daily intake by 500 calories then it helps to know what you need to cut out – well here's how easy it is to lose 500 calories a day:

• Substitute thecream in your coffee for milk. Savings? 50 calories per cup.
• Eat your baked potato without butter. Savings? 100 calories
• Drink fruit-flavored water instead of a 16 ounce soda. Savings? 200 calories
• Have a salad instead of a big Mac. A big Mac is worth a huge 460 calories whereas a fresh salad with a light dressing is less than 100! Savings? 360 calories
• Try laying off the potato chips. An average snack size bag of chips has over 300 calories. Savings? 300 calories
• Eat your corn on the ear instead of from a tin - a 1 cup serving of canned corn has 165 calories when an ear  has only 85. Savings? 80 calories.
• Switch to low-fat cream cheese on your bagel and save a whopping 90 calories per ounce.
  Finding it hard to give up the fries? Try exchanging the skinny fries  for thick steak-cut ones. Thin French fries absorb more oil than the thicker, meatier ones. This way you can save 50 calories per 4 ounce serving

If calorie counting seems too much of a chore then try more exercise -  you can lose one pound a week by upping your activity level by 500 calories a day. How is that done? Let’s take a look:

Go for a half-hour walk around the park. Set yourself a pace that's a little faster than a stroll, but not fast enough to make you breathlessb-  this way you can burn 160 calories.

Try riding your bike start with some moderate hills and aim for about five miles total. You can burn 250 calories this way.

• Go dancing , the longer you're out on the floor instead of at the table consuming high-calorie drinks, the more you'll get out of it. Dance till you are breathless and your body warms up - this will net you a nice saving of 400 calories if you dance for an hour.
• Swimming is a lot of fun and it’s good for you – it uses every muscle in your body. The water resistance means you burn more calories,  you will also avoid the stress impact on joints that can result from aerobics, dancing or walking. Do a few laps at a slow crawl - if you can get up to an hour swimming then you will burn 510 calories.
• Do some gardening for an hour - tasks that include bending and stretching can burn up to as many calories as a brisk walk. Gardening is likely to burn 250 calories.
• Hook up with a friend for a weekly game of golf and you'll be really surprised at the difference. A round of golf is one of the best calorie burners around.  With a brisk walk you can burn up to 800 calories.

Bear in mind that all the exercise and calorie numbers listed above are based on a woman who weighs around 130 pounds. If you weigh more then you'll  need to burn more. There’s an added bonus to be had when burning calories through exercise When you [tag-tec]exercise[/tag-tec], you are converting fat to muscle. This is really good news because your body uses more energy to maintain and feed muscle than it does fat.

Mix and match food savings with exercises that burn calories to get the best results. Be careful, because eating less than 1000 calories a day for more than a few days will convince your body that it\'s starving and slow down your metabolism – so don’t overdo it.  Keep your calorie ranges at a reasonable level and consult a doctor before embarking on a drastic weight loss program.

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