I recently received the following question: How fast can I lose 10 lbs if I burn off 500 calories by running 4-5 miles a day, and eating 1200 calories?
As this topic is one almost everyone visiting this site or subscribet to my newsletters, Fat Loss Secrets and Mass Building Tips , would be interested in, I decided to post my answer here.
I'll give you a rough guideline but I can't answer this question with 100% accuracy because I don't know your metabolic rate (how many calories you burn during a normal day), the type of food you eat, how often you eat, how much sleep you get, etc.)
So let's look at some examples. If 1,700 calories a day keeps your weight the same and you reduce your caloric intake, you'll lose roughly 1 pound per week. There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. 7 days per week x 500 calories per day equals 3,500 calories per week. So, if you added the running that burned 500 calories per day, this would be another pound lost per week.
Now, keep a couple of things in mind. 1,200 calories per day may be too low, which will cause your metabolism to slow down. This is how people who go on a diet end up gaining all the weight back.
In addition, if you are not doing any weight training, about half of that weight lost will be muscle, which will also slow down your metabolism, again causing weight rebound and putting you in a worse situation than before you lost the weight. This is why I said roughly one pound per week up above. A pound of muscle is only 600 calories and since you'll be losing muscle and fat, you may lose more than a pound by burning 3,500 calories in a week.
In addition, your body shape won't change. You'll just be a smaller version of you, or what I call skinny fat.
You should add some weight training to your running plan, 2 to 3 times per week.
I would also reduce the amount of running you are doing, both in number of days you
run, and how far you run each day. Consider only running that distance 2 or 3 days
per week. Consider performing high intensity interval training instead of the
running on 2 other days per week.
In addition, keep track of your calories. You only want to lose 1- 2 pounds per week (you may lose more in the beginning. And keep in mind that how you look is more important than the scale. If you lose 10 pounds of fat and add 10 pounds of muscle, you'll way the same as you do now but you'll look a thousand times better. You'll also be smaller as a pound of muscle does not take up as much space as a pound of fat.
I hope this helps.
PS - Sorry I was gone so long. Tax season can be a nightmare for us small business owners.
