50 Meal Prep Recipes for Weight Loss | Under 500 Calories (2024)

FAQs

How many pounds will I lose if I eat under 500 calories a day? ›

So researchers thought burning or cutting 500 calories a day led to losing 1 pound a week. But this isn't true for everyone. In general, if you cut about 500 calories a day from your usual diet, you may lose about ½ to 1 pound a week.

Applying a 500-calorie diet can help the body improve metabolism, accelerate fat oxidation, thereby supporting weight loss very well. This diet is often applied to people who need to lose weight quickly to prevent the risk of adverse health effects due to weight.

To lose 30 pounds in four to seven months, you must create a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. A tried-and-true way is to reduce your daily intake by 500 calories and add moderate-intensity exercise on most days.

To lose 10 pounds in one week, you'll need to burn between 3,500 and 5,000 calories more than you consume each day by restricting your diet to small portions of nutritious yet low-calorie foods, and significantly increasing your aerobic exercise with interval training, sports, and other vigorous activities.

You need to burn 3500 calories a day to lose one pound a day, and you need anywhere between 2000 and 2500 calories in a day if you are doing your routine activities. That means you need to starve yourself the whole day and exercise as much as to lose the remaining calories.

Losing 5 pounds a week comes to reducing your food intake by 3500 calories over seven days. The value that represents the decrease in calorie intake is known as the calorie deficit. If you want to lose 5 pounds in a week, you will need to reduce your food intake by 17,500 calories, which is a huge calorie deficit.

Five meals a day equals breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. To do this right, you need to plan what you'll eat every day for each “meal.” And you need to schedule eating every 2 to 3 hours. Stock up. Face it: You're going to grab whatever food is closest.

Why am I not losing weight on 500 calories a day? ›

Metabolic Adaptation: Your body is highly adaptable and can adjust its metabolic rate in response to calorie restriction. Eating too few calories for an extended period can slow down your metabolism, making it harder to lose weight.

Danger of deficiencies

The greatest dangers associated with a 500-calorie diet relate to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies can lead to many health problems. In fact, most people cannot meet their vitamin and mineral requirements if they eat less than 1200 calories per day.

An average serving size of two eggs contains only 148 calories or 620 kilojoules – roughly the same as two apples.

Consuming at least 1,200 calories per day has often been touted as the minimum for basic bodily functions and to stay out of starvation mode, but the amount is actually too low. A healthy amount of calories for adult women ranges from 1,800 to 2,400 calories per day and for men it's 2,000 to 3,200 calories per day.

According to Healthline, running burns the most calories. A tried and true exercise that requires little more than your legs and the open road, running burns just over 800 calories for a 155-pound adult per hour.

If you can eat 500 fewer calories every day, you should lose about a pound (450 g) a week. Always talk with your health care provider to determine a healthy weight for you before starting a weight-loss diet.

Eating 500 calories a day is a very low-calorie diet, and it is not recommended for most people. However, if you are healthy and are under the supervision of a doctor, you could lose about 1-2 pounds per week on this diet.