Is this right?

okay so my daily allowance is no more than 1800 cal.... to loose 1-2lbs a week...right... i workout 5 days a week and burn about 800 calories....... so in reality how many calories should i be consuming altogether........ sorry for the dumb question to some... im new to this calorie counting stuff

I might be wrong but don't you stick another 800 on top to keep you energised for the exercise? So isn't it 2,600 cals?

Help!!!

you don't want to go below 1200 calories, to avoid starvation mode, so you could eat 2000 calories on the days you burn 800.

okay so does that mean that 2,600 calories like speedy2056 suggested is a bit much to lose the 1-2 lbs per week??

It does sound like a bit much, but then again I don't know your height/weight.

I've been working out a lot and since Jan 25 I've lost 20.4lbs. I have been consistently losing more than 2lbs a week and am eating 1200 calories. I am not in starvation mode, but I am seeing the results I want to see. I imagine that now my losses per week will be around 2 or less. I think the higher losses each week are due to it being the beginning.

Depending how much you want to lose, I would suggest eating 1200 and if you feel too hungry after doing that for a week, you could up it to 1400.

In order to lose a pound you have to have a deficit of 3500 calories (by eating less cals and burning more) So to lose 2 in a week, your deficit has to be 7000. You can enter your calories & your workouts plus your basal and see where that leaves you calorie-wise.

Also this site has a calculator to figure that stuff out, you can try that too. In fact, that's probably what I'd do if I were you!! :)

Dee

this is more complicated than i thought... 115lbs....5'5....5 lbs to lose....

with only 5lbs to lose, it's very likely that it might take a bit longer than you think. At least that's usually the norm, that the last 10 or so is harder to lose. Try entering that info on this site & see what it says to eat & do cardio, cardio, cardio!! Good luck!!!

D

There are 3500 calories per pound.  So to lose a pound a week, your daily calorie deficit should be 500, and to lose 2 pounds a week it should be 1000.  It's recommended that the deficit be 500-750 a day.  So if you use the activity log and figure out how many calories you burn a day, just subtract the deficit you want and that's how many calories you should consume.  On days you work out, you can eat more to make up for more burned calories, but it won't be the whole 800 because the calories burned replace your normal expenditure instead of adding on.  Hope this helps!

Okay given your info, 2600 does sound like a bit much. I'd stick to around 2000 calories on those days where you burn 800 (800 is a lot to burn in a day).

And the last 5lbs are hard to lose... don't get discouraged tho, you'll see the results soon!

i think i get it now.... thank you all for the encouraging words :)

There's no magical minimum calorie amounts that would trigger starvation response. It's all personal. If your BMR is 2400 and you are on a minus 600 Calorie diet, it's perfectly ok to eat 2600 Calories on a day you excercise for 800 Cal.

With that BMR, eating for example 1200 calories a day for longer period of time would most likely slow down your metabolism. Especially if you burn extra 800 with excercise - that would be minus 1800 calories on the excercise days, which is way too much.