How many calories?

[ON MY OWN]

How many calories would a woman who is 5 foot 1, 220 have to consume daily to lose about 3 - 4 pounds per week please? Along with 3 to 4 days of cardio and 5-15 pound free weights every other day. Some say 1000, some say 1200 or 1300....confusing.

 

Thank you.

Have a great day =D

Edited April 11, 2011 by ON MY OWN

[tman666]

How many calories you would need depends on many different factors, such as your base metabolism, how active you are, your hormonal profile, and what kind of food you eat.

 

It's impossible to come up with some arbitrary number that will be correct for you. You'll have to figure it out through experimentation. Make slow changes to your current diet. Keep in mind that protein produces the most thermogenesis in the body when digested, so keeping your meals primarily comprised of protein will help. Exercise is a must as well.

 

Your 5-15 lb weights are likely not doing jack for you though, I hate to say. Keep in mind that the body does not like change, and does whatever it can to maintain equilibrium. In order to illicit change, the outside stimulus (via diet and training) has to be fairly powerful. This means that you have to be putting forth a good effort every time you workout.

 

Remember: slow changes to the diet, hard training, consistency, patience and time.

[ON MY OWN]

How many calories you would need depends on many different factors, such as your base metabolism, how active you are, your hormonal profile, and what kind of food you eat.

 

It's impossible to come up with some arbitrary number that will be correct for you. You'll have to figure it out through experimentation. Make slow changes to your current diet. Keep in mind that protein produces the most thermogenesis in the body when digested, so keeping your meals primarily comprised of protein will help. Exercise is a must as well.

 

Your 5-15 lb weights are likely not doing jack for you though, I hate to say. Keep in mind that the body does not like change, and does whatever it can to maintain equilibrium. In order to illicit change, the outside stimulus (via diet and training) has to be fairly powerful. This means that you have to be putting forth a good effort every time you workout.

 

Remember: slow changes to the diet, hard training, consistency, patience and time.

 

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Thank you for your reply TMAN666 ,What would you recommend as far as weight training then? I used to be very active and in shape. However the depression bug hit and I gained a massive amount of weight. I am more sedentary then I have ever been as I have more than a FT status at school but wanted to make as much time as possible in the gym but want to be doing the right things. I need some sort of base line to work from. Lets just say I am just starting to get into working out again. Jogging and weight training used to work for me when I was in shape. HELP!

 

Thank you!!!

[tman666]

Thank you for your reply TMAN666 ,What would you recommend as far as weight training then? I used to be very active and in shape. However the depression bug hit and I gained a massive amount of weight. I am more sedentary then I have ever been as I have more than a FT status at school but wanted to make as much time as possible in the gym but want to be doing the right things. I need some sort of base line to work from. Lets just say I am just starting to get into working out again. Jogging and weight training used to work for me when I was in shape. HELP!

 

Thank you!!!

 

Sorry to hear that you hit a rough patch. It happens to us all occasionally, and life getting in the way of things can have a big impact on your workouts/nutrition, etc.

 

The good news is that it doesn't take a ton of activity to get in decent shape. The biggest factors are consistence and time, which requires patience and discipline. Many people look for quick fixes with their training and diets, and end up either spinning their wheels and going nowhere (not achieving their goals), or worse yet, getting taken for a ride and being sold a bunch of "miracle" supplements that they don't need and/or don't work.

 

For example, I noticed that you posted another thread regarding "Boot Camp". Some people go and have a lot of fun, but the problem lies in consistency. Some people will be able to stick to it for the long term, but most will go for a little while and then stop going all together after they get tired of being yelled at all the time, being told to overwork themselves, or get hurt. In my opinion, it's not a sustainable training method for most people.

 

That's not to say that intensity is not important. In fact, intensity (in terms of the effort you put forth) in the gym will be one of the biggest factors that determines your successes and failures. There are also many people who do not work out with enough intensity. They also do not end up achieving much, beyond being able to tell their friends that they work out.

 

What you want to try and do is find a good middle ground that is intense enough to cause your body to make adaptations, but do-able enough to look forward to sticking to in the long term. You could call it sort of an "80 percent rule". If you're giving 80 percent effort most of the time, with the occasional 100 percent day, you'll be more likely to stick to your regimen and make slow continual progress over a long period of time. You could also apply this philosophy to your diet as well. If you go from eating 2,500 calories per day of 60% carbs, 20% protein, and 20% fat to a diet of 1,500 calories for day of 60% protein, 30% carbs and 10% fat (for example), you are making a drastic change that will likely leave you feeling crummy, tired, moody, hungry, etc., which leaves you much less likely to be able to adhere to your diet over the long term. However, if you make small changes over time to your diet (cutting out only 200-300 calories per day), you'll be more able to stick to it. Again, the most determining factors in success are consistency, the right amount of hard work, and time.

 

As far as what kind of training you should be doing, I would advise against jogging. Jogging is a fun activity for some, but from a weight loss perspective, you (as a self-described overweight person), could be hurting your joints jogging. Jogging is actually a high impact activity on both the central nervous system and your joints. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that jogging is evil or anything, but you would be better off at this point doing daily, fasted walks. By fasted, I mean that you'll want to do your walks before you've had anything to eat for the day, which if you eat a typical morning breakfast, may be first thing in the morning. I would recommend that you take daily *brisk* walks for about 30-45 minutes per day.

 

As far as your workouts in the gym, there are a lot of different programs out there that emphasize solid principles. I would recommend "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" as a good guide. However, when it comes down to it, the program that you use is inconsequential when compared to your effort and principles. If you have the time, there's a good, free e-book written by Matt Perryman on his website: ampedtraining.com. It's a long read, but it will explain to you the principles behind getting stronger and more muscular.

 

I would also recommend that you check out JCDFitness.com and LeighPeele.com. Both are great resources.

 

 

[Kelemort]

How many calories would a woman who is 5 foot 1, 220 have to consume daily to lose about 3 - 4 pounds per week please? Along with 3 to 4 days of cardio and 5-15 pound free weights every other day. Some say 1000, some say 1200 or 1300....confusing.

 

Thank you.

Have a great day =D

 

 

This calculator can give you an idea of the calories you'd need to maintain your weight every day - subtracting 500 from that number each day would result in approximately one pound of weight loss per week, and etc.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

 

 

I've generally found that eating the number of calories dictated by your base metabolic rate (BMR) is most effective for me to lose weight, although that's not true of everybody:

 

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

 

You don't give your age, so that makes any calculation difficult - but a 20 to 30-year-old, 220 lb. 5 ft. 1 woman would need about 2,000 calories per day (if she were sedentary) to maintain her weight.

 

You say you want to lose 3 - 4 pounds per week. How you would split that up between exercise and diet is up to you - but if you split it roughly in half, that would be eating about 1000 - 1250 calories per day...and then burning up 750 - 1000 calories per day.

 

That's a lot of work. Most forms of exercising - walking at 4 mph, swimming, dancing, etc. - probably cause most people to burn about 800 calories per hour tops.

 

My advice is to start out slowly, figure out where you're at. I'm 23 and I have very little trouble losing weight - in fact, I tend to lose very rapidly with very little exercise compared to most people.