For decades, physicians and dietitians have advised weight-loss patients to follow a simple formula: A pound of fat was akin to 3,500 calories. Create a daily 500-calorie deficiency through exercise or dieting and a person could expect to lose a pound a week.
In the last decade, researchers have learned that weight loss is far more complicated. The “3,500 calorie rule” is a myth, and it doesn’t consider many factors, including how a person’s metabolism adapts over time.in textbooks, advice websites and in conversations between clinicians and their patients. Researchers are calling for an end to the myth so that expectations can be recalibrated and weight-loss patients can be better set up for success.
From there, the physician determined that by burning 3,500 calories, a person could lose a pound of fat. For the next few decades, the 3,500 calorie rule became. Weight-loss patients were advised that if they cut or burned 500 calories per day, they would be rewarded with a one-pound weight loss per week.
And so it went for the rest of the century and beyond. But by the 2010s, scientists increasingly began questioning the 3,500 calorie rule. Obesity had been on the rise for decades and diet advice was plentiful, yet seemed to be failing people. Researchers scrutinized the 3,500 calorie rule and found it