Want to change my appearance a little.

Calories In < Calories Out = Weight Lost

It goes without saying that the inverse is true too. It seems patronising, but you will not believe the amount of people that would rather binge on “miracle” foods, or blame it on metabolism. Generally, metabolism can account for around 400kcal difference in the maintenance level in people (for men, that level is around 2500kcal a day – fast metabolism can stand to eat 400kcal more without gaining weight, and the opposite for slow metabolism). People with a medical condition that make it hard for them to lose weight are few and far between – it's more common for people to make themselves believe that than admit their own shortcomings in losing weight. It's a sad fact, since losing weight is as simple as tracking calories. It's physics – you cannot gain energy from nothing, energy must be transferred from another source.

So, let's focus on making sure that calories out is more than calories in. As mentioned, the maintenance level for men is around 2500kcal a day. If you burn extra calories, or take in less calories, you will lose weight. So the answer is either extra cardio, a cut in food intake, or both. I recommend a mixture as they both have their benefits. A diet, for lack of a better word, is simply easier, or at least I found it to be. A chocolate bar, or large hot chocolate, or a medium to large donut, can be between 250-350kcal. To burn this off on a treadmill, you would have to jog for around 30min at a decent pace. Surely it's a lot less effort to simply not eat the sweet in the first place?

Cardio does have benefits too, as mentioned, in that it is never a bad idea to improve your cardiovascular endurance. The more you run, row, bike, etc, the better endurance you'll get over time and therefore be able to continue to push yourself, lose more weight and generally get fitter, which is a massive benefit in everyday life! The best thing to do then, to lose weight, is both. It's easier on the will power and starting endurance, as you don't have to fully push yourself in either to start with, and then push yourself more and more as your endurance and will power improve.

Another piece of information to always remember is that a pound of fat is akin to 3500kcal. That means, for every 3500kcal lost/burnt, you should lose a pound of fat. Lets say you take in 2000kcal a day, and burn 500 on the bike, you're at a 1000kcal deficit (since the maintenance level is 2500kcal, giving you 500kcal from diet, and then 500kcal extra burnt). If you carry on with that for a week, you should be losing 2 pounds of fat in that week (1000kcal deficit a day x 7 = 7000kcal). It's that simple.