Calorie Intake vs. Calories Burned

Hello everyone, I guess this is me just second guessing myself.

According to my little application I have, I should be eating 1800 calories a day.  Now, my question is, if I eat 1800 calories a day, how many calories should I burn?  To be honest, I am eating a lot less than 1800 calories a day, and do multiple excersises.  Please try and bypass what I said about eating a lot less.  Thank you very much, and waiting for your help.

halo, how come every time you post, you ask us to ignore that you are eating too little?

Well, there is not enough information there to tell you  We would need to know your stats to give you any feedback.  Age, weight, height, sex, activity level. 

You could always use www.phord.com/cc/ to give yu an estimae if you don't want to post the info. 

Original Post by halo916:

Hello everyone, I guess this is me just second guessing myself.

According to my little application I have, I should be eating 1800 calories a day.  Now, my question is, if I eat 1800 calories a day, how many calories should I burn?  To be honest, I am eating a lot less than 1800 calories a day, and do multiple excersises.  Please try and bypass what I said about eating a lot less.  Thank you very much, and waiting for your help.

can't help but think you want attention...why would someone explicitly mention something they want others to ignore? unless of course they didn't want others to ignore it at all? so, how much are you eating and if you know you eat less then why are you asking about 1800 calories?

Original Post by chrissy1988:

Original Post by halo916:

Hello everyone, I guess this is me just second guessing myself.

According to my little application I have, I should be eating 1800 calories a day.  Now, my question is, if I eat 1800 calories a day, how many calories should I burn?  To be honest, I am eating a lot less than 1800 calories a day, and do multiple excersises.  Please try and bypass what I said about eating a lot less.  Thank you very much, and waiting for your help.

can't help but think you want attention...why would someone explicitly mention something they want others to ignore? unless of course they didn't want others to ignore it at all? so, how much are you eating and if you know you eat less then why are you asking about 1800 calories?

Yea I want attention, thats it. I get more than enough in my "real world", and am known.  I come here for help, I own multiple businesses, and have too much on my plate to look for attention on a message board.  I say it, because I have been a lurker of the forum for sometime now, and I see everyone complaining to someone else that "your not eating enough calories".  I don't want to hear that, and I say it because in order to be helped, I need to give my stats.

If I really wanted attention too, I would go around people I have not seen in a long time, and they would give me attention....I am 25 years old, past that.

i just couldn't understand why you would say something and then tell us to bypass it if you have the power to completely omit it in the beginning. i wasn't trying to be harsh.

we still don't know your stats so it's difficult to tell you how much to burn. your calorie burn for being sedentary is likely a minimum of 1500, so if you're exercising as well and you lead an active life you could be burning anywhere from 2100-2300 if you're roughly 150pounds and between 5'2 and 5'9....if you're closer to 130 it'd be more like 2000-2200, closet to 170 is about 2200-2400 at moderately active. so if you eat 1800 and are moderately active you're looking at a minimum of 2000 calories burned and a deficit of at least 200 every day, which is almost 1/2 pound lost each week. if you're closer to 170 or at the taller range you probably burn more like 2300 and you'd have a 500 calorie deficit and lose 1 pound a week.

your bmr is 1300-1475 or thereabouts...so if you're sedentary it would be from 1560-1770 calories burned before exercising...with exercise you'd want to burn about 490 calories to get a 1/2-1 pound loss while eating 1800 calories.

this is very vague because i don't know your stats but i hope it helps :) sorry if i seemed snippy earlier.

Original Post by halo916:

Hello everyone, I guess this is me just second guessing myself.

According to my little application I have, I should be eating 1800 calories a day.  Now, my question is, if I eat 1800 calories a day, how many calories should I burn?  To be honest, I am eating a lot less than 1800 calories a day, and do multiple excersises.  Please try and bypass what I said about eating a lot less.  Thank you very much, and waiting for your help.

I'm not sure I understand your question.  If you want to lose weight, you should burn more than 1800 calories if you're eating 1800 calories.  I find it more useful to figure out how much you burn every day and use that to figure out how much you should eat, a number that's a lot easier to control.  I imagine that's how the application you're using came up with 1800 calories.  If you're asking in order to try to confirm that the application gave you an appropriate number, if 1800 calories is 500 - 1000 calories less than what you burn every day, then it did.

If CC and/or phord state that you should be eating 1800 calories a day, then it's already calculating what you're burning.

Plugging in your stats (from previous post) into the phord calculator, you should be losing about 2lbs a week eating about 1800 calories (assuming you are moderately active, you may a level higher). This is counting your moderate exercise and all those calories you burn while living and breathing. So you are burning close to 2800 calories a day, which is the maximum healthy deficit. Its also the most energy your body can metabolize from fat, making eating less no help at anything but making you feel like crap.

Eating less is only going to make your weight loss more difficult, and isn't actually going to make you lose weight any faster. You say you are here for help and not criticism, but that criticism is the most helpful thing you need to hear to succeed on your diet.

this is not rocket science and We do NOT need your stats. Basic nutrition 101 states in order to losse weight you should burn 500-1000 MORE calories then you eat! that simple! Calories in -vs- calories out! However in Defense of the other posters if you are a women of say 5'5" 5'6" medium build (my approx) you would be around 1650. that being said if you were this approximation you never want to go below 1250 for calorie consumption. another thing to remember eating too little Will Slow your metabolism and if you are loosing too fast you are in danger of putting it back on amongst the other dangers. Eating to  little is as serious a condition as eating too much, however I don't believe that was the question at hand.

I totally understand where you are coming from. The calorie calculator was way off for me. I lost the weight I wanted to and I am 5'6" @ 123 lbs. My ideal weight for me is 122-123. If I ate what the calculator said to, I would gain weight so fast, it would be terrible. So I eat to maintain my weight (123 lbs) which is taking in 1250 calories a day. Everyone has a unique physiology and you need to just see what works for you, as we are all so different. So many things play into our physiology so what works for one, may not for another. I know women who starve themselves and can't drop weight. If I take 100 calories off my day, I am guaranteed to drop .5 lb of fat, it is crazy but extremely consistent for me. I can even predict what my weight will be the next morning and I'm dead on every time. So find out what works for you and how your body repsonds. So with my 1250 target, if I were to eat 1500 calories, then theoretically (for what theory is even worth) I would need to burn off an additional 250 at the gym to prevent weight gain. Won't happen. I can burn 350 and I'll still put on weight, even though my intake would theoretically have been 1150. But if I don't work out and eat 1150, I will drop weight like a lead ball. Go figure. Obviously, the cardio machines cannot be accurate for everyone despite putting in your weight and age, etc. Get a good scale, weigh yourself naked every morning after using the restroom and you will get consistent information about the day before and how it worked for you and affected your weight. Count your calories and get enough protein. I try to shoot for 80-90 grams of protein a day for an athletic lifestyle.