How many calories does everyone try to burn daily?

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 don't aim for any specific number, I just do whatever I"m supposed to that day workout-wise. Some days I burn a lot, other days I burn nothing. THe only days I go over 1000 calories is when I do 50+ mile rides or when I do 12+ mile runs. My weekly total is rarely over 3500.

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.

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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.

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.

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!