My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a registered
and licensed dietitian with the Austin Regional
Clinic; and I've been asked how to lose 10
pounds quickly. It really depends on how much
weight you really need to lose and how fast
you can lose 10 pounds. For somebody say who
is morbidly obese and needs to lose hundreds
of pounds they can actually lose 10 pounds
in a week and that's not a bad thing that's
something that can actually be done with good
level of exercise and following a healthy
diet. If you only need to lose 10 pounds you're
only 10 pounds overweight it's generally not
recommended that you lose those 10 pounds
in a short of a time as a week. It's actually
better if you spread it out and only lose
about two pounds in a week, so that would
take you five weeks to reach your goal. The
problem with somebody who doesn't need to
lose a lot of weight and they lose it very
rapidly is a lot of time their body basically
doesn't have a chance to adjust to their new
weight and it's hard to maintain. They also
run the risk of actually developing a little
bit of loose skin, if they lose that weight
too quickly. So it's better to take your time
aim for one or two pounds a week and a good
way to achieve one pound weight loss is to
eat 500 fewer calories every single day. Theoretically
3500 calories equals one pound, so if you
subtract 500 calories from your daily diet
that will one pound in a week. If you want
to lose two pounds you need to double that
up to a 1000 calories. The only way you would
want to subtract that many calories is if
you were already eating an excessive amount
of calories; say you were consuming maybe
3000 calories then you could safely subtract
1000 from that, or even if you were eating
2500 calories subtracting a 1000 from that
would still be ok but for most people you
don't want to go below 1500 calories on a
daily basis. So the other thing to do would
be to increase your physical activity level.
If you're really trying to lose that two pounds
and you subtract only 500 calories aim for
a good hour of physical activity most days
of the week and that will get you that other
extra 500 calories so you can achieve that
two pound weight loss each week.