Your body burns calories continuously whether you are exercising, working, or simply going about your daily routine. How many calories you need each day depends on factors like age, gender, and activity level.
On average, men may require 2,200 to 3,300 calories daily, while women typically need 1,600 to 2,000 to maintain their energy balance.
Burning calories is equally important, as it helps you stay fit and healthy. It is also essential to know how many calories you need to eat and burn every day.
In this blog post, let’s understand how many calories you should burn a day. You will also learn about various methods that will help you calculate the right number of calories to consume and burn.
What Does “Calories Burned” Mean?
In simple terms, a calorie is a unit of heat energy. It is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 °C. In nutritional terms, a calorie is a measure of how much energy your body needs to function. Some foods carry more potential energy than others.
You can think of calories as fuel for your body. Like a car, your body needs to burn fuel to work. Calories are the fuel your body runs on, just like a car needs fuel to move. If you’re running the car on low fuel, you won’t be able to go as long as you want with your car.
If you’re not giving your body enough fuel, it won’t work properly. You won’t be able to exercise properly, which will terribly affect your fitness plan.
Another major thing to remember is that it’s easy to add more calories to your body, unlike filling a car with fuel, as its fuel tank has a limited capacity. When you consume more calories than you need, the excess energy gets stored in fat cells so that you can use it later. If you do that quite often, you’ll end up gaining weight.
When your body is processing food into energy, it is called metabolizing. Your metabolism is the system for converting food into energy that is used to keep your body working.
Your body is using energy all the time, even when you’re sleeping. You’re constantly metabolizing calories, and the energy is used to fuel the functions in your body.
Energy is necessary to move your body. This is in addition to everything you’re doing to keep all the essential functions going. Every action, whether it’s small or big, will burn some amount of calories.
Apart from that, there’s another factor called the Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body needs to keep doing the basic bodily functions. This includes breathing, your heartbeat, your nervous system, and other automatic things that your body does regularly.
A simple task like loading and unloading a dishwasher will use a small amount of calories. Strenuous activities use more calories.
How Many Calories Should You Burn Daily on Average?
Every individual is slightly different. There are various calculators that will tell you about your non-exercise calorie requirements according to your age, weight, and sex.
For instance, a moderately active 55-year-old male, who is 5 '10 " tall and weighs 170 pounds, requires 2400 calories per day to maintain his weight. On the other hand, a similarly aged woman who is 5’ 6” and weighs 140 pounds needs 1900 calories every day to maintain her weight. Younger individuals tend to burn more calories than older people.
A well-planned exercise plan can burn more calories. Adding physical activity to your day increases the number of calories burned per day by your body. Different kinds of exercises consume different amounts of calories.
For example, a person weighing 160 pounds, who is exercising for an hour, may use up the number of calories given below for these activities:
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Elliptical Machine: 365 calories
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Golf(Carrying Clubs): 314 calories
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Running(8KMPH): 606 calories
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Walking(5.6KMPH): 314 calories
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Cycling(under 15KMPH): 292 calories
- Hiking: 435 calories
Adding physical activity to your routine will allow you to burn more calories. Your basal metabolic rate will stay reasonably steady, although it does slow down with age. According to researchers, you can speed it up a little bit by developing more muscle.
It is so because muscle requires more energy than fat. More muscle tissue means that you’ll end up burning more calories on average.
However, individuals with some health problems may have a lower basal metabolic rate, such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, thyroid disorder, or Cushing’s syndrome. However, these syndromes are not very common.
How to Calculate Your Daily Calorie Burn?
Here’s what you need to do to calculate the number of calories you burn daily:
Calculate your Resting Metabolic Rate
Resting metabolic rate is the number of calories your body requires to function. To calculate your RMR, you need to consider your age, height, sex, and weight in the formula.
Use Full Equation
The Mifflin-St Jeor method is used to calculate the number of calories you should consume per day. This equation is:
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RMR x Activity Level = Calories Required to Maintain Weight
Simply multiplying the two values will provide an estimate of daily caloric requirements.
Calories Burned for Different Fitness Goals
How Many Calories Should You Burn Per Day to Lose Weight?
If you want to lose weight, it is recommended to cut down your calorie intake and increase your energy output to create a calorie deficit. This will help you lose fat.
It is important to choose a safe and realistic plan if you’re planning to lose weight. Many medical experts and health organizations recommend a weight loss goal of 1-2 pounds(450-900 g) per week or 4-8 pounds(1.81-3.6 Kgs) per month.
This may seem to be a small target, but research suggests that making small adjustments in your calorie intake will help you maintain your weight in the long term.
This method also helps you prevent compensatory changes related to very low-calorie diets, like loss of muscle mass, increased appetite, and reductions in RMR, which make weight loss more difficult to maintain.
Creating a calorie deficit of around 500 calories can help you lose one pound in a week or 4 pounds in a month. You can achieve this deficit by eating slightly fewer calories and increasing your activity levels through exercise.
Every individual has different body demands, and you may lose weight slower or faster depending on genetics, underlying health conditions, or other factors. You may have to consider these factors to understand how many calories you have to burn to lose weight.
For Muscle Gain
If you want to gain weight, you will need to increase your calorie consumption. This could mean eating an extra meal or snack every day while maintaining your energy input levels.
For those who want to build up muscle mass while maintaining their weight, they should consider increasing their protein intake while also increasing resistance training, which may do wonders for their muscle growth.
How to Burn More Calories?
If you want to lose weight or body fat by burning more calories, you need to use safe and effective methods. Here are some essential tips that will help you burn as many calories as possible:
Be More Active
You should consider adding more steps to your day or trying a new exercise program that will help you burn more calories.
Eat More Protein
You can burn extra calories by following a high-protein diet, as protein requires the most energy to digest. Protein will also help you feel more satiated after eating, which will help you control your appetite.
Add Resistance Training
Creating a resistance training plan, such as a weightlifting routine, can help you gain muscle mass, which is related to higher RMR.
Follow a Balanced Diet
Following a well-rounded, balanced diet in whole foods and lowering the consumption of foods that cause weight gain, such as fast foods and added sugars, can help you maintain your calorie range.
Best Exercises to Burn Calories Faster
Running
High-impact cardio can burn 500 to 900 calories per hour, depending on speed and body weight.
Cycling
Outdoor or stationary cycling can help you burn 400 to 1000 calories per hour based on the intensity and resistance.
High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT)
Short bursts of intense training exercise followed by rest are best for burning 500 to 900 calories per hour and boosting your metabolism.
Skipping
An intense full-body workout can burn 600 to 1000 calories per hour and improve coordination.
Full-Body Cardio
A full-body cardio workout strengthens your muscles and burns 400 to 600 calories per hour, especially when you’re doing it with proper intensity.
Swimming
Swimming works every muscle group. It can burn 400 to 700 calories per hour and is gentle on your joints.
Weightlifting
It may not be the quickest way to burn calories, but lifting weights can boost strength & muscle tone, and improve metabolism. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you’ll burn while resting.
Walking at Moderate Speed
Walking is the simplest and most accessible form of workout. Even if you’re walking for 30 minutes straight, you’ll end up burning 97 calories.
Common Mistakes to Avoid While Tracking Burned Calories
Here are some common mistakes that you need to avoid while tracking burned calories:
Relying Too Much on Fitness Trackers
Many wearable devices, such as smartwatches and rings, use generalized algorithms that can be inaccurate by 27% or 93% while estimating calorie burn.
Instead of treating the “Calories Burned” number on your watch as the absolute truth, you should use the trackers primarily to monitor trends, such as whether you’re more active this week than the previous one.
Eating Back Exercise Calories
This is one of the most common reasons that stall your progress. If your tracker says you burned 500 calories, you end up eating 500 extra calories later. Trackers often overestimate the calorie count, which will cause a calorie surplus in your body.
Instead of doing that, you should focus on a set daily calorie goal that already considers your activity level, and doesn’t add up “bonus” calories for every workout.
Overestimating “Gross” Vs “Net” Calories
Your body burns a baseline level of calories, also called Basal Metabolic Rate, just by existing.
Counting the total calories displayed on a cardio machine can be considered “extra.” For instance, a treadmill says you burned 300 calories in an hour. On the other hand, you may have burned roughly 60-100 of those calories by just sitting on a couch.
To avoid that assumption, subtract your estimated resting calories from the total workout number to find out the net extra burn.
Calories Burned vs Calories Consumed
Let’s think of our bodies as a bank account. Calories consumed are deposits, whereas calories burned are withdrawals.
When you eat and burn equally, your weight stays the same. When you eat more than you burn, extra energy gets stored as fat, causing weight gain. You also lose weight when you eat less than you burn, making your body burn stored fat.
Ignoring Non-Exercise Activity(NEAT)
Planned workouts account for nearly 5-10 % of your total energy consumption. Solely focusing on your gym workout and being sedentary the entire day is a big mistake.
You can prevent that mistake by paying attention to non-exercise activity thermogenesis(NEAT), which includes walking the dog, cleaning, or taking the stairs, as these activities burn more calories over time as compared to a single 30-minute workout.
How Many Calories Should You Burn Without Exercise?
The average adult burns between 1600-2400 calories per day without doing any formal exercise. However, this entire number depends on your age, sex, height, weight, and your activities throughout the day.
When Should You Adjust Your Calorie Burn Goal?
Adjusting your calorie burn goal is something that should be done strategically. You should not do it on a daily basis for a single workout. It needs to be done by following consistent data over 2-4 weeks.
When to Increase Your Daily Calorie Burn Goal:
Stagnating Progress
If your weight or body measurements haven’t changed for 3-4 consecutive weeks, despite following a plan, your body might have adapted. Due to this, you may need to increase your activity to restart a calorie deficit.
Increased Fitness Levels
As you get fitter, activities that you considered challenging become easier, which implies that you’ll burn fewer calories for the same effort. Increasing your goal will help you maintain the same level of intensity.
Higher Energy Levels
If you consistently go beyond your current goal without feeling any sort of fatigue, your body may be ready for a higher baseline of activity.
When to Decrease the Goal:
Overtraining Symptoms
If you’re experiencing persistent fatigue, lasting muscle soreness, irritability, or poor sleep, your goal might be too high and unsustainable.
Strength Regression
If you notice a steady drop in how much you can lift or your workout performance is crashing, your body is not recovering properly.
Excessive Rapid Loss
Consistently losing more than 2.2 pounds every week after the first few weeks can result in loss of muscle and a slowdown of metabolism.
To Summarize
The number of calories your body requires each day depends on your body type, lifestyle habits, and health goals. While an average person may need roughly 2200-3000 and 1600-2000 calories every day, your needs may change depending on your height, weight, and level of activity.
Calculating your calorie requirements can help you ensure that you’re prioritizing your health and fitness goals.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is burning 500 calories a day good?
Burning 500 calories every day is good, as it ensures steady progress, sustainability, and preserves your muscle mass.
Can I lose weight without exercise?
Yes, you can lose weight without any exercise if you consume fewer calories. However, exercise is important to maintain that weight loss over the long term.
How accurate are fitness trackers?
Fitness trackers are most accurate when it comes to counting steps and monitoring heart rate. However, they are inconsistent and unreliable for measuring burned calories.
