Ok, let me just get to the point! I have been hearing more and more lately about the best way to lose weight and it's counting calories! Mainly the calories in/calories out sort of thing! I'm not sure how to word my question but we usually go to curves at least 4x's a week and in a 30 minute workout I have been burning an average of between 425 and 475 calories. That doesn't include any movement on the recovery stations. I have also been playing a dancing game on my wii that will also track calories burned. I usually shoot for at least 500 calories on the game. I'm not a "hardcore" calorie counter in that I don't write down everything I eat but I do monitor the calorie/fat intake somewhat.

I don't want to have a plateau (which I'm sure at some point will be inevitable) so is it bad to burn a quarter to half of the calories I am taking in. Take today, I worked out and did the dancing which put me at burning about 820 calories not including the everyday calories your body burns naturally. I know I have taken in more than that but...does any of this make sense?? Does anybody get where I am going with this? If so, I would love any advice you can give me!!

I guess my main question is just how does all this "calories in/calories out" thing work? Thanks much!

Of course it makes sense...The calories your body would burn if you just stayed in bed (rmr) probably more than make up for the (1700 or so?) calories you are eating. Here...let me show you this: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php plug your info into that...and it will tell you your RMR...which is the approximation of how many calories your body burns with out exercise!

Personally, I don't count the calories I burn because I don't really have an accurate way of knowing for sure. Focus on the number of calories it takes to maintain your weight, then go X calories lower than that.

If it takes 3500 calories less than you take in to lose 1 pound, you need to cut 3500 calories out each week to lose 1 pound per week. That comes out to about 500 calories under maintenance per day. You need to figure out what your maintenance is, or just jump right in, pick a calorie level for weightloss and see how it works. You can do this by trial and error. Here's a good site to get you started but everyone is different. http://allnutritionals.com/calculato...calculator.php

Wow, I think this is starting to make more sense! Thanks so much for the help! The weight lost that is shown on my ticker has come off in the last month and a half. I know it seems like a lot and it usually comes off like that when I first start out but I just wanted to be sure that I can maintain what I am doing in order to keep losing and try to avoid gaining or plateauing!

Thanks again

I burn about 450 calories per day from exercise (on average) and i eat 1800 calories...which seems to work really well for me (ive lost 112 pounds and 33 pounds of that since january since this year - so it works really well with me) Best of luck !