How much burn?

How many calories should I be burning per workout to lose weight? I am 5/3, 148 lbs, and taking in approximately 1200 calories per day (adding in the deficit). I have no idea how much I should be burning...I like to use the eliptical, stationary bike, walk, jump rope, as well as strength train. I feel a little lost because I never know if I am doing too much or too little. I would like to lose 20 lbs.

i would like to know that too bc I am approx. the same height and weight as you. (5'3 3/4~147) but I eat waaay more than you do. When I was losing weight I was eating 1400-1600 calories a day. And then I tried to go to 1200-1300 calories and my body has been yelling at me to eat. I usually do 45 mins of cardio 6/week and weights 2-3 days a week. Am I doing too much?

You can't lose any weight by pumping iron, honey. It burns about a stick of gum and that's all.

wrong!!! muscle burns fat

Sorry I gotta disagree with milesgolden. Lifting weights DOES burn fat, and more importantly, the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn at rest.

Ok that's why they say you only burn 25 cals.

The actual lifting of weights might not actually burn calories, but if you start toning your muscles or building muscle, you'll start losing fat. Muscle requires more calories than fat does. So, while the exercise may not be worth it when it comes to straight calorie counts, in the long run, it is.

I am in agreement with babyd and ruberta.  You burn more calories at rest if you are leaner, you get leaner by "pumping iron".  Cardio is for your heart unless you are working out in your fat burning zone only.  It is hard to tell what that is for each individual as we are all different, there are "standards" but like me I don't fit into those standards, best way to find that out is with Lactid acid testing.

Have you done your allowance and expenditure on here?  Under tools.  There are also alot of calculators on the web if you search it.  http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calculators.h tm
That is a good site to check out..
sorry if I am not allowed to post links here.  :)  Also it is good to remember that when you expend you'll need a bit more calories to keep your body going or you could end up storing fat instead of losing it... my big mistake. Good luck Kbeeps keep up the good work :)

I have done my allowance and expenditure. I went with sedentary and that tells me I burn 1700 calories a day. I should be consuming 1275 calories a day. But what does that tell me as far as how much I should burn? Thanks for the luck, you too.

I am curious to know why you chose sedentary, I am seeing that you exercise.. Check out the link above, I hope you can use one of those calculators.
So if you burn 1700 calories/day doing nothing... and you need to eat 1275 calories /day doing nothing...
Try doing your allowance and expenditure with moderate or active... see what the difference is there.  Remembering if you exercise (cardio) and eat like you would being sedentary you could be placing your body in a position of thinking it is "starving" and that is when it stores fat instead of letting it go.  Are you finding yourself hungry? Maybe your body is telling you to eat... I found it a hard grasp to eat and lose weight but it works, keeping in mind what you eat counts too.

I just reread your post and realized I didn't answer your question, I am sorry... so to sum up they say that your deficite should be around 500.  So if you burn 1700 calories/ day being sedentary then I can see that 1275 calorie intake sounds about right... if you are burning an extra lets say 400 calories doing your cardio... 1700 + 400 = 2100 so then you subtract 500 from 2100 you'll get 1600 calories in that day... if you use a larger deficit, please be cautious as you may lose to fast and your body will disagree.  Lose it at a steady pace and your body will be happy and reward you.  Hope this helps a bit better than my last post...
Take care,
Smiles to you :)

kbeeps, if I understand your question, you want to know how many calories to burn in each exercise period.  Is that correct?

my advice is to simply choose the amount of time that you can regularly, consistently give to your exercise routine, whether it be 30 minutes a day or 30 minutes 3 times a week.  It's consitency that matters most.

when you do the aerobics portion of your exercise, be sure to get your heart rate up through the different zones.  1st, calculate your maximum heart rate (mhr) by subtracting your age from 220.  Then, as you exercise, monitor your heart rate.

The Heart Healthy zone, great for warm-ups and cool downs, is 50-60% of your mhr.  "Although this zone has been criticized for not burning enough total calories, and for not being intense enough to get great cardiorespiratory benefits, it has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. In this zone, 10% of carbohydrates are "burned" (used as energy), 5% of protein is burned and a whopping 85% of fat is burned."

The Fitness Zone is great for fat burning, and is 60-70% of your mhr.   Once again, 85% of your calories burned in this zone are fats, 5% are proteins and 10% are carbohydrates. Studies have shown that in this zone you can condition your fat mobilization (getting fat out of your cells) while conditioning your fat transportation (getting fat to muscles). Thus, in this zone, you are training your fat cells to increase the rate of fat release and training your muscles to burn fat. Therefore, the benefits of this zone are not only the same as the healthy heart zone training at 50-60% but you are now slightly increasing the total number of calories burned and provide a little more cardiorespiratory benefits. You burn more total calories at this zone simply because it is more intense.

The Aerobic Zone is 70-80% (some say to go up to 85%).  The results are different in this zone.  In this zone, your functional capacity will greatly improve and you can expect to increase the number and size of blood vessels, increase vital capacity and respiratory rate and achieve increases in pulmonary ventilation, as well as increases in arterial venous oxygen. Moreover, stroke volume (amount of blood pumped per heart beat) will increase, and your resting heart rate will decrease. What does all this mean? It means that your cardiovascular and respiratory system will improve and you will increase the size and strength of your heart. In this zone, 50% of calories burned are from carbohydrates, 50% are from fat and less than 1% is from protein. And, because there is an increase in intensity, there is also an increase in the total number of calories burned.

Each of the zones has its place. I personally do a 40 minute aerobic workout on the treadmill.  10 minutes warming up, in the Heart Healthy zone, followed by 5 minute intervals of Fitness Zone and Aerobic zone (Fitness, Aerobic, Fitness, Aerobic), concluding with 10 minutes of cool-down, which I stay in the Fitness Zone for. 

Then I follow with my weights -- which keeps me in the Fitness Zone for the duration.  For weights, some days I do lighter weights and many more reps.  Other days I push to do max weight with much fewer reps.  It works the musles in different ways.

So, my goal isn't to burn a certain number of calories in my workouts.  My goal is to use my workouts to improve my cardiovascular and pulmonary systems, and to tone and strengthen my musles.