This can't be right?

marc83155

https://vitals.lifehacker.com/you-need-to-burn-7-000-calories-to-lose-a-pound-not-3-1719560948

7000 calories per pound???

kimny72

Considering how many people have lost weight here on MFP using numbers that give you a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1 lb per week, I wouldn't lose sleep over this.

There are so many variables that can't be accurately tracked, it's important to block out all the diet industry noise and just get down to work.

AnnPT77

Funny, 3500 calories = 1 pound seemed pretty close to right for me, while losing 50+ of them.

I didn't follow any links (too boring), but IIRC from past reading, the so-called "flaw" they're talking about is that if you start losing weight at X body weight, where 2500 calories would be maintenance, then cut 500 and eat 2000, you won't lose a pound a week every week until goal weight because you keep getting smaller, so require fewer calories, so deficit shrinks and loss slows.

This isn't a flaw in the equation, this is people being bad at applied math.

cmriverside

Yeah, what Ann said.

NovusDies

My theory is that even with a food scale depending on what you eat you can be 25 to even 100 calories off (these are guesses not based on anything) just because you are working with calorie averages not the calories of the EXACT food you are eating. As your deficit decreases (especially when it hits 250) that is going to slow you down if it works against you too often.

vaskaxtumir

As you suspect, it isn't right. It dates back to the days we believed that our bodies operated just like machines, which is only a metaphor and a rather seriously misleading one at best. I can only second kymni72 on this: don't worry about that equation at all and just log what you eat (pre-logging can help you stay withing the range you set for yourself), as you strive to keep your calorie count at around 1500-1600 cal a day (recommended for a man, but you may need to tweak it as we are all different).