How much should I burn weekly to maintain my weight?

hanymamdouh

Hi, This is my first post here, thanks to the great site.

I'm 32 years old male, I was overweight, really overweight 134 KG. by 16-Oct-2013 I decided to start losing all those extra kilograms. I've changed my whole lifestyle and followed very strict diet, limiting my daily intake to 700 calories per day.

Today, it is one year since I've started, I weight exactly 63.1 KG. My target is to maintain my current weight. My current daily intake is limited to 1800 kcal. I do exercise daily, just walking or jogging for 45 minutes, so total burnt calories weekly is approximately 1400 kcal/week. I work as CTO, hence I almost set on my desk through out working hours.

My question is how to maintain my current weight? and how many calories should I burn by exercising weekly? Also are walking, pushing-up, and abs crunching are enough as cardio exercises?

Thanks for your help

funchords

Wow, congrats on losing about half of your entire body weight! That's tremendous!

Assuming your an MFP user, you set the goal here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

Under What is your goal? answer Maintain my current weight.

You'll get a new calorie goal.

You may be in the habit of eating less than your calorie goal. Doing that will continue to allow you to lose weight, however, so you want to eat up to your target. Log your exercise as well and eat those calories. Monitor your weight closely -- if your metabolism is different from the average, you may gain or lose weight. If that happens, adjust your calorie goal up or down to respond to the difference.

Walking is a cardio exercise. Pushups and ab crunching can be part of a circuit training exercise (cardio) but otherwise they are resistance (non-cardio) exercises. The big question is what you want to do long term for the rest of your life? When possible, make your exercises align with your desires.

hanymamdouh

Thanks funchords for your prompt reply. Actually I'm using Microsoft Bing Health for both Diet and Cardio tracking. I do exactly as you mentioned, log everything that enters my stomach, and try to stay within the goal. 1800 cal/day is suggested by Diet Tracker software I use. What I really want for the rest of my life is to maintain weight, enhance my cardio, and heal flabbiness resulted from rapid weight loss. Strengthen but not enlarging my muscles is 2nd priority target.

BTW losing my weight wasn't that hard. It is not diet only, I've changed lifestyle totally because I was afraid to gain weight again after reach desired weight. I should change the habits not twisting it for sometime. That's the point.

funchords

Since I don't know that software, what I can recommend is to find a TDEE calculator that asks you about your activity level and workouts. Make that TDEE your calorie goal, with a slight deficit (250 calories) and do that for a few weeks, weighing yourself weekly. If you're still losing, then eliminate the deficit (increase the target by 250).

As you enhance your cardio, you will need more calories in your diet to support the additional effort.

Keep logging, keep tracking, keep adjusting -- these are the keys to controlling your maintenance.

VeryKatie

Uhhh... how tall are you? I'm a 5'6" female and weigh the same as you do now (an am at a healthy weight). I just want to make sure you're ok! Especially after doing a VLCD...

elliej

Sorry - how long did you eat 700cal a day for? a year? 1800 is maintenance cals and I'm a 161cm 55kg woman... Just add 100cals a day for 1 month, see if you lose/maintain, change it up for the next month if you're still losing

hanymamdouh

Hi VeryKatie,

Thanks for your interest. I'm 5.6 (170 cm) is it healthy or I must reduce more?

hanymamdouh

Hi Elliej,

Yes, I've maintained daily intake of 700 cal for one year, with one day (chosen randomly) each week I break the rules and rise my intake to around 2000 to disturb my metabolism and be sure that my body will not get used of 700 cal/day and stop losing weight.

kellehbeans

I'm a female at 5'6 and I eat 1800kcals and I still lose weight. As a male, you'd have no problem losing. As somebody else has suggested - add 100kcals every month or so until your weight is stationary!

VeryKatie

hanymamdouh wrote: »

Hi VeryKatie,

Thanks for your interest. I'm 5.6 (170 cm) is it healthy or I must reduce more?

I think for a male (since males typically have/need more muscle and I'm about as weak as they come), you should maintain your weight or look to GAIN weight but through muscle building (so using a weight lifting program such as Stronglifts 5x5 or if you don't have access to a gym, try You Are Your Own Gym which you only need household items and a chin-up bar).

I would not think you should look to lose any more weight until you've gained some through building muscle. After that you could possibly cut fat (but continue lifting to maintain muscle) and then go back to eating at maintenance.

hanymamdouh

Hi Kellehbeans,

Do you do some sort of exercising or workouts? maybe your lifestyle and activities burns too much daily. My work nature is sedentary, hence I'm very afraid of gaining weight again.

VeryKatie

hanymamdouh wrote: »

Hi Kellehbeans,

Do you do some sort of exercising or workouts? maybe your lifestyle and activities burns too much daily. My work nature is sedentary, hence I'm very afraid of gaining weight again.

Actually my maintenance at sedentary is around 1700-1800 as well (though it could actually be higher, I'm not sure.)

hanymamdouh

VeryKatie,

Good advice, Actually I don't have time for gym, therefore I will go for You Are Your Own Gym. Do you suggest particular type of training? I do push ups, ab crunching and walking daily but without any gain in muscles.

VeryKatie

hanymamdouh wrote: »

VeryKatie,

Good advice, Actually I don't have time for gym, therefore I will go for You Are Your Own Gym. Do you suggest particular type of training? I do push ups, ab crunching and walking daily but without any gain in muscles.

You Are Your Own Gym should give you a specific program and exercises to follow so you'll know if you're doing pushups, squats, etc. I'm about to start the Body By You: You Are Your Own Gym: A Total Guide to Women's Fitness. Even though it says "Women's", you could actually start with that one. I think I bought the book for about $15 on Amazon and a Chin-up bar from Walmart for about $30.

The reason I say you could use this one is that it is designed for people who the author expects to know very little about progressive weight training. You might find that you'll progress more quickly through that book than the average woman (as long as you eat back your exercise calories because men have the testosterone to build muscle more quickly). Once you feel like you've done all you can with that book, get the original You Are Your Own Gym which is a massive book with a crap ton more exercises you can do haha.

What I've read from the book is they have 4 kinds of exercises: Pulling, pushing, squatting and bending exercises.

Pulling exercises they use are things like "Let Me Ins" which you use door knobs to pull yourself towards the door to train triceps which progress all the way to unassisted chin-ups (or possibly one armed!) by the end of the program.

Pushing will start you off doing pushups on walls and progressing you down to the floor with your feet raised (and again, possibly one armed).

Squatting exercises move you from a standard squat through to pistol squats (look that up, it looks so hard!). Remember it's important not to skip leg day so that you look balanced!

Bending exercises... I can't remember off the top of my head but they likely work hamstrings, back, and abs through compound movements.

All of the movements involve more than one muscle group so it should be an effective way of training your whole body.

The book also gives you a way of assessing your starting capabilities so that you're starting at the right level for you.

Your goal SHOULD be to GAIN weight. Remember, you're building muscle, not fat (maybe a bit of fat, but you can get rid of that when you've progressed as much as you want to through the program - you've done it before and can do it again).

Also, this book suggests doing approx 20 - 40 mins per session, 3 times a week. So you maximum time commitment would be about 120 minutes a week.

hanymamdouh

Dear VeryKatie,

Thanks so much for your elaborated reply, it is very kind of you. I've got the book, and found it very much helpful (it is 13$ right now on Amazon ) also I've just bought two dumbbells today, each is 5 Kg to add reasonable resistance that will help in biceps and triceps exercises.