Knowing how many calories you need to burn to lose the amount of weight that you want is important for organizing your cardio routine. Some forms of cardio burn weight more slowly than others and require more time to help you lose weight. Try to find the right balance between a cardio plan that you enjoy and burning enough calories to stay healthy.
Daily Calorie Requirements
You lose weight by simply consuming fewer calories than you use on a daily basis. By default, your body uses a certain amount of calories every day, called your basal metabolic rate. Your basal metabolic rate varies depending on your age, body size and level of fitness. Your body also burns calories when you move around performing day-to-day activities. A 30-year-old male requires an average of 2,400 calories each day without getting much exercise. A 30-year-old female who does not exercise much requires an average of 1,800 calories a day.
Calorie Burning
Exercise allows you to increase the amount of calories your body uses each day. The amount of calories you burn doing cardio depends on the sort of exercise you prefer. An intense exercise like running will allow you to burn weight than leisurely bicycling. You need to burn 3,500 calories to lose 1 lb. An eight-mile run burns 986 calories on average, so jogging eight miles every day will burn off a pound of fat every three or four days. An hour of high-impact aerobics burns about 511 calories, so it would take you around seven days to lose a pound with daily aerobics.
Set Your Goals
Set a weight-loss goal to decide how much cardio you need to lose weight. If you want to lose 1 lb. per week, then your calorie intake must be 500 fewer than the amount of calories your body uses each day. So if you are female and you eat 2,000 calories each day, you will need to do enough cardio to get your daily calorie requirement up to 2,500. With a basic metabolic rate of 1,800 calories per day, you will need to do enough cardio to burn 700 calories. You can burn 700 calories by running for 45 minutes at 8mph or by jogging at 5mph for 90 minutes.
Options
Adding cardio to your daily routine affords you some flexibility with respect to how many calories you can consume. While an inactive female may have to consume less than her 1,800-calorie-per-day requirement to lose weight, burning off calories with exercise allows you to exceed your daily calorie requirement and still lose weight. For example, if you burn 584 calories jogging five miles per day, you could eat about 384 extra calories each day and still lose 1 lb. in 18 days.
Concerns
Paying attention to how many calories you burn during exercise also helps you know that you get enough calories each day. While cardio helps you burn calories, your body also needs a healthy amount of calories to energize you during exercise and repair your muscles and joints afterward. Doing too much cardio while restricting your diet may deprive your body of the nutrients it needs to keep you healthy, which can result in fatigue, poor concentration and heart problems in the long term.
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