Is Burning off almost an entire day's worth of calories normal?
jacki865
Posts: 122 Member
Well my calorie goal is 1200 and today before dinner I burned about 600 calories on a 20 % incline walk for an hour and then some friends offered to do a Zumba class which is estimated to burn about 500 calories for that 45 minute duration. These are all rough estimates I got using multiple calculators online taking my weight into consideration. Well that's 1100 calories and I haven't even ate dinner yet which puts me at a net of 1600 which is more than my goal. I'm still learning the whole calories in/calories out and how exercise comes in. But I never heard of burning an entire days goal of calories in 2 hours. Has that ever happened to you?
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You don't give your weight so it is hard to say.
I have burned off my entire day's worth of calories but it was way more than 2 hours of exercise.
Were you holding on at all while walking on a 20% incline?
And 500 calories for Zumba for 45 minutes is not likely at all. Not even close. That is the same effort roughly as running 5 miles in about that time.0 -
It seems your calorie burnt estimates could be high. What are your stats?0
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I'm 5,2 230 24 f0
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Every calculator online I have put it on has given around 500-700 per workout. I know they are only estimates but I can't imagine there is that much of a difference0
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I think the zumba count is likely fairly accurate. Wearing my hrm at zumba when i was 230 (5'5") i used to burn around 625cals per hour. It was pure cardio. Way more effort than it currently takes me to run 5 miles at an 11:30 pace (now 172).
Btw.... net calories are what eat, minus exercise.
So it you eat 1600 cals one day... thats your gross cal intake. If you burn 400 cals via exercise that same day you will net 1200 (1600-400) calories.0 -
Every calculator online I have put it on has given around 500-700 per workout. I know they are only estimates but I can't imagine there is that much of a difference
Were you holding onto the rails while walking on the treadmill? If so, it will affect your energy output a lot.
500-700 calories an hour is a very hard effort for anyone, like pushing hard the entire time, no slowing down. For those who carry more weight, they do burn more calories, but it is also much harder for them to maintain that effort for the entire hour.
To put it in perspective, with the weight you provided, to burn 700 calories you would have to run almost 5 miles.0 -
I think the zumba count is likely fairly accurate. Wearing my hrm at zumba when i was 230 (5'5") i used to burn around 625cals per hour. It was pure cardio. Way more effort than it currently takes me to run 5 miles at an 11:30 pace (now 172).
Btw.... net calories are what eat, minus exercise.
So it you eat 1600 cals one day... thats your gross cal intake. If you burn 400 cals via exercise that same day you will net 1200 (1600-400) calories.
The problem with using a HRM for something like Zumba is that it is not steady state. HRMs are less accurate for intervals.0 -
Yes that steep of an incline I was holding onto the bars and the machine gave me way more calories . I was able to maintain it with adjusting the incline between 15 to 30 to stimulate a hike. At the end the average incline the machine have me was 23 so I just stuck with 20. I hike on the regular so maintaining it wasn't an issue and I was watching a movie while doing it so I was distracted. But I definitely cannot jog miles and maintain it the whole way0
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Yes that steep of an incline I was holding onto the bars and the machine gave me way more calories . I was able to maintain it with adjusting the incline between 15 to 30 to stimulate a hike. At the end the average incline the machine have me was 23 so I just stuck with 20. I hike on the regular so maintaining it wasn't an issue and I was watching a movie while doing it so I was distracted. But I definitely cannot jog miles and maintain it the whole way
Holding on will affect the calorie estimate.
In the end it is up to you. Eventually the scale/measurements will give the true answer. My honest opinion is that the calories given are too high. It's up to you to decide if you think so or not.0 -
If I went by my heart rate monitor, I tend to burn 4-5k calories per workout. Since I don't do steady state cardio, it's probably more likely along the lines of 500-700 in all honesty if that high. HRMs are not all that accurate for anything other than steady state cardio, is really my point.0
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Should I just half the estimates I get from online to account for stuff like holding onto the rail? The thing is I am at a 1200 calorie diet so I don't want to starve my body if I am in fact burning as much as it says I am. The 1200 calorie goal on my app is set to sedentary meaning I will lose 2 lbs a week if I don't do any physical activity, so I can log all my exercises separately without it automatically assuming I will exercise. Considering I didn't expect that I would be able to maintain low impact cardio workouts (such as incline trainer and elliptical) and I do some minor activity I don't record such as walking the dog, I don't want to over or under estimate my calorie burn cause that makes the difference between over eating or starving. I'm losing weight steadily but I want to make sure this is a correct way to go about it.0
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Should I just half the estimates I get from online to account for stuff like holding onto the rail? The thing is I am at a 1200 calorie diet so I don't want to starve my body if I am in fact burning as much as it says I am. The 1200 calorie goal on my app is set to sedentary meaning I will lose 2 lbs a week if I don't do any physical activity, so I can log all my exercises separately without it automatically assuming I will exercise. Considering I didn't expect that I would be able to maintain low impact cardio workouts (such as incline trainer and elliptical) and I do some minor activity I don't record such as walking the dog, I don't want to over or under estimate my calorie burn cause that makes the difference between over eating or starving. I'm losing weight steadily but I want to make sure this is a correct way to go about it.
I would walk on the treadmill at an incline I would maintain without holding on.
And I would cut the Zumba in half.
That would give you 550 calories above 1200, so 1750. That is enough that you likely aren't starving yourself. And if you find it hard to maintain after a couple of weeks, or that you are losing more than expected, you can up it.0 -
I have like 2400 calories a day .. I can't join this discussion. I'll just read lol0
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3dogsrunning wrote: »I think the zumba count is likely fairly accurate. Wearing my hrm at zumba when i was 230 (5'5") i used to burn around 625cals per hour. It was pure cardio. Way more effort than it currently takes me to run 5 miles at an 11:30 pace (now 172).
Btw.... net calories are what eat, minus exercise.
So it you eat 1600 cals one day... thats your gross cal intake. If you burn 400 cals via exercise that same day you will net 1200 (1600-400) calories.
The problem with using a HRM for something like Zumba is that it is not steady state. HRMs are less accurate for intervals.
Maybe it was just my zumba class, but it was definitely not intervals. It was a pretty steady rate of exertion. Very similar to (in my opinion) the steady exertion of running several miles at a steady pace (on a treadmill).0 -
Those numbers seem extremely inflated. I'd eat back no more than half at the absolute most.0
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those numbers seem high..0
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Well my calorie goal is 1200 and today before dinner I burned about 600 calories on a 20 % incline walk for an hour and then some friends offered to do a Zumba class which is estimated to burn about 500 calories for that 45 minute duration. These are all rough estimates I got using multiple calculators online taking my weight into consideration. Well that's 1100 calories and I haven't even ate dinner yet which puts me at a net of 1600 which is more than my goal. I'm still learning the whole calories in/calories out and how exercise comes in. But I never heard of burning an entire days goal of calories in 2 hours. Has that ever happened to you?Should I just half the estimates I get from online to account for stuff like holding onto the rail? The thing is I am at a 1200 calorie diet so I don't want to starve my body if I am in fact burning as much as it says I am. The 1200 calorie goal on my app is set to sedentary meaning I will lose 2 lbs a week if I don't do any physical activity, so I can log all my exercises separately without it automatically assuming I will exercise. Considering I didn't expect that I would be able to maintain low impact cardio workouts (such as incline trainer and elliptical) and I do some minor activity I don't record such as walking the dog, I don't want to over or under estimate my calorie burn cause that makes the difference between over eating or starving. I'm losing weight steadily but I want to make sure this is a correct way to go about it.
As the others have mentioned, those numbers seem really high ... so yes, I'd half them.
OK, you've got 1200 calories to use.
Plus, say, 300 calories for the walk
Plus, say, 250 calories for the Zumba
Total: 1750 calories.
Many of us eat only about half our exercise calories back, so subtract 275 calories to remove half your exercise calories.
Total: 1475 calories.
Eat all the 1475 calories.
You could probably even eat a little bit more if you happened to be really hungry. Once in a while I'll eat 75% or 90% of my exercise calories because I'm having a really hungry day.
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3dogsrunning wrote: »I think the zumba count is likely fairly accurate. Wearing my hrm at zumba when i was 230 (5'5") i used to burn around 625cals per hour. It was pure cardio. Way more effort than it currently takes me to run 5 miles at an 11:30 pace (now 172).
Btw.... net calories are what eat, minus exercise.
So it you eat 1600 cals one day... thats your gross cal intake. If you burn 400 cals via exercise that same day you will net 1200 (1600-400) calories.
The problem with using a HRM for something like Zumba is that it is not steady state. HRMs are less accurate for intervals.
Maybe it was just my zumba class, but it was definitely not intervals. It was a pretty steady rate of exertion. Very similar to (in my opinion) the steady exertion of running several miles at a steady pace (on a treadmill).
Yes...it totally depends on the class/instructor and how much effort you are putting into it.0 -
Well my calorie goal is 1200 and today before dinner I burned about 600 calories on a 20 % incline walk for an hour and then some friends offered to do a Zumba class which is estimated to burn about 500 calories for that 45 minute duration. These are all rough estimates I got using multiple calculators online taking my weight into consideration. Well that's 1100 calories and I haven't even ate dinner yet which puts me at a net of 1600 which is more than my goal. I'm still learning the whole calories in/calories out and how exercise comes in. But I never heard of burning an entire days goal of calories in 2 hours. Has that ever happened to you?
Did you hold on in your 20% incline, because that is rather steep and if you held on you counteracted any benefit in the incline. Always walk without holding on...at 230lbs I would imagine you burned around 500 cals if walking at a decent intensity (based on walking uphill being around 5 METs)
...Zumba I'd say probably more like 3-400
So if your goal is 1200 you get to eat 2100 today ...or spread it over the week in ice cream
Good times0 -
Are you losing weight? If not, eat less, exercise more, or both. If so, keep doing what you're doing and don't worry about it.0
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Yes that steep of an incline I was holding onto the bars and the machine gave me way more calories . I was able to maintain it with adjusting the incline between 15 to 30 to stimulate a hike. At the end the average incline the machine have me was 23 so I just stuck with 20. I hike on the regular so maintaining it wasn't an issue and I was watching a movie while doing it so I was distracted. But I definitely cannot jog miles and maintain it the whole way0
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3dogsrunning wrote: »I think the zumba count is likely fairly accurate. Wearing my hrm at zumba when i was 230 (5'5") i used to burn around 625cals per hour. It was pure cardio. Way more effort than it currently takes me to run 5 miles at an 11:30 pace (now 172).
Btw.... net calories are what eat, minus exercise.
So it you eat 1600 cals one day... thats your gross cal intake. If you burn 400 cals via exercise that same day you will net 1200 (1600-400) calories.
The problem with using a HRM for something like Zumba is that it is not steady state. HRMs are less accurate for intervals.
Maybe it was just my zumba class, but it was definitely not intervals. It was a pretty steady rate of exertion. Very similar to (in my opinion) the steady exertion of running several miles at a steady pace (on a treadmill).
The problem with any class-based exercise or something like elliptical is how hard one actually works makes a difference, and lots of people who aren't that fit perceive themselves as working really hard (and are, in terms of how hard it is for them, which also often means a high heart rate), but aren't actually objectively working at a hard or high enough pace to burn the calories that the HRM or machine or on-line estimate states.
As a comparison, someone of 150 burns about 100 calories/mile when running (although it's really less since that includes what you would have burned anyway). When I started out, I would run 3 miles at a 12:00 or 12:30 pace and feel like I was working at maximum effort, but I still only burned roughly 300 calories (well, more because I was more than 150, but not more based on it feeling super hard and my heart rate being high). Now, if I ran 3 miles at 12:00 it would be a super easy run and my heart rate would remain reasonably low, by comparison, but it's still the same basic calories (adjusted for a lower rate).
2 people of different fitness levels can have the same heart rate on an elliptical or in a class and yet be working at very different levels (I don't actually know how zumba is, but I'm basing this on the classes I have attended where how hard you work varies based on fitness and the effort you put in). This is actually one reason I don't like DVD workouts -- I tend not to work as hard at them, vs. a class at the gym. (My sister, on the other hand, is motivated to work extremely hard in a DVD workout.)
Anyway, this is just a theoretical discussion of the difficulties of estimating calories. I'm not making any assumptions about how hard you (or OP!) was working.
OP, I'd start by halving or taking three-quarters of the numbers and then see how your losses compare with your goal over time and adjust. If they turn out to be higher (mine actually did, although I think that was more due to me walking more during the day than I'd accounted for), then you can adjust up and take a higher percentage or all. (Or if you feel like you are lacking energy, eat more.)0 -
As the others have mentioned, those numbers seem really high ... so yes, I'd half them.
OK, you've got 1200 calories to use.
Plus, say, 300 calories for the walk
Plus, say, 250 calories for the Zumba
Total: 1750 calories.
Many of us eat only about half our exercise calories back, so subtract 275 calories to remove half your exercise calories.
Total: 1475 calories.
Eat all the 1475 calories.
You could probably even eat a little bit more if you happened to be really hungry. Once in a while I'll eat 75% or 90% of my exercise calories because I'm having a really hungry day.
I've never seen people halve their exercise calories after already halving the estimated burn they got from online calculators. I thought the point in halving was because the calories burned was overestimated? So the calculators gave her 600 and 500, I thought she would just cut those in half because they were overestimated, giving her the total of 1750.0 -
You've gotten plenty of good advice. At the end of the day, learn to listen to your body. Start with 1475 as Machka9 suggested and then see if you lose +/-1-2 lb. If you're losing more you need to eat a little more, but that should be enough to keep you on track while losing. Monday's are usually really easy since I rest and eat more during the weekend, but I notice that later in the week I'm way more hungry. I think that's just the build up of being at a little too aggressive of a deficit. Later in the week I'll have a protein shake or something extra to keep going.0
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cdudley628 wrote: »
As the others have mentioned, those numbers seem really high ... so yes, I'd half them.
OK, you've got 1200 calories to use.
Plus, say, 300 calories for the walk
Plus, say, 250 calories for the Zumba
Total: 1750 calories.
Many of us eat only about half our exercise calories back, so subtract 275 calories to remove half your exercise calories.
Total: 1475 calories.
Eat all the 1475 calories.
You could probably even eat a little bit more if you happened to be really hungry. Once in a while I'll eat 75% or 90% of my exercise calories because I'm having a really hungry day.
I've never seen people halve their exercise calories after already halving the estimated burn they got from online calculators. I thought the point in halving was because the calories burned was overestimated? So the calculators gave her 600 and 500, I thought she would just cut those in half because they were overestimated, giving her the total of 1750.
That's how I'd do it.0 -
Well my calorie goal is 1200 and today before dinner I burned about 600 calories on a 20 % incline walk for an hour and then some friends offered to do a Zumba class which is estimated to burn about 500 calories for that 45 minute duration. These are all rough estimates I got using multiple calculators online taking my weight into consideration. Well that's 1100 calories and I haven't even ate dinner yet which puts me at a net of 1600 which is more than my goal. I'm still learning the whole calories in/calories out and how exercise comes in. But I never heard of burning an entire days goal of calories in 2 hours. Has that ever happened to you?Should I just half the estimates I get from online to account for stuff like holding onto the rail? The thing is I am at a 1200 calorie diet so I don't want to starve my body if I am in fact burning as much as it says I am. The 1200 calorie goal on my app is set to sedentary meaning I will lose 2 lbs a week if I don't do any physical activity, so I can log all my exercises separately without it automatically assuming I will exercise. Considering I didn't expect that I would be able to maintain low impact cardio workouts (such as incline trainer and elliptical) and I do some minor activity I don't record such as walking the dog, I don't want to over or under estimate my calorie burn cause that makes the difference between over eating or starving. I'm losing weight steadily but I want to make sure this is a correct way to go about it.
As the others have mentioned, those numbers seem really high ... so yes, I'd half them.
OK, you've got 1200 calories to use.
Plus, say, 300 calories for the walk
Plus, say, 250 calories for the Zumba
Total: 1750 calories.
Many of us eat only about half our exercise calories back, so subtract 275 calories to remove half your exercise calories.
Total: 1475 calories.
Eat all the 1475 calories.
You could probably even eat a little bit more if you happened to be really hungry. Once in a while I'll eat 75% or 90% of my exercise calories because I'm having a really hungry day.
So you essentially cut her exercise calories in half, and then cut them in half again?? She's 230 pounds, and worked out for over 2 hours, and you gave her 1475 calories to eat for the day...
OP, I weigh a lot less, and your numbers don't seem extremely off. I would suggest initially dropping them by a third to a half when you log them, and then eat that back. Use a food scale. Monitor your rate of loss over time (how much are you averaging per week over a month) and then do the math, see if you're losing faster or slower than you would expect. Add up your intake over that time, subtract that from (maintenance times number of days in that time frame) which will give you your calorie deficit over that time, and divide that by 3500. Is that number the same as what you've lost? If it's higher, you're losing slower than expected, which would be logging errors, or not burning off as much as you think. If it's lower, you're underestimating your burns.0 -
More info on calories burnt here:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/calories-burned-during-exercise-it-s-the-intensity-not-the-heart-rate-that-counts-265240 -
Well my calorie goal is 1200 and today before dinner I burned about 600 calories on a 20 % incline walk for an hour and then some friends offered to do a Zumba class which is estimated to burn about 500 calories for that 45 minute duration. These are all rough estimates I got using multiple calculators online taking my weight into consideration. Well that's 1100 calories and I haven't even ate dinner yet which puts me at a net of 1600 which is more than my goal. I'm still learning the whole calories in/calories out and how exercise comes in. But I never heard of burning an entire days goal of calories in 2 hours. Has that ever happened to you?
Just addressing how possible it is to do, it's possible. 1200 is a low calorie intake goal. Most people's max calorie burn is around 10 calories per minute. 120 minutes (2 hours) of hard cardio equals around 1200 calories burned.
Do most people DO 2 hours of hard cardio a day? No. I wouldn't recommend you do that often but it's pretty self-limiting so that probably goes without saying. For one day you're not going to hurt anything, though, if you have a low or even negative 'net'.0 -
Simple formula for walking;
Multiply .30 x your weight x the miles = calorie burn
IE;
.30 x 200 lbs = 60 x 4 miles = 240 net calories
In the example above, if you walk 4 miles in an hour the burn would be 240 and if you walk 5 miles in an hour the burn would be 300 for an hour of exercise.
Net calories are your true calorie burn in addition to how many calories you burn simply being alive. Only net calories should be added for exercise although some calculators erroneously give the gross calorie count.0
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