70,000 calories! That is the approximate amount of energy that needs to be burnt to lose 10kg of fat. It has been estimated a caloric deficit of between 3500 - 3700 calories to lose 1lbs or 0.5kg of fat in one week (Helms et al, 2019). Before setting a goal, first have an understanding of the myriad of challenges facing you and the reality of how much 10kg of fat is. How much of a calorie deficit is required daily and how much exercise do you need to do? And how many months until you achieve your goal?
For the novice trying achieve this caloric deficit solely with exercise is an impossible task. An elite athlete could easily achieve this as their body can work at far higher level than a novice who hasn’t exercised in years. Picture the elite athlete as a Ferrari at a racetrack going super fast and burning all of their fuel lap after lap. The novice will be driving a small 1.2L four cylinder which cannot burn enough fuel and if driven too hard will eventually break down if they train above their level of fitness. This is why nutrition is so important! We slowly want to build our bodies engine bigger and stronger like a V8 car so it can do more work, go faster and stronger, and burn more fuel!
A loss of 10kg of fat is equivalent to burning 90 Big Macs! Some understanding of the caloric content of food is required to achieve your dream body and improve your health. Improving your body is not just a function of losing weight but understanding how to eat well, and develop some conscious understanding of what foods are building a good body and what foods are negatively pushing you further from your goals.
Look at this meal for the average person in Australia on a 2000cal/day intake:
Food | Calories |
Rump Steak 200g | 504 |
Mashed potato 250g | 340 |
Green String Beens | 34 |
Total | 878 |
The meal shown above has 878 calories. So a little more or less than this would be the average meal for a person wishing to drop 10kg of fat. A deficit of 79 meals of this quantity would need to be achieved to lose 10kg of fat. So in 3 months that is nearly a meal a day the individual would need to miss. Visualising 79 meals of this size can help show just how much discipline and consistency is required to achieve a 10kg loss. Now let's add in exercise to the equation.
Intensity | Walking | Running | Weights | H.I.I.T | Cycling | Swimming |
Easy (1hr) | 250-320 | 600-700 | 200-250 | 700 | 250-350 | 220-300 |
Hard (1hr) | 350-450 | 900+ | 350-450 | 900+ | 500+ | 350+ |
Lets assume they perform weight training for 1hr (200-250 cals/hr) twice per week and also walk 1hr (250-320 cal/hr) three times each week. After 3 months this will equate to approx 15k-20k calories burnt still leaving 55k calories that need to be lost via food. Which means even with exercises the individual would need to have a deficit of 62 meals (from above) over a 3 month period. Which is nearly skipping one average meal 2 out of 3 days. And this is the exact reason why many fail in reaching their goal, the pressure of consistently losing weight in a certain time frame causing a feeling of failure and they drop out. All that is needed is a little perspective.
As you can see above, building up your body to be able to train harder for longer is the true key to sustained fat burning. A novice can burn a little with exercise but should focus more on getting fitter and eating healthier for the first 6-12 months, Shift the goal post to a longer term outcome.
Planning long term, 9-12 months later the picture gets easier. So rather than need to eat 62 meals less in 90 days we can do it over 270-360 days plus exercising. Which brings down the total deficit of meals missed to one in every five or six days which is far more achievable and why intermittent fasting works so well. For more info please read my blog on intermittent fasting for fat loss;
Having a meal plan is essential so you can repeat the small wins daily and build a consistent eating system each week. The body will begin to learn that it is ok to be hungry and often the hunger is a response an emotion, rather than a nutritional need.
As you can see 70,000 calories is a lot when put into context of physical food. But chipping away 700 calories at a time over a sustained period will yield amazing results. Fat loss is not linear so do not be deterred when you have a week or two where the scales do not move. You are not going backwards merely waiting for the next drop to occur. Believe in the logic of the system you have in place, be consistent and patient and before you know it you will have achieved 10kg loss you wanted so dearly. Not only have you lost 10kg but you have upgraded your entire system and are burning more energy and feeling amazing, so what next???
Helms, E., Morgan, A., & Valdez, A. (2019). The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition Edition. Muscle and Strength Pyramids.
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