calories burned during cardio question

[QUOTE=slothasor]hey, i'm trying to lose the extra poundage, currently taking in 2000cals, and doing about 30 mins of cardio, 5 days/wk (run 10-15 mins, then leasurly jog/walk back) i'm going for a 500 cal deficit, so my question is, should i factor the cal's that I burn during cardio into my calorie deficit? in other words, if i burn 500 cals during cardio, should i up my daily cal intake by 500 as oposed to not doing cardio at all?

if this is the case, what is stopping me from just eating 500 less cal's/day and just skipping cardio, which i'm asuming isnt a good idea.

thanks[/QUOTE]

An accepted average of calories burned is 100 per mile, so lets say your runnign 2 miles in 15 minutes, that will put you at about 200 calories burned, the walk/jog is a calculation I dont know so I will give 100. So there is 300

If your body requires 2000 and you drop to say 1700 your metabolism will slow to meet the lowered intake and put you at 150 less than what you were burnign at 2000(thats on high carb diet) or 85 less on a low carb diet. So lets assume low carb diet and put you at 215 calories from less food consumed.

Now to the bonus, doing cardio bosts your metabolism for the day, the higher intensity and longer duration will causes even more of an increase, arbitrarily lets go with a 5% increase. You need 2000, but due to calorie restriction your body now only burns 1915. But thanks to that intense cardio you did(70% or greater heart rate) your metabolism is up by 95 calories, putting your burn rate at 2015, plus 300 from cardio(10 a minute with running and walking is a very modest estimation) sets you at 2315, and only consuming 1700.

There you have it around 1lb a week burnt, with out limiting your intake by very much. There are alot of other factors, like source of calories when burned, etc, which are controlled by intake and cardio. Also ignore the fat burnign zone myth, if you want to know more about why to ignore it search the articles they have many more numbers than I will provide.

A very important aspect of weight loss is adding muscle. Great you lost weight, now you soft and thin. Or you replaced that fat with increased muscle, your metabolism is higher, you have muscle, and you look good with a shirt off. When you cheat your body fogives you better because you can burn it off. Otherwise your body loses muscle in propotion to fat, what used to be a metabolic requirement of 2000 calories becomes a requirement of 1700, and it becomes harder to hit your goals....