Hello All,

Hoping someone can help me with my daily calorie consumption. I'm 46 years old. I weigh 165 and 5 foot 7 inches.

I'm fairly new to fitness and just want to lose some belly and keep my body and heart in shape.

I do a weight workout two times a week which consists of 2 sets each of the following: chest (bench or pushups), Lats (pullups or chinups), Legs (seated press or lunges), Abs and Calves. Each weight workout is followed by 15 minutes of cardio (med intensity). I push it only so far as add a rep or two each workout.

I also do 30 mins of cardio twice a week and walk a lot (total 4 hours per week).

I figured on about 2400 calories a day for me. Is that too much, too little or just right?

Thanks in advance for any help

-Tom

Hello Tom,

Looks like you got a nice workout program going on.
Keep up the good work!

According to calculations on different websites, you could try to lower your calories a little bit. For fat loss, considering height and weight, you should be closer to 2000 than 2500.

I would try approx 2200 and see how it goes. Check your weight once a week or so. But keep in mind: the most important thing is to lose fat, not weight. You could very well keep your current weight, but still lose fat, simply because muscle weighs more than fat.

Good luck Tom!!

Calories Burned, BMI, BMR & RMR Calculator | CaloriesPerHour.com

Calorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needs

Use one of those to figure out it. Just remember that in the end it's all an estimate. To lose fat you want to be at about a 500 calorie deficit or 15-20% lower than maintenance as a general idea.

A quick method to figure it out is 14-16x your bodyweight to maintain, 10-12x bodyweight to lose fat. There is science behind that too. It's not jump a random formula.

2400 sounds decent. The amount of your deficit should reflect how fast you want to lose the weight. Bigger deficit equals faster fat loss. Don't go too big because then your training will suffer. i'm with Ride on as well on his post.

[QUOTE=Ride_On;388033A quick method to figure it out is 14-16x your bodyweight to maintain, 10-12x bodyweight to lose fat. There is science behind that too. It's not jump a random formula.[/QUOTE]

I've heard these before and they seem to work, although I'd never go down to BWx10, That seems like starvation, I'd go for BWx12.

2,400 seems like too many calories for someone so light to lose weight, I'd have thought 2,000 would be closer to the mark (just off the top of my head though)

Well, that's why there's a range. I agree though, 10 is pretty low. It should probably have been more like 11-13. Here you go. This is where it comes from (good read, and not terribly long for those of you who can't concentrate very long ):
How To Estimate Maintenance Caloric Intake

All,

for various reasons i've been away from the PC (and this site). Didnt get a timely chance to say Thanks....

Thanks everyone for the informative posts.....

-Tom