CHECK OUT THESE DIGITS
Here’s the number all serious dieters should know:
3500
That’s 3500 calories.
And 3500 calories is exactly what you need to burn to lose exactly 1 lb. of fat.
3500 calories is not easy to lose in one day. For example, you’d practically have to jump rope for five hours non-stop to lose a pound in one day. That’s a lot of work and, for some of us who aren’t good jump-ropers, just plain evil.

DO THE MATH
A maybe more practical and less brutal way is to take 3500 and divide it by 7. That 3500 calories soon becomes 500 calories. Now we’re talking! I’m sure you’d agree that 500 calories is definitely easier to shed in one day.

With numbers like these you can drop the jump rope and power walk for an hour to burn 600 calories. Power walk for an hour each day of the week and you’ll hit that magic number and then some – 4200 calories to be exact! Keep going and you’ll lose about 5 lbs. of fat in one month. That’s nearly 15 lbs. of weight loss if you stick to it for three months!

PLAY WITH THE NUMBERS
Here’s where you can actually have a little fun. It only makes sense that you don’t have to burn what you don’t put in. I’ll be the guinea pig. I love Doritos, especially the ranch-flavored kind. A vending-machine sized bag is worth 250 calories. Knowing me, I’d probably eat two of those bags, equal to 500 calories. That means I’d have to power walk for an hour to burn 600 calories and maintain my weight.

But say I actually want to lose weight? I have two options.

Option #1: I skip the Doritos, stick to my healthy diet and decide to power walk for an hour anyway. That means I’ll loose weight a lot faster because my body is burning more calories than what I take in!

Option#2: I eat my two bags of Doritos, feel really really guilty and then spend two hours power walking to burn 1200 calories (my two bags of Doritos and then some). I would still lose weight because I’ve still burned more calories than what I took in but only by doing twice the work.

My Option: Skip the Doritos and spend less time sweating like a pig. I’d rather eat healthy, feel great and lose weight than spike my sugar levels, crash and burn – really burn – later during a cardio workout.

PROBLEM SOLVERS
Here are a few more exercises and how many calories you can burn doing them.
Jump Rope = 700 calories per hour.
Power Walking = 600 calories an hour.
Cycling (exercise bike or on the street) = 600 calories per hour.
Aerobics Classes = about 450 to 500 calories per hour.
Walking at a normal pace = about 250 calories per hour.