How many calories should you burn a day?

JennytheWicked

I was changing my goals in MFP and it gave me some astronomical number and told me I should be burning 5,000+ calories a day.

I don't know about the rest of you but I ain't burning some 5,000 calories a day. lol

So what do you have as your daily calorie goal? I just changed it to 640 a day so I'm burning 3,200 calories a week.

ElizabethRoad

Where did it tell you how much you should be burning? Are you talking about what your daily intake should be?

JennytheWicked

I'm looking under the exercise diary but changed it in the goals section.

DPernet

Sorry, but your question doesn't make any sense. MFP does not tell you how many calories to burn. You can set an exercise goal, but this number has no impact on how many calories you can eat until you actually do some exercise.

Sidesteal

Slightly more than you eat.

EvanKeel

I'm a little confused.

Are you saying you set your goal for your net calorie intake as 640 per day, or your deficit as 640. If it's the former, this should be an interesting thread. If it's the latter, that might be ok, depending on how much you have to lose.

ElizabethRoad

I'm looking under the exercise diary but changed it in the goals section.

Can you tell me exactly what page you are on or give me a link? I'm pretty familiar with the site but I am not aware of anywhere it tells you how much to burn.

ElizabethRoad

Slightly more than you eat.

But yeah, this.

JennytheWicked

If you look at:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/diary/

It will show you the daily and weekly calorie goals. This is what I use to see if I've reached the amount of calories I wanted to burn for the week.

Now, if you go into:

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

you can change your goals using your personal calculations or the MFP guide (their suggested goals).

I changed my settings (using their suggested goals) and it showed came up with the 5000+ number. I've since changed it back to something a bit more attainable using my own numbers.

JennytheWicked

Sorry if I made this more confusing than it needed to be!

EmilyOfTheSun

Sorry if I made this more confusing than it needed to be!

Don't be sorry Jenny. People on these forums can be so damn mean and condescending it's ridiculous! Don't even bother posting on the forums or you'll have snobby people yelling at you. Just PM someone who you know is an MFP expert! PM the nice girly who left you the first comment.

EvanKeel

If you look at:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/diary/

It will show you the daily and weekly calorie goals. This is what I use to see if I've reached the amount of calories I wanted to burn for the week.

Now, if you go into:

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

you can change your goals using your personal calculations or the MFP guide (their suggested goals).

I changed my settings (using their suggested goals) and it showed came up with the 5000+ number. I've since changed it back to something a bit more attainable using my own numbers.

Oh I think I see. I don't really pay attention to the exercise goals I set up through MFP, which is probably why I was confused.

JennytheWicked

LOL Oh em.

I don't care. We have people like that on BG too.

If people want to be rude, they can take it to 4chan. I had a question and it was apparently confusing. Oh well. People love to be rude on the internet because there's virtually no backlash.

JennytheWicked

No worries. I appreciate you taking the time to help though.

rm830

I believe that's taking into consideration how many calories you burn through the day from where your acitivity level is. 5000 still seems a bit high...Sorry if that doesn't really help...

jennkain97

first, if MFP said 5000+ calories, i think maybe you just input a wrong number somewhere?

second, 640 calories is a pretty reasonable goal, if you're willing to put in the time. it's going to require an hour or more (depending on your unique metabolism) of pretty intense aerobics, or longer if you stick to something w/ lower intensity. but in the general sense, it's certainly reasonable/doable.

Brenda_Pancakes

Hmm... so they say that 1 lb comes to 3,500 calories, right? So, in theory - if you wanted to burn/get rid of (not counting eating at a deficit, here) 1.5 lbs a week... if you plan on working out, say, 6 days a week... you would want to burn 875 a day... Which sounds like an aweful lot to me... daily, anyways... sure you'll have those mega burn days where you do a couple exercise routines in the day... but a DAILY burn of 875 just sounds like a lot. cut it down to only 1 lb a week - you'd want to burn about 584 a day... In theory - of course.

I'm sure my math is off - figureing i'm sure the calorie intake plays a huge roll as well... My thinking is that if I didn't change what I ate - and I maintained at a solid weight - I would have to burn that many calories (584) per day to see a loss of 1 lb per week.

MFP does the calc for you; which is nice.

rose313

I try to burn 1600 a week, but I have no goal for calories burned per day, because sometimes I'll burn 500 and sometimes 0.