I was wondering how many calories I should be eating daily. I am 30 yrs old and weigh 210lbs. I workout approximately 4 days a week. I am trying to bring my weight down to 200 lbs but I still want to have some energy for my workouts. I have been going to Livestrong.com and logging my calories there along with my workouts. I noticed that I lost about 6 pounds the first week and a half. I am trying to stay at or below 2200 calories a day with my workouts. Livestrong I have noticed is very gracious about giving me lots of burned calories for my work outs. One bike ride which was 30 miles/ 2 hours at approximately 17 mph which said I burned 3000 calories. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Thanks for the help, I know there is a lot of info
A) If you want to lose weight, lose it slowly. Too many people are obsessed with fast weight loss which sets you up for the lack of energy you are worried about.
B) The general rule of thumb for healthy weight loss is a 500 cal/day deficit for 3500cal/week which equals a pound/week lost. This can either come from restriction of intake or increase of output (i.e. exercise). Your 2200cal/day diet should probably be okay. Your basal metabolic rate is probably around 2000-2100 calories/day, which is the amount you burn just maintaining your systems, that doesn’t take into account walking around or working out. Maybe a little more food intake on workout days.
Livestrong I have noticed is very gracious about giving me lots of burned calories for my work outs. One bike ride which was 30 miles/ 2 hours at approximately 17 mph which said I burned 3000 calories. That doesn’t seem right to me.
Or me either. To burn 1500 Calories per hour you would need to be riding at on the order of 417 watts power output. Riding at 17mph
would almost certainly take less than 200 watts. Something is way off in the Livestrong estimate. A WAG would put your energy use
at more like 600 Calories per hour at your pace.
I got a metabolic test to see what I typically burn on a non workout day…For me it is around 2700 calories. that’s not my base…as it includes walking etc.
So when I try to lose weight, at a minimum I eat 2700 calories.
I then use my workouts as my burn.
On normal days I will burn 3500-4000 calories, so based on that I’ll actually bump my eating up to 3000.
My goal is to have a defecit of about 1000 calories…lose 2lbs per week.
So on heavier workout days I eat a bit more. On lower workout days I eat less.
the only times I have had energy issues are during REALLy tough weeks or on weeks when I tried to exceed a 1000 calorie defecit. That was a bit of trial and error for me. So you might need to try it out for yourself.
It has been my experience that most people overestimate what they burn and underestimate what they eat. Early on you may have to really measure your portions until you get a good eye for it.
Doing this I dropped from 250 down to 215 last year. Then this year I’ve gone from 215 to 200. In a bit I’ll make my final push down to 190.
Eric, google “Harris-Benedict equation.” That will allow you to estimate caloric intake for basal metabolism (what you would burn if you are laying in bed all day). Then, if you are trying to lose weight, subtract 500 (you’ll lose a pound a week). Add in calories for daily activity - which is both job stuff, house stuff, and training.
Training calories: I can’t find the table I want estimating calories for you. I’ve got a sophisticaed one (ACSM book) — do you know your power output on the bike?