Weight loss and weight lifting help

[Yolomanolo]

Looking for some advice and opinions. I'm trying to lose weight and tone up a bit. I am 224 pounds, but only need to lose about 25 or so to get where i want to be. I lift weights four days a week for about an hour. I use a "medium-heavy" weight for me. I am only taking in 1,700 to 1,800 calories a day, with about 70 to 100 grams of protein. My worry is that this is too little energy for me. I don't feel weak or deprived of food, but i don't want to break down my muscle. I have been told by folks that with adequate protein i will be just fine, but i have also been told that i'm taking in too little. And as for now i am not introducing cardio into my plan. I do understand that cardio is important, and would increase my calorie intake if i were to start cardio. Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[workoutdvdworld]

Just google an online weight loss calorie calculator and put your specs in. This will tell you how many calories you should be eating to lose fat. There are some like on Bodybuilding dot com, which also give you a break down of macro-nutrients (carbs, protein, fat). You can then figure out roughly how many calories you are burning during your weight lifting, by once again just googling it. So if the calorie calculator tells you to eat 2000 calories for weight loss and you are already burning 500 weight lifting, then you should actually be eating 2500 on the days that you are exercising. Even if the numbers sound huge, you will slow down your metabolic rate if you eat too little, which will mean you will end up having to keep reducing your calories to still be getting weight loss results. You want your metabolism as high as possible by eating enough, in the right balance, and eating little and often (5-6 sml meals a day). The weight training is great for increasing your metabolism, but if you want to burn the fat then you should definitely add some cardio. You can even do some circuit/interval training where you combine some cardio segments in between your weights. You can use the cardio to get your heart rate up and then use the weights as active recovery.