How many calories to gain a pound

Q: Can you gain a pound in 3 days?

A person cant actually gain or lose multiple pounds of body fat or muscle in a day, but it is possible to retain or shed a few pounds of liquid. Diet — especially salt consumption — plays a major role in how much water our bodies hold onto throughout the day.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Yesterday, the New England Journal of Medicine published a paper that addresses common myths, presumptions, and facts about obesity.

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Can I gain 1 pound in a day?
How many calories a week does it take to gain a pound?
How long does it take to gain 1lb?
Can you gain a pound in 3 days?

As the authors note in their introduction,

“Passionate interests, the human tendency to seek explanations for observed phenomena, and everyday experience appear to contribute to strong convictions about obesity, despite the absence of supporting data. When the public, mass media, government agencies, and even academic scientists espouse unsupported beliefs, the result may be ineffective policy, unhelpful or unsafe clinical and public health recommendations, and an unproductive allocation of resources.”

In this paper, the authors address seven myths, six presumptions and nine facts, which I hope to address individually in upcoming posts.

The first myth addressed in the paper is the common misconception that a continuous daily excess of a few calories per day will result in continuous weight gain.

This myth (also referred to as the 3,500 Calorie Rule) is often presented in a way that numerically adds up the number of excess calories you may be eating per day (say 100) and translates this into weight gain by simply equating 3,500 extra calories to one pound weight gain.

Thus, even academic publications often suggest that a 100 extra calories per day over a year (say about 350 days) would result in 35,000 extra calories or a ten pound weight gain.

You will also often find the converse, where simply burning an extra 100 calories a day is equated to losing 10 lbs.

This, as explained in the paper is a myth because such simplistic calculations do not take into account the physiological mechanisms that result in compensatory energy conservation or expenditure, thereby limiting changes in body weight.

Thus, although a pound of body fat may well represent about 3,500 calories (which it roughly does), an extra pound of body fat is not simply the numerical result of ingesting an extra 100 calories per day for 35 days.

Nor does a daily caloric deficit of 500 calories result in a weight loss of one pound a week, week after week after week, till you finally disappear.

As I have previously explained, significant and ongoing weight gain or weight loss actually requires a substantially greater level of daily caloric excess or restriction that may have to incrementally increase over time to sustain continued gain or loss.

It is therefore safe to ignore statements that are commonly found both in academic publications and in popular media presenting simplistic statements like, “an extra potato chip a day over 20 years can lead to a 50 lb weight gain or an extra can of pop a day can lead to a 20 lb weight gain in one year”.

In reality, ingesting 3,500 extra calories does not simply translate into an extra pound of body fat – nor does burning 3.500 extra calories result in a pound of weight loss.

Or, as I say in my talks, “This is not physics, this is physiology!”

For a detailed discussion of how many calories it actually takes to lose or gain weight click here.

AMS
Edmonton, AB

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How Many Calories Equal One Pound?
By Densie Webb, PhD, RD

The New Consensus Statement Questions Weight-Loss Dogma

Dietitians and dieters alike have long portrayed weight management as a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. Eat more calories than you burn, and you’ll gain weight. Burn more calories than you consume, and you’ll lose weight.

The magic number of calories bandied about for decades has been 3,500—subtract that number from your diet or burn off 3,500 calories more than what you consume, and you’ll lose 1 lb.

But a panel of experts, convened by the American Society of Nutrition and the International Life Sciences Institute, recently developed a consensus statement on the subject, “Energy Balance and Its Components: Implications for Body Weight Regulation,” which questions the 3,500-kcal rule along with several other long-held convictions about energy balance and weight loss. While the panel was charged with answering pertinent questions about weight management, it concluded that many of the body’s methods for gaining, losing, or maintaining weight remain a mystery.

Here are some of the concepts the new consensus statement addressed:

• 3,500 kcal = 1 lb: According to the consensus panel, this rule of thumb is an inaccurate predictor of weight change and should no longer be used. The 3,500-kcal/lb rule assumes that body weight changes linearly over long periods of time, which isn’t the case. As an individual loses weight, resting energy expenditure drops due to less body mass (not a “slow metabolism,” as often assumed).

New weight-loss prediction formulas have been developed that take this reduced energy expenditure into account and offer a much slower, but more realistic, weight-loss rate that patients and clients can expect with sustained changes in energy intake and output. The complex formulas have been simplified and are available at www.pbrc.edu/the-research/tools/weight-loss-predictor and http://bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov.

By typing in an individual’s information (height, weight, age, current calorie intake, calorie reduction, activity level), a weight-loss prediction table is produced. The panel suggested that the online formulas, or something similar, should replace the 3,500-kcal/lb rule.

“What we’re trying to do with the new formulas is to get people to think in a fundamentally different way about calories and energy balance,” says John R. Speakman, PhD, of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and one of the consensus statement authors.

• Weight loss over time: No well-controlled study in metabolic wards where subjects’ diets are carefully monitored and blood, urine, and fecal samples are collected (the only way to accurately measure energy balance) can be conducted for an extended period of time, leaving unanswered questions regarding long-term energy balance. Based on recent analyses, however, reducing calorie intake by 500 kcal/day should result in an approximate 25-lb weight loss over one year, with another 22-lb loss over three years, in contrast to the current 3,500 kcal-per pound rule, which estimates a much more generous 52-lb weight loss in one year. “You have to consider the time element,” Speakman says.

• Carbohydrates, protein, and fat: It’s the first lesson in Nutrition 101—carbohydrates and proteins provide 4 kcal/g, and fats provide 9 kcal/g. What’s seldom mentioned, however, is that these numbers represent population averages of energy that food provides the body. These numbers don’t accurately reflect the calories produced by individuals from these macronutrients. The actual calories available for energy are influenced by several factors, including an individual’s gut flora, the way the food is prepared, how well the food is chewed, and the overall diet composition.

Currently, there’s no way to determine how much energy an individual actually obtains from 1 g of carbohydrate, protein, or fat. The 4/4/9 calorie rule is all we have to go by, but as dietitians, it’s important to keep in mind that the numbers don’t always reflect reality from individual to individual.

• Exercise: According to the consensus statement, exercise can produce wide variations in body weight response, with some people losing significant amounts of weight and others actually gaining weight. The expert panel suggested that part of the variability in weight change may not be due to differences in the body’s response to exercise but how individuals compensate for exercise with increased food intake. “This compensation,” Speakman says, “makes it even harder to generate a large calorie deficit.”

Small Changes = Big Results?
In the last several years, “small changes” has become the battle cry against weight gain. If cutting back significantly on calorie intake or exercising daily for long periods is too difficult, the answer, some experts say, is to make small changes that add up to significant weight loss over time. The 3,500-kcal/lb rule has been used to model the effects of small changes and, therefore, the panel says, has generated unrealistic expectations about how much weight one can lose over time.

For example, using the 3,500-kcal/lb rule, a small 40-kcal/day reduction in energy intake would result in a 20-lb weight loss over five years. However, using the new predictive equation, that 40-kcal/day reduction would result in only a 4-lb weight loss over the same period. In addition, according to the consensus panel, a tremendous amount of error is built into assessments of calorie intake and expenditure, so much so that, according to the panel, this error easily can reach 1,000 kcal/day, making it nearly impossible to estimate the effect small changes will have on weight loss over time.

Bottom Line
While many issues about energy balance and weight management remain unresolved, one simple truth has emerged from the new consensus statement: The 3,500-kcal/lb rule no longer applies and, as dietitians, we need to reevaluate our weight-loss advice to clients and patients and offer more realistic projections about weight loss.

— Densie Webb, PhD, RD, is a freelance writer, editor, and industry consultant based in Austin, Texas.

Can I gain 1 pound in a day?

Traditional wisdom claims it takes 3,500 calories extra to gain a pound of fat, but you won't necessarily gain one pound of fat in a day, it usually takes multiple days of excessive intake to increase body fat storage.

How many calories a week does it take to gain a pound?

Healthy weight gain It takes an excess of about 2,000 to 2,500 calories per week to support the gain of a pound of lean muscle and about 3,500 calories per week to gain a pound of fat. As the scale goes up, the goal should be to add an appropriate amount of muscle mass, not simply fat.

How long does it take to gain 1lb?

"Rate of fat gain / loss will depend on your energy balance." Daniel says, "A common equation nutritionist statement is that 1lb of fat “costs” 3500kcal. So if you're eating 500kcal a day more than your body is using, you will theoretically gain 1lb of fat a week (and visa versa for fat loss)."

Can you gain a pound in 3 days?

A person can't actually gain or lose multiple pounds of body fat or muscle in a day, but it is possible to retain or shed a few pounds of liquid. Diet — especially salt consumption — plays a major role in how much water our bodies hold onto throughout the day.