How many calories does everyone try to burn daily?

hemlock2010

Don't worry so much about burning calories. Weight can be lost without any burnt calories. Invariably, trying to track burnt calories is a recipe for disaster. It is not possible to accurately charge calories burnt during a workout session outside a scientific environment.

Most people try to reward themselves when estimating burnt calories with more food. When you have significant fat stores present on your body, you don't need to eat your expended calories. You have hundreds of thousands of stored calories on your body in fat cells.

I'm totally willing to believe that this is true for this poster, but my experience has been that when I exercise I lose weight, and when I don't, I don't. For me, tracking calories burned during exercise is very helpful b/c looking back at the exercise log and comparing that to weight loss helps me see patterns that I otherwise might not.

About this poster's other point: I don't "reward myself" for exercise by eating more, except in the sense that I am able to lose weight eating 1500-1600 calories per day.

I think it's probably true for a lot of us on MFP that our internal reward system has been linked to food since early childhood. In the past, we have been in a place where food equals love, appreciation, acceptance, all that stuff, and part of what we are doing here is getting out of that mindset. IOW, we don't reward ourselves for exercising by eating. Instead, we use exercise to create an environment in which we can eat without guilt--which, after all, the healthy relationship with food we're aiming for.

I've discovered that I enjoy exercise (who knew!) and I now have a lot of fitness goals that are totally unrelated to weight loss. I exercise to pursue those goals, and I reward myself for my hard work by noting progress toward those goals (and by sharing my progress with my ever patient family members, who reward me by cheering me on). This is also part of that conscious effort to build a new, healthier reward structure. And it's fun.

Teeladog

I don't really aim for anything in particular. I teach swimming and water aerobics for a living so I do that 6 days a week whether I want to actually work out or not. I am also training for a half marathon (I am still in the early stages - I can do a 5k but not much more yet) so I run 3 days a week. The days I teach a water aerobics class I burn around 275, the days I run I burn more (depending on the length of the run). Sometimes (like yesterday) I swim laps.

I find that it is helpful to not think so much about how many calories any given exercise will burn. You need to have goals for exercise that don't have anything to do with the calorie burn. Otherwise it seems to me that exercise becomes no fun after a while.

Atlantique

I don't aim for a specific calorie burn. I try to get a few 45 minute cardio sessions in every week, one or two sessions of yoga and some strength training.

sculptandtone

I burn about 400 calories or maybe 500. I do 60-90 minutes of HARD exercise a day.
If i listened to the MFP calorie count or the machine caloire count, it would tell me I've burned 800 calories a day.
That is simply not true, its WAY over what I'm actually burning. I'm getting a HRM shortly to get the most accurate burn.
I really can't figure out why MFP and treadmills/ellipticals overestimate the calories burned by SO much. It's not just a little bit off, it's a LOT off reality. I often wonder if that's why so many people are on "plateaus". Maybe some of them are eating back their overestimated calories burned????

JennLifts

I lift, and I dance, and I bike, and I love it all. If I get a 800cal burn SWEEEET, if I get a 200cal burn, just fine! I'm in it for the fun!

debbiequack

How many calories does everyone try to burn daily?

Just wondered as Im only just starting out and hitting 200-300, yet seeing some people burn over 1000!!!

I burn 200-300 daily, too.

TBH, when I see that people burn 1000 cal per day I think that that would be a hard number to sustain, for a lifetime. I'm aiming at 30-40 minutes of exercise, daily, about 6 times per week.

I'm a single mom and 30-40 minutes is about all I can squeeze in.

But my main point is that I am trying to change my lifestyle for GOOD and I don't think that burning 1000 cal/daily is a do-able amount, in the long run, unless you're a professional athlete or something.

Good luck,

Debbie