Help with calorie counting !!!!!

[onerepmaximum]

I would say that the more calories you take in, you are less likely to catabolize muscle tissue, even if you do cardio. I try to take in right about what my BMR is (about 1800) and let my activity create a deficit. I'm 5'6" and right about 200lbs @ about 8% BF. Hopefully I'll be about 4% in 10 weeks.

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

Cardio is 30-40 min on elliptical trainer. I burn about 500 cal (at least that is what machine says in 30 min). Oh and cardio is every day

I question the intensity you would have to excercise at in order to burn 500 calories per 1/2 hour duration. Infact, I would say you would be quite the athletic one if you could excerise at such an intensity, let alone keep up this intensity each and every day for 1 month straight without overtraining, or injuries due to fatigue. I suspect that your elliptical trainers calorie burning readout may be flawed with the purpose of encouraging excercise with their product, and the spreading of this false information to create other buyers.

But nonetheless I would suggest you lower your cardiovascular excercise to burn about 250 to 500 per day five days per week, giving you more time to rest and recuperate, while adjusting your calories accordingly.

I might also look into exercising at a lower intensity, possibly 65% MHR, while extending your excerise time (cardio) to about 45 to 60 minutes. Many studies back that excercising at lower intensities for longer periods of time (burning the same amount of overall calories), as well as excercising 1.5 - 2 hours after eating will burn more fat as opposed to glycogen, but I must note that further studies are needed to prove this fact, and that nothing is written in stone.