If you know what to expect and understand the math behind weight loss, it makes things much easier.

For instance

     - A pound of fat is about 3,500 calorie.

     - Eat 3,500 more calories than you burn to gain a pound of fat

     - Burn 3,500 more calories than you eat to lose a pound of fat.

It isn't quite this simple...

But the general idea is right.

If someone is following a sensible diet, they never gain 2 pounds of body fat in one day.

• 2 pounds of fat is 7,000 calories.
• You would have to eat 7,000 more calories than you burn.
• Most people burn 2,500 - 3,500 calories per day.
• So it would take 10,000+ calories in a day to make this happen.

The reality is that it would take more than 10,000 calories.

This could be 15,000+ calories in a day since not all foods would get turned and stored as body fat.

On the flip side...

People typically don't lose 2+ pounds of body fat in a day.

In order to do that they would have to burn 7,000+ more calories than they ate in a day.

A 7,000 calorie workout is unattainable.

The most someone could expect to burn in a workout is 1,000 - 1,500 calories and that would require 90 - 120 minutes of training pretty darn hard.

These daily 1-2 pound swings in either direction are not mainly body fat.

You can expect to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week on a typical weight loss diet.

If you are over 40, 1 pound of fat loss per week is a good number to aim for.

This amounts to 1/7 of a pound of fat loss per day.

 

We are talking only a little over 2 ounces of fat lost per day.

You can't even really track this properly with a scale.

What makes this even more difficult is that the average person eats 3-5 pounds of food per day.

 

4 pounds of food per day dwarfs any fat loss.

The weight of daily food intake is 28 times more than the amount of fat lost (assuming you are losing roughly 1/7 of a pound of fat per day).

Where that food is in your system can affect your scale weight.

Also...

Your muscles store water and glycogen.

These water levels can easily swing 3-4+ pounds in a 24 hour period.

This is magnitudes more than any potential fat loss.

If you are trying to get lean, weighing yourself is good for spotting a weight-loss trend.

I like this approach.

       - Weigh yourself each morning.

       - Track it on Myfitnesspal or write it down.

       - Make note of the lightest weight you hit this week.

       - Next week see if you can beat that lightest weight from the previous week.

       - Repeat.

So let's say I weigh myself each morning...

If my lowest weight was 205 pounds on Thursday, for example... I would want to get down to 204 pounds the following week.

• It doesn't matter what morning I hit this 204-pound goal.
• It doesn't matter if I go above 204 the following day, etc.

I'm looking for a fat loss trend.

Fat loss is nearly impossible to track day-to-day.

This is a better way.

The most rapid somewhat sustainable fat loss is 1/2 to 1/3 of pound per day.