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Anonymous
If I do cardio for an hour on an elliptical every day and supposedly burn a little more than 900 calories(at least that's what the machine says), how many calories should I ideally eat in a day so that I lose weight, but don't trigger starvation mode in my body?
>> Anonymous
a billion
>> Anonymous
if that cardio is all you do 2500 cals should cover it
>> Anonymous
>>29943

Wow that was really helpful.
>> Anonymous
they have exercise machines that tell you how many calories youre burning? damn, i gotta get to a gym!
>> Anonymous
>>29951

you're welcome
>> Anonymous
>>29941
1. all machines overestimate the cals burned by a lot
2. all you can do trial and error to figure out how much you need to eat to not lose weight. everyone's daily calorie expenditure is different, no one can tell you an answer
>> Anonymous
2500 as told, but 900 in an hour is pretty sick unless you're fat but fit.
>> Anonymous
Are you male or female? How tall are you? Google BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. That will help you determine your "maintenance" calorie amount, and then even if you eat 100 calories under that and exercise, you will lose weight.

Elliptical is good, but weight training is even better. Even if you just do 2 cardio days and 2 weight days you'll get better results than cardio everyday. Also you can overtrain working out everyday, and your body will get used to it, you will end up working harder to get decreasing results.
>> Anonymous
>>30035

OP here, I'm male, 5'10, and 218, just checked and I need supposedly 2187.3cal according to a Basal Metabolic Rate calculator.

I used to do weight training senior year of high school, and I had a somewhat consisent schedule of weight training through out this college year, but I was under the impression that either I could run, eat less, and burn fat or lift weights, eat more, and gain muscle. I was hoping to lose the fat before I started trying to gain muscle again.
>> Anonymous
>>30069
You won't gain massive muscle eating at lower than maintenance calories. The idea is to maintain lean muscle mass while burning fat. There are a lot of other benefits to lifting versus cardio... such as putting yourself into an anabolic state. After a decent lifting session for the next ~12-24 hours depending on what you eat most of the food is used to repair your muscles rather than stored.
>> Anonymous
I should mention the other bad thing about eating less + cardio is that your body starts to use muscle tissue for energy instead of, or along with fat.

You don't want to lose muscle, it's counterproductive. Every pound of muscle on you burns 50 calories a day. Gain a pound of muscle, your BMR stays the same, but you're burning 50 calories each day just by existing.