Calorie Consumed/Burned ratio

[bashir26]

So I'm around 180 and I consume around 3000 calories a day. If i want to a better tone it makes sense to hit the track or swim more to burn calories. My question is how many calories am I supposed to be burning vs how much i consume. Is there a ratio out there? I'd like to be the same weight, but just more tone.

[ragu]

Are you an ecto, meso or endo?
Go to any website and find out your optimum calorie intake according to your weight, height and daily activity. Now cut that short by 500 calories everyday. Make sure to eat a lot of protein and less amount of carbs.

So say for you to maintain it takes 2500 calories.
Days when you are not working out take 2,000 calories.
Days when you do workout take 2500 calories.
Protein should be around 300g per day for you.

Thats all, you don't necessarily need to do a lot of cardio. Appropriate diet will cut fat no problem.

[liquidboi69]

Burn 500 more than you consume every day. Any more and you might burn a lot of muscle and feel really lethargic. That translates to about 1lb/fat loss per week.

Realistically, if you do a 1:1 ratio and you are active your body will burn your fat and put on muscle (assuming you eat the right things ie: lots of protein). You'll probably lose some fat weight and have a net loss in weight with a 500 deficit.

[dandia89]

i would make sure to incoporate a strength training program just to make sure you are not losing any muscle mass. i'm pretty sure your goal is just to reduce body fat percentage which will require some cardio and weights.

[wintonyk]

300 g of protein a day is a bit ridiculous... may as well shit on your money.

American Institue of Sports Medicine says 1.7 g/kg so for someone your size roughly 140 g. Thats gonna give you 600 calories in your day right there.

To find out how many calories you need look up the harris benedict equation. You can use that to figure your amount of calories you need.

If you meet the amount of calories you need for each day and combine it with strength and cardio you should be able to trim up by gaining muscle and burning fat.

I decreased my body fat by just under 2% from 7 to 5.4 and managed to gain 2 pounds. This was over the course of 4 months.

Basically what is happening is your laying of new muscle and burns extra calories then the furnace burns warmer. A person with more muscle will burn more calories doing the exact same thing as someone that is not conditioned.