The Facts About Weight Loss Being obese can have serious health consequences. These include an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, gallstones, and some forms of cancer. Losing weight can help reduce these risks. The only proven way to lose weight is either to reduce the number of calories you eat or to increase the number of calories you burn off through exercise.
Most experts recommend a combination of both.
Very low-calorie diets are not without risk and should be pursued only under medical supervision. Unsupervised very low-calorie diets can deprive you of important nutrients and are potentially dangerous. Sudden and radical changes in your eating patterns are difficult to sustain over time. Many experts recommend a goal of losing about a pound a week. A modest reduction of 500 calories per day will achieve this goal, since a total reduction of 3,500 calories is required to lose a pound of fat.