Track how many calories you burn

Which helps you lose more weight: diet or exercise? What factors contribute to how many calories are burned? Several factors contribute to how quickly an individual burns calories, including: The intensity of an activity being performed. The more intense an activity is the more calories an individual burns. People who weigh more burn more calories.

Body composition. Muscle requires more energy than fat to maintain. People with more muscle burn more calories. How much activity do I need to do? Related Posts. More Stories From Focused on Health. The link between obesity and cancer risk is clear. Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the US. Menopause symptoms: Safe ways to control hormones. Using hormone therapy during menopause increases your risk of breast cancer and possibly ovarian cancer.

Help EndCancer. Give Now. Your gift will help make a tremendous difference. Donate Blood. Exercising with the sole goal of "punishing" yourself for what you ate or to burn a ton of calories may motivate you temporarily, but the most sustainable motivation for exercise comes from something positive, like exercising to relieve stress or to have fun.

Remember that exercise offers so many more benefits for your health and well-being than just weight loss or calorie burn. With this in mind, keep reading below for guidance from a certified trainer, Brooke Taylor , on the best strategy for working out to reach your weight loss goals.

If your goal is to lose weight and you're tracking calories, then you have to burn more calories than you consume, creating a deficit. To do this, you should take into account your basal metabolic rate , which is the number of calories your body burns at rest.

Then factor in how many calories you're eating per day. Once you have the total calories you burn at rest and eat in a week multiply your BMR by 7 and calorie intake by 7 you can adjust your calorie intake and workouts so that you're burning about 2, calories a week, which is the goal that Taylor gives most clients.

According to Taylor, aiming to lose one to two pounds each week is a healthy goal. One pound equals 3, calories , and you can split up how you create that deficit. She recommends burning 2, calories per week by exercising , and then trimming 1, calories a week from your diet, which breaks down to about fewer calories per day. A general rule is to aim to burn to calories, five days a week during your workouts.

Remember, the number of calories you burn in a workout depends on your weight, sex, age and many other factors, but this number is a good starting place. For example, a man who weighs pounds is going to burn more calories doing the same workout as a woman who weighs pounds. This is typically based on your heart rate and other personal information you entered into the device settings when you set it up like your weight, age and sex.

Taylor says she's a fan of the Polar heart-rate monitor since chest-strap monitors like Polar tend to be more accurate than trackers you wear on your wrist. To reach your negative energy balance and lose weight successfully, try to increase the amount of energy you use each day.

Of course, there are some components of your TEE that are hard to change. Increasing your resting metabolic rate, for example, is fairly difficult. And increasing the number of calories you burn when you eat food isn't an effective way to reach your negative energy balance, either. But you can change your daily physical habits.

Learn how to plan consistent workouts that are vigorous enough to burn fat but also allow your body enough time to recover , rebuild, and stay healthy. Between workouts, stay active. Take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk to the store instead of taking the car and stay active at home to burn calories.

You'll boost your calorie-burning potential and you may be able to increase lean muscle mass on your body, which can boost your resting metabolic rate. Remember that all calorie counts are estimates. Even the calorie counts on food packages are estimates. So, if you're trying to lose weight, expect that you will need to take some time for trial and error before you find the numbers that are right for you.

Use several different methods to find out how many calories you burn each day. Then experiment with food intake to find the right balance to meet your goals. Looking to lose weight? Our nutrition guide can help you get on the right track. Sign up for our newsletter and get it free! Energy balance and obesity. Westerterp KR. Control of energy expenditure in humans. Eur J Clin Nutr. Wearable activity trackers, accuracy, adoption, acceptance and health impact: A systematic literature review.

J Biomed Inform. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellFit. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page.