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How many calories do I need to cut to lose a pound?
About 3,500 calories equals roughly one pound of body fat, so a deficit of about 500 calories a day loses about a pound a week.
The rule of thumb most people have heard is real but rougher than it sounds: roughly 3,500 calories equals about one pound of body fat (about 7,700 calories per kilogram). Spread over a week, a daily deficit of around 500 calories adds up to that pound.
It is an estimate, not a law of physics for your exact body. Water weight makes the scale jump around day to day, and as you lose weight your maintenance calories fall, so the same deficit slowly becomes a smaller one — which is why weight loss tends to slow and why recalculating every few kilograms matters.
The practical approach: find your maintenance calories, subtract a sustainable 400–600, and log honestly for two or three weeks. If the trend line is flat, your real intake is higher than you think — unrecorded bites are the usual reason.
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General information, not medical advice. Figures are mainstream reference values; individual needs vary.
