I'm new to the boards and for the new year I've decided to try and get into better shape. I'm 19 years old, 5'4 and 139 pounds. I want to lose weight the healthy way..No crash dieting. Once I lose it, I want to keep it off..but I'm not sure how many calories I should be consuming. I heard that you shouldn't go under 1200. I exercise daily though, so if I eat exactly or around 1200 I know the workouts I do (Turbo Jam, Tae Bo - any kind of dance/kickboxing stuff) is going to take me under that. Yet I don't want to eat too much and end up gaining weight either. So I guess my question is, if anyone knows how many calories someone of my height and weight - who is trying to lose weight - should be eating, to please help me out with that!

Also, as far as strength training goes, I've never really done too much of that. I'm thinking maybe that's why I haven't been losing any weight. I do cardio like crazy because I love it and it's fun but I never did too much to tone up or use weights at all. This is another thing I'm going to start trying. I have 4 pound weights here at home that I'll be using along with videos and such to help me out with that. My question here is how often should I be doing that? I've heard twice a week to every other day..So I'm totally lost!

I'm sorry if I wrote too much to try and get to my questions but I'm really determined to get the weight off and I think doing some research is the first step so I know what exactly I should be doing..Thanks in advance!

do a search on harris benedict formula and that will give you a general idea as to how many calories a day you should be having.

With exercise, a good estimate is 10 - 12 calories a lb - but every single person is different and depending on what's been done to your metabolism over the years it m ight be less than that or it might be more than that -you have to be a little experimental.

Read the stickied threads in exercise and nutrition and you shoudl get some better ideas as to what you shoudl be doing exercise wise.

__________________
Do not let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do. --John Wooden