If you have been on diet, you are likely to know the 3,500 calorie rule: since there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, you have to eat 500 fewer calories per day to lose a pound week.
But the researchers now say that the formula is wrong because he can not explain a decelerating metabolism, the fact that the dieters lose muscles as well as fat, and other factors that influence weight loss.
Researcher Kevin Hall, PhD, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Digestive Diseases (NIDDK), the 3,500 calorie rule leads to unrealistic expectations and can undermine people's efforts to lose extra pounds.
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Hall and colleagues with the World Health Organization, Columbia University, and Harvard School of Public Health developed a web-based model that they say that most need more accurately need the expected weight loss of dieter over time.
The body weight simulator, which can be found on the NIDDK website, was announced today in London on a news collective held to highlight a focused edition with Lancet's special obesity.Hall tells WebMD that weight loss really occurs more gradually than is thought. He says a better guide to the typical adult with overweight is that the cut 10 calories per day of his diet will lead to the loss of a pound over three years.
Therefore, reducing calorie intake by 250 calories per day will eventually lead to a weight loss of 25 pounds, but it will take three years for most adults with overweight or obese to get 95% of the way, says hall .
It adds that about half the weight will be lost in the first year of diet, with weight loss slow down after that.
"This new way of analyzing body weight trajectories over time should give dieters a more realistic feel than expected from a diet and exercise program," says Hall. "To put a positive spin on it, the new model shows that although weight loss decreases over time, people who keep them to their diets will continue to lose weight for long periods."
Based on your model, researchers conclude that, to achieve average weight levels similar to those observed in the 1970s, moderately obese people would have to cut 500 calories out of their diet for several years.
"500 calories per day is very, especially in the world in which we all live today," says researcher Steven L. Gotmaker, PhD from Harvard's Public Health School. "That's why we really should concentrate more on the prevention of weight gain first, especially among children."
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