Marching Into the Peace Corps, Pt 31: “lose 10 Inches and 10 Pounds in the First Week!”
Infomercial exercise programs are making some pretty lofty claims – most are floating a guarantee of 10 pounds and 10 inches off your waistline in seven to 10 days. Can these results be real, healthy, or even true? What does it take to lose 10 pounds fast?
As I get older, wiser, and perhaps cheaper, it bothers me to see any diet promising large amounts of weight and inches coming off in such a small amount of time. Some might think I’m jealous someone else is losing the weight and inches faster than me, but that’s not it at all – it’s about giving someone false hope that annoys me to no end.
People like me who are overweight are filled with hopes of quick weight loss, and the truth is it doesn’t work that way. Let’s take for example a woman who weighs 150 pounds, is 37 years old, and needs to lose 30 in order to be classified by medical standards at a healthy weight.
- Her basic metabolic rate (BMR) is: 1744 calories
- Her daily caloric intake should be: 1650
- She should never dip below 1200 calories; 600 is considered starvation
- In order to lose 10 pounds, she needs to drop 35,000 calories a week (3,500 calories = 1 pound)
If she takes in her BMR caloric rate of 1744 that amounts to 12,208 calories consumed over seven days. In order for her to drop 10 pounds in the quickest possible time, she must:
- Not eat for 20 straight days OR
- 7 hours doing conditioning exercises at the health club (2625 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours moderately pedaling on a stationary bike (3339 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours of circuit training (3815 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours on a stair climber (2870 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours of vigorous weight training (2870 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours on a ski machine (4536 calories burned), PLUS
- 7 hours of yoga (1911 calories burned), PLUS
- No food consumed for almost 8 days.
These numbers would be correct, assuming the body wouldn’t automatically throw you faster than a missile into starvation mode. Let’s assume there is no starvation mode for this scenario.
As you’re probably thinking, “That’s crazy! Who would do that?!” and you’d be correct. I perform at least two workouts a day and eat a strictly controlled diet of approximately 1,200 calories a day, plus I drink approximately 120 ounces of water and take vitamins. The most I have lost in a week is 2.5 pounds, which is what the recommended amount is for healthy weight loss. So how are these programs claiming you can lose 10 inches and 10 pounds in a week?
I have the “Slim in 6” exercise program, and I thankfully never threw away their prescribed diet plan. In the beginning, I started to have “inch and pound” envy, but not enough for me to change my own habits. My diet is pretty basic and quite healthy, as an average meal will consist of the following foods:
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