Calories Per Pound of Fat

Ever wondered how many calories there are per pound of fat?  Per pound of fat in the human body there are 3,500 calories… that is a HUGE number of calories per pound, and shows why dieting can be a powerful method of losing weight, cut down the calorie intake and you can dramatically cut down the amount of fat in your body.

But as ever with weight loss it is not as simple as that.  Cutting down calories is not all that matters in weight loss.  Cutting down calories to less than the body needs means that the body is forced to rely on existing energy stores it is true, but it only works to a certain point.  Two other factors then kick in – metabolism and oxygen.

The metabolism decides how many calories burned by swimming, how quickly you burn calories when resting and much more.  It decides how many calories are burned, and when dieting your metabolism is likely to slow.  As the body realizes it is getting less energy (calories) it starts burning less calories, leaving you short of energy and your weight loss slows or stops.

Similarly oxygen plays a vital role.  For your body to burn the fat for energy, instead of using calories from food, it needs oxygen to complete the process.  There is a limit to how much oxygen your body can provide for it to burn fat so it acts a limiting factor on how many fat cells can be burned for energy.  Exercise will increase this as it forces the body to take in more oxygen and helps to increase the capacity of the lungs, allowing the more oxygen into the body.

So whilst it is not just a case of calories per pound of fat mattering they are important, you just need to remember that there are other factors involved in dieting and weight loss, not just calories and fat.