How many calories should I eat to lose 2 pounds a week?

About 1,000 calories a day less than you burn. For 1 pound a week, about 500. Two pounds a week only works when your maintenance is high enough that the target stays above your floor: your resting burn, and at least 1,200 a day for women or 1,500 for men. That means big bodies and very active ones. Under 5,000 steps a day it would take a resting burn of 5,000, so it fits almost no one.

Two pounds is the top of the “1 to 2 pounds a week” range the CDC and others give. But it means different things for different bodies. It’s 1% of your weight a week at 200 pounds and 1.5% at 130.

The simple version

A pound of fat holds about 3,500 calories. Two pounds is 7,000 a week, or 1,000 a day. Whether you can find 1,000 a day depends on how many you burn to begin with.

Three bodies, all 40, by daily steps

Resting burn is from the Mifflin-St Jeor formula. The daily burns are the middle of the range our calculators give, resting burn times 1.2, 1.55 or 1.725 for the step band. For the woman, 2 pounds a week at 7,500 to 9,999 steps would mean 1,140 a day, under her resting burn, so the calculator stops at 1,380 and she loses about 1.5 pounds a week.

Is faster worse?

In a 2011 trial of 24 elite athletes who lifted weights four times a week, the group losing 0.7% of body weight a week gained about 2% lean mass. The group losing 1.4% a week gained none. For a 180-pound person, 0.7% is about 1.3 pounds a week.

What to do

• Let the calories to lose calculator set your pace. It stops at your floor.
• If 2 pounds won’t fit, take 1. You reach the same place a few months later.