How many calories in a pound of fat and how much excercise does it take to loose those calories? my method of loss is walking. Thank you in advance for any replies.

3500 calories. Thats what it takes to lose or gain a pound of fat. If you eat 3500 fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, you will lose one pound of fat. If you eat 3500 calories more than what you need to maintain then you will gain a pound. The calories are cumulative, that is you accumulate the total calories over a period of time so however long it takes you to have a deficit of 3500 calories is how long it will take to lose that pound. Different activities have different caloric values based on your sex, weight and other factors.

[This message has been edited by rita (edited 09-06-2003).]

track your calories and overall nutrition on Fitday.com

I have been doing this for a month or so... its great feed back for making decisions about foods to eat or avoid.

i tracked my calories on fitday. my deficit is about 1600 cal's per day on average. over 20 days, tracking calorie intake and activities, the error in total calculated weight loss was lower than the error presented by normal water weight. in other words, i lost more than 10 pounds and the calculations were accurate to less than 1/2 pound. i can be more specific (i have graphs and everything!) but it's like less than 5% error so far.

Thank you all http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/smile.gif