How Much Weight Can You Lose on a Treadmill After Six Weeks?

Regularly working out on a treadmill can help you lose weight, but how much depends on the intensity, duration and frequency of your workouts as well as how disciplined you are with your nutritional habits.

Keep track of what you eat using an online calorie counter or an app on your phone. This is a great resource to help you achieve your goals. A goal of one to two pounds per week is an aggressive and yet safe rate of weight loss. This would mean in six weeks, you have the potential to safely drop six to 12 pounds.

A treadmill workout can play a significant part in a successful weight-loss program because of the number of calories you burn during your session. To lose weight, you need to increase the number of calories you burn every day. If you burn a greater number of calories than you consume, you'll force your body into breaking down the fat you have stored on your body and you will lose weight.

To lose a pound of fat, you've got to burn 3,500 more calories than you consume, says Mayo Clinic. A weekly weight loss of one to two pounds, therefore, would mean a caloric deficit of 3,500 to 7,000 every seven days.

​Read more:​ Treadmill Walking for Weight Loss

A weekly caloric deficit of 3,500 to 7,000 means a daily deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories. Knowing this, you can structure your treadmill workouts to ensure you're burning an appropriate number of calories. How many calories you'll burn during each treadmill workout depends on the intensity and duration of your session.

Running on the treadmill will burn significantly more calories than walking, for example. According to Harvard Health Publishing, a 155-pound person will burn about 372 calories during a 30-minute run at 6 mph. Picking up the pace and running at 7.5 mph, this person would burn about 465 calories during that time. A walking pace of 4 mph on the treadmill will end up burning about 167 calories in a 30-minute workout.

You'll need to be consistent with your treadmill workouts in order to burn enough calories to create a deficit to lose weight. If you walk at 4 mph during your treadmill workouts and thus burn about 167 calories during each session, you'll be able to create a 3,500-calorie deficit about every 20 workouts.

This means it'll take you about three weeks to lose a pound and thus lose about two pounds in the six-week period. If you run at 7.5 mph and thus burn about 465 calories during each workout, you'll create a 3,500-calorie deficit about every seven workouts and thus have the potential of losing six pounds in a six-week period.

​Read more:​ How to Lose 10 lbs. a Month Using the Treadmill

If you want to successfully lose weight with your treadmill workouts, you'll also need to ensure you're taking in an appropriate number of calories that allows the creation of a caloric deficit. If you were to consume high-calorie meals, you would quickly cancel out the calories you burned during your treadmill workout. Making adjustments to what you eat and drink is also what's going to allow you to lose one to two pounds per week.

Cut back the number of calories you consume by drinking only water, instead of soda and juice and eating primarily fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. It's important to note that women should never eat less than 1,200 calories a day and men, 1,800 calories a day, says the American Council on Exercise.