how many calories should you burn in one workout?

I plan my workout ahead of time and not focus on the # of calories.
On lift days I have the particular lifts scheduled for that day and I get in and do them. If I feel like I still have a quality set left in me for a particular lift, then I add it.
On cardio days I plan a particular distance and try to get it done within a certain amount of time.

The calories take care of themselves if I am pushing my intensity.

you arent going to overtrain. it takes sveral months- years to reach overtraining status and usually the people who run that risk are those who are professional athletes who are exercising for hours and hours a day several days a week. you working out an hour a day will not overtrain you. there are days when i burn as much as 1800 calories from exercise, but for the most part i'm somewhere in the 500-1000 calorie range depending on the workout. i also work out 6 days a week and the 7th is an active rest day where i probably burn like 200-300 calories from my activity

also it's more efficient to start weight training now rather than splitting it up since that way is essentially making twice the work.

also if you arent working your muscles, i can guarantee you that you are losing muscle as well as fat as you lose weight. loss of muscle will slow your metabolism down, also since muscle is very hard to build you should try to keep as much of it as you can while you're losing weight

wow 1800 is a big calorie burn for one time!!. I have been reading a lot and read that your progress can stall if you work out too much and if you do not allow your body to rest. The weight has been so hard for me to get rid of probably due to my age as well. My legs are definitely building muscle while I am running and plenty of people lose weight successfully while running or doing other types of exercise for that matter. I have seen many very successful stories of people losing with cardio so I do not believe it to be so black and white. I was lifting for a while, but the scale was at a standstill for a looong time and I do also believe in switching things up if what you are doing isn't working. I just want to lost the weight at this point (I am close to normal weight now) and then build the muscle. Like I said, I do believe I am building muscles while working out and I do believe that different things work for different people. As long as you are not sitting on the couch all day long, you are going to have progress. I will go back to lifting soon, I only have 5 kilos to get rid of. Thanks for taking the time to respond!!

ok i misled a little bit :laugh: those 1800 calorie days are days i go twice a day

also i know you said that you believe are building muscle when you're working out, but you more than likely arent. in fact you are more than likely losing muscle since you're not giving your body much of an excuse to keep it (eating at a deficit + skipping resistance training). muscle takes a lot of energy for your body to maintain (which is why it raises your metabolism) and your body is designed to not waste energy.

muscle is extremely hard to build beyond newbie gains (which you've probably already made it past) keep in mind that male bodybuilders (who already have an easier time building muscle because of their testosterone) have to work out hours a day and eat special diets above their maintenance to create muscle.

in general it take bodybuilders 2 years of that type of dedication (specialized diets + supplements + hours of weight training) to build 6-10 pounds of muscle, so it's highly unlikely that you, a female NOT weightlifting and eating under your maintenance calories, are packing on muscle...

just saying, if muscle were that easy to build then why would people need to take steroids to help them build muscle?

500 a day is completely fine. But your body will tell you if you are overtraining, listen to it.

The ""cardio now, weights later" plan is actually an awful one. You will lose a lot of muscle on the way down, which is bad:
1) Muscle is metabolically active, moreso than fat, so it is lowering your BMR to lose muscle
2) A pound of muscle occupies less space than a pound of fat, so if you lose a pound of muscle, your measurements/sizes will decrease less than if you lost a pound of fat
3) In general, people have a look that they want, which is basically a certain body fat %. I would be at the body fat % that I want to be at if I hadn't lost muscle when I was training for a half marathon

If I am building muscle, I will not get there very quickly. One of my friends who is weight training a lot has not lost a pound in months.

While this may be true, she's getting smaller from the inches being lost.. while you, probably are not.

I'm with the cardio and strength training camp.. you need both in order to have a nice balance.

As far as your original question goes, there really isn't a limit on how many calories you burn.. I only spend an 30 minutes to an hour in the gym, and what I burn in that time frame, I burn.

I will not be skinny fat. I feel the muscles in my legs by all the walking and running I have been doing!! and I bet that none of you eat as healthy as I do every single day. I only have 5 kilos left. I didn't say that I wasn't going to work on my muscles either. Where is all this science that you guys are spouting off??. Actually when I first started this journey I lost a ton of inches and I wasn't weight training at all back then and I have been weight training on this journey. I just want to wake up every day knowing I am normal weight, maybe overrated to you but would mean a great deal to me!!!. Once I get there, my other goals will take over. My question wasn't which exercise I should choose!! It was can you work out too much!! This is seriously frustrating me.

I wasnt saying you were skinnyfat, the link was just to show that weight training is important in order to reduce bodyfat, cardio only will not get you where you want to be.

to answer your original question, you can work out too much.
You should aim for 1-2 rest days per week, and not weight train the same body part 2 days in a row.
Cardio wise, you don't really need to do more than 60 mins a day, and not every day.
If you do a lot of exercise, make sure you take in enough calories to fuel your wokrouts.

As for saying noone eats as healthy as you do every day, regularly coming in 500-1000 calories under goal is NOT healthy at all, and if thats what you eating then you ARE overtraining. The goal MFP gives you is net and therefore exercise cals are intended to be eaten back to meet your goal.

I also exercise around 3500 per week, but eat 2000 / net on average around 1500 and lose 1.5 EVERY week. If I exercise more than that, I will eat more.

em you didnt answer the original question as it was how many calories should you burn in one workout.

The answer is as many as you want. Why not burn 3000 in one workout?!

But if you do, refuelling is incredibly important.

Also I believe a purely cardiovascular workout plan is perfectly fine for creating a lean build.

I don't focus on a number, I let my body tell me what I should be doing. I lift and then if I feel like doing more later, will do a cardio video or if I want something lighter, I will walk in the evening. I feel less is more, but that's JMO. It really boils down to diet anyway. Even if you are burning that many calories, you need to be eating adequately or your body is not going to do anything for you.