How many calories should I burn per day?

addyharn

Hello everyone! I'm planning on working out 5-6 times per week. I'm unsure how to figure out how many calories I should be burning per day to lose weight. Could anyone help me figure this out. I'm 5' 2" and I weigh about 125 pounds. My goal weight is 110 pounds and I'm attepting to lose 1.5 pounds or more per week.
Thanks!

Nikion901

That's too aggressive for a woman your size; with so little to lose. Don't cut your calories by more than 15% if you are planning to cut any at all. As for exercise ... well, it takes a deficit of an extra 3500 calories to burn 1 pound and if you want to do that in a week ... and you exercise 5 times a week ... than your goal is to burn 700 calories on each of those 5 days. ... It's all math related.

carmkizzle

Right off the bat, I'll say that 1.5lbs per week is super aggressive because you're already pretty light with not much to lose. A goal of .5lbs per week for you would be more reasonable. Also, working out will assist you in achieving a caloric deficit, but it'd be a lot easier to eat at a deficit. My goal each and every time I work out is to burn 500 calories, which usually takes me a little over an hour to achieve at my current weight. It's up to you, really.

BrandyGanus

Hi! You can get down to 110 from 125 but it will be slower than 1.5 pounds per week. You should have a goal of about 0.5 pound per week.

I know that's not what you want to hear, but that's the healthiest way.

Cardio is good for burning high calories in a short amount of time. Jogging, swimming and bicycling all burn over 300 calories in 30 minutes. They also have the added benefit of working out many different muscle groups at the same time, so it will encourage fat loss from all over your body rather than just working out one muscle group.

One pound of fat is roughly equivalent to 3500 calories. So if you burn 300 calories per day for six days per week, you should lose one pound every two weeks. Keep in mind, life is not math so this will fluctuate depending on a myriad of variables.

Make sure that you eat well though. I assume you're using the calorie tracker with MFP? This will help you track your energy intake and expenditure.

Remember to be kind to yourself!

tillerstouch

Don't focus so much on your exercise to lose weight, focus on your diet. Here's what I would recommend, set mfp to lose .5 or 1 pound per week and eat that many calories. Be super accurate, weigh your food and everything.

Then add cardio I'd do at least 20 minutes to really benefit your heart and help your deficit.

Edited: I suggest this because it's hard to really know exactly how many calories were burned during cardio. Then just eat back say *40%ish of the calories you burn. This will ensure you stay in a deficit. (I don't eat back any of my exercise calories)

You also might want to start a lifting program to retain muscle during while you're losing weight.

RoxieDawn

If the question really is how many calories to burn to loose weight, the answer really is none.

You do not have to exercise to loose weight. In fact stick to the MFP calorie allotment that was configured for you, weigh all of your food using a food scale (very important) and exercise as much as you want or feel you need to in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The key is not eating back too many exercise calories as exercise calorie burns either given to you by a cardio machine, HR or fitness bands are all estimates and not exacts based on mathematical equations depending the device.

Recommend eat the MFP deficit and eat back around 45 to 50 percent. I think going in to the 60 percent range could be too high to start with and should you need additional energy if you start to get fatigued, too hungry, tired etc.. you can try to up them a wee bit.

Once you start exercising your exercise goals may change. As lifting is totally optional but it should be goal you research as to if this is for you or not. While you loose some muscle during the deficit, the steeper the deficit the more muscle loss there fore do not take the aggressive 1.5 pounds or more as you suggested you wanted to loose.