Try this.
Take your weight you would like to be (ie. 170 lbs)
Multiply by 12. You get 2070.
Thats how many calories a 170 pound person should eat as a not very active person to just maintain their 170 pound weight.
Now, if you go burn 500 calories cycling, you can eat more than 2070 but less than 2570, and still lose weight at a good rate.
But, I found that if I ate my goal weight times 12, I’d generally be pretty satisfied at that calorie level even if I did a pretty hard hour to 1.25 hours of cycling every other day and did 30 minutes of strength training on the other days. . I really can’t say how much more to eat if you go burn like 1000 calories or something, that’s above my pay grade, lol
But, it worked great for me to lose about 35 pounds over 2 years while still eating healthy and satisfying meals and strength training to build some muscle mass at the same time.
The key is to count calories. That’s clear. Quitting alcohol does wonders as well. If you don’t count calories it makes it much harder.