Burning Calories and Consuming calories

Hello fitness world! I'm currently trying to loose 10-15 pounds. I weight 150 right now and I stand all day at work and work out atleast 4 days a week doing an hour of cardio (running spinning or elliptical) each time I work out and weights twice a week and on my off days from weights I do kick boxing after cardio. Considering Id like to loose this weight fast (2 pounds a week) My calorie goal for each day is 1200. It read 1200 before I enter my daily workouts of what Ive burned and then the calories increase with the more activity I do. Does this mean I should consumer more calories 1200 seems pretty low and I don't want to consume too little knowing it could be harmful and my body will store away. please help!!

When you workout you shoult eat more than 1200 to fuel your body. your exercise calories get added, and in order to lose your goal amount of weight/week you must eat the exercise calories to ensure your deficit stays intact and does not get too large.

There are a bunch of posts that scientically and thoroughly go through this, check out stroutman81's blog posts, he's a personal trainer and knows his stuff....

My understanding is that if your recommended intake of calories is 1200 for a 2lb/week weight loss and you burn, lets say, 500 calories doing excercise, then to maintain you 2lbs a week loss then you should be consuming 1700 calories per day. Hope you find this helpful.

It is also important to note that muscle weighs heavier than fat and the more weight training you do the more fat you turn to muscle and although you body will become more toned you may not loss the amount of weight in the time you desire. This has happened to me in the past week or so as I have started doing cardio (exercise bike) I started of pretty moderate but then became obsessed and was really pushing myself and the weight loss slowed then I put 2lb back on even though my calorie count had on the whole remained the same.

You will lose at first and then eventually your weightloss will plateau. 1200 is the absolute minimum your body needs to function...even if you laid in bed all day your body would burn this amount. Thats why you eat that and then enough to fuel your workouts. If you dont you will lose and then it will stop or slow because your body thinks it is starving so it will hold on to the fat for survival.

You should probably prepare yourself that it will be very difficult to lose 2lb per week given that you are already fairly slim and already exercise etc etc. Your body tends to hold on to it's fat a bit more at this stage so it may take you longer than that. Best of luck though - I hope it goes quickly for you!! If not, don't give up - you WILL lose it! :-)