It's getting harder and harder to burn calories
Shells918
Posts: 1,070 Member
I started working out last summer with 1 DVD, a cardio kickboxing kind of thing, and I did it every day.
Then I got Rockin Body, by Shaun T, very Dancy cardio, 6 different videos, I didn't have a Fitbit yet so I used the calories from General aerobics to estimate. I used this series for several months.
Next I got CIZE, also dancing, have the Fitbit and used those calories to input as burned. I started in February and can tell I'm not burning the way I used to. Even if I do 2 videos in a day, it's a stretch to get close.
Last week and the next 2 weeks I'm in between programs, still working out with a little bit of everything.
I'm going to start Les Mills Combat on July 11 after my vacation.
My question is whether or not my body is just so used to doing these cardio exercises, and needs something new, or do I need to start doing more.
My workouts are anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour long, and my goal had been to burn 300 calories in that timeframe.
I'm 5'4" and weigh 172.5
Thank you!
Then I got Rockin Body, by Shaun T, very Dancy cardio, 6 different videos, I didn't have a Fitbit yet so I used the calories from General aerobics to estimate. I used this series for several months.
Next I got CIZE, also dancing, have the Fitbit and used those calories to input as burned. I started in February and can tell I'm not burning the way I used to. Even if I do 2 videos in a day, it's a stretch to get close.
Last week and the next 2 weeks I'm in between programs, still working out with a little bit of everything.
I'm going to start Les Mills Combat on July 11 after my vacation.
My question is whether or not my body is just so used to doing these cardio exercises, and needs something new, or do I need to start doing more.
My workouts are anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour long, and my goal had been to burn 300 calories in that timeframe.
I'm 5'4" and weigh 172.5
Thank you!
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Replies
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You are getting fitter! Yay you!! You need to find something even more challenging
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queenliz99 wrote: »You are getting fitter! Yay you!! You need to find something even more challenging
Thanks. That's why I picked Les Mills. It looks a lot harder.
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Les mills is fab!0
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"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
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By what method are we measuring this lessened calorie burning?0
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"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
I was burning much more than 300 in that time period in the beginning. That's my point. I can't even get to 300 now. I think what @queenliz99 said makes sense and she answered my question. And so did you after saying "what on earth does that mean" even though you obviously understood.2 -
"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
I was burning much more than 300 in that time period in the beginning. That's my point. I can't even get to 300 now. I think what @queenliz99 said makes sense and she answered my question. And so did you after saying "what on earth does that mean" even though you obviously understood.
No - you don't actually know how much you were burning then or now.0 -
"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
I was burning much more than 300 in that time period in the beginning. That's my point. I can't even get to 300 now. I think what @queenliz99 said makes sense and she answered my question. And so did you after saying "what on earth does that mean" even though you obviously understood.
No - you don't actually know how much you were burning then or now.
I think she means it's getting easier for her. IDK
@darlswife how are you estimating your calorie burns?
ETA: you don't know exactly how much you have burned then, all the numbers are just estimates, in and out. If your calorie counting is spot on and you are not losing weight then youre estimating your burns too high.1 -
queenliz99 wrote: »"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
I was burning much more than 300 in that time period in the beginning. That's my point. I can't even get to 300 now. I think what @queenliz99 said makes sense and she answered my question. And so did you after saying "what on earth does that mean" even though you obviously understood.
No - you don't actually know how much you were burning then or now.
I think she means it's getting easier for her. IDK
@darlswife how are you estimating your calorie burns?
op wrote this in her postI didn't have a Fitbit yet so I used the calories from General aerobics to estimate. I used this series for several months.0 -
thiosulfate wrote: »queenliz99 wrote: »"It's getting harder and harder to burn calories." what on earth does this mean?
If you are getting fitter it's easier to burn calories as you can maintain a higher exercise intensity.
300 cals in 45 to 60 minutes isn't very ambitious, it's very modest.
If you just use an online calculator then as you weigh less it will assume you are burning less - not necessarily true at all.
I was burning much more than 300 in that time period in the beginning. That's my point. I can't even get to 300 now. I think what @queenliz99 said makes sense and she answered my question. And so did you after saying "what on earth does that mean" even though you obviously understood.
No - you don't actually know how much you were burning then or now.
I think she means it's getting easier for her. IDK
@darlswife how are you estimating your calorie burns?
op wrote this in her postI didn't have a Fitbit yet so I used the calories from General aerobics to estimate. I used this series for several months.
I should have went back to retread post. Thank you0 -
One thing to know about calorie estimation from heart rate monitors - if you're in low cardiovascular fitness, they tend to overestimate calories burned, and if you're in high cardiovascular fitness, they tend to underestimate.
The reason is that it's doing an estimate without having any way to measure one key variable. Calorie burn does correlate pretty well with oxygen consumption, and oxygen consumption does correlate pretty well with cardiac output, but cardiac output is the product of two things: your heart rate (easily measured) and the stroke volume, the amount of blood moved in each beat. Stroke volume isn't measurable at home, not until someone invents a wearable echocardiogram.
As your cardiac fitness goes up, your stroke volume goes up; your heart gets stronger and moves more blood per beat. This means that a very fit person will have a lower fitbit reading than a very unfit person, even if both do the same actual calorie burn, because the unfit person's heart needs to beat more times to move the same amount of blood.2 -
When you were heavier you burned more calories....I think that's what OP means.
300 cals an hour is modest, even now at 130lbs I would burn that just by walking fast for an hour.
You are getting fitter OP which means it's getting easier, that's a good thing 3 -
I finished and loved Les Mills Combat. By the end, I was burning approx 20% fewer calories for the same workout, using the same polar F7 to compare. Your body gets fit, so doesn't need to work as hard to do the same work. By the end of
Combat, you might be ready for Insanity!0 -
Let's explain a bit more...
Take a really fit 200lb person and a really unfit 200lb person and get them to walk up ten flights of stairs.
They burn the same amount of calories.
Take a really fit 200lb person and a really unfit 200lb person and give them an hour to walk up as many flights of stairs as they can and guess who will burn more calories.....
It's not about feelings, it's about physics.
Using a database which purely estimates from duration and weight is very vague.
Another perspective.....
“It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster” – Greg Lemond4 -
It has a lot to do with BMI as well. I can attest to that personally. When I started my weight loss journey I could burn 1,300 calories in about 10 miles of bike riding. And just today I went on a 30 mile ride and burned less than 1,100 miles.
As your weight goes down, the more effective it becomes at burning calories.
One of the biggest reasons I HATE those "It takes this many miles of walking to burn of this [fill in the blank] memes you see on facebook. Everyone's BMI and metabolic rate is different.0 -
It has a lot to do with BMI as well. I can attest to that personally. When I started my weight loss journey I could burn 1,300 calories in about 10 miles of bike riding. And just today I went on a 30 mile ride and burned less than 1,100 miles.
As your weight goes down, the more effective it becomes at burning calories.
One of the biggest reasons I HATE those "It takes this many miles of walking to burn of this [fill in the blank] memes you see on facebook. Everyone's BMI and metabolic rate is different.
It has nothing to do with BMI and metabolic rate. It takes less energy to move less mass. So the lower your weight, the fewer calories it requires to do the same work. See sijominal's post above.
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I only lost 4 lbs overall to reach a 20% reduction in calorie burn, and I was really nailing those workouts toward the end. But my resting HR decreased, and it was less effort to perform the same or better as fitness improved. My HR didn't go up as high toward the end of the program, and therefore the calorie burn was less. It wasn't about weight change.1
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Ok so basically my body is working more efficiently because I've lost weight and I'm in better shape. As I continue to work out with different programs I will have to keep working harder. When I started this I hadn't worked out for a few years but I have worked out most of my life. I have medical issues and medication that also may also affect how I burn calories. I don't really sweat.
I appreciate everyone's input. I'm looking forward to starting Les Mills in a few weeks and continuing to lose weight and inches.1 -
Ok so basically my body is working more efficiently because I've lost weight and I'm in better shape. As I continue to work out with different programs I will have to keep working harder. When I started this I hadn't worked out for a few years but I have worked out most of my life. I have medical issues and medication that also may also affect how I burn calories. I don't really sweat.
I appreciate everyone's input. I'm looking forward to starting Les Mills in a few weeks and continuing to lose weight and inches.
No - it's not efficiency.
You weigh less, it takes less energy (calories) to move a smaller weight. That's why your estimates are falling.
Nothing more complex than that.
Remember your estimate is simply "General aerobics" and time - it does not and cannot know if you are getting fitter or trying harder.
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Try something new. Lift weights and start shaping1
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I was about to write the same thing. Do a season of strength training. If you include (properly done) kettlebell swings you can burn more calories in less time.0
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If the HR is slower because of training and adaptation, you need more intensity to burn the same number of calories regardless of weight. Of course you burn less if you weigh less, but it's more complex than that.Ok so basically my body is working more efficiently because I've lost weight and I'm in better shape. As I continue to work out with different programs I will have to keep working harder. When I started this I hadn't worked out for a few years but I have worked out most of my life. I have medical issues and medication that also may also affect how I burn calories. I don't really sweat.
I appreciate everyone's input. I'm looking forward to starting Les Mills in a few weeks and continuing to lose weight and inches.
No - it's not efficiency.
You weigh less, it takes less energy (calories) to move a smaller weight. That's why your estimates are falling.
Nothing more complex than that.
Remember your estimate is simply "General aerobics" and time - it does not and cannot know if you are getting fitter or trying harder.
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@Witchdoctor58Witchdoctor58 wrote: »
If the HR is slower because of training and adaptation, you need more intensity to burn the same number of calories regardless of weight. Of course you burn less if you weigh less, but it's more complex than that.Ok so basically my body is working more efficiently because I've lost weight and I'm in better shape. As I continue to work out with different programs I will have to keep working harder. When I started this I hadn't worked out for a few years but I have worked out most of my life. I have medical issues and medication that also may also affect how I burn calories. I don't really sweat.
I appreciate everyone's input. I'm looking forward to starting Les Mills in a few weeks and continuing to lose weight and inches.
No - it's not efficiency.
You weigh less, it takes less energy (calories) to move a smaller weight. That's why your estimates are falling.
Nothing more complex than that.
Remember your estimate is simply "General aerobics" and time - it does not and cannot know if you are getting fitter or trying harder.
But she isn't measuring HR.
She is just picking an exercise category and logging duration. Because her weight is lower she gets a lower estimated number of calories - simple.
Yes it becomes more complicated as fitness levels change and HR only has a little to do with it. HRMs are not calorie counters, most don't even estimate your fitness level. Mass, distance, power, duration are the real factors.
For a non-weight bearing exercise (cycling) I produce more power and therefore burn more calories at a lower HR than before I got fit or conversely same intensity more calories burned despite being lighter. A basic HRM wouldn't measure that. A basic estimate using MFP categories wouldn't get that either.
All of which is irrelevant to the OP!
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Witchdoctor58 wrote: »
If the HR is slower because of training and adaptation, you need more intensity to burn the same number of calories regardless of weight. Of course you burn less if you weigh less, but it's more complex than that.Ok so basically my body is working more efficiently because I've lost weight and I'm in better shape. As I continue to work out with different programs I will have to keep working harder. When I started this I hadn't worked out for a few years but I have worked out most of my life. I have medical issues and medication that also may also affect how I burn calories. I don't really sweat.
I appreciate everyone's input. I'm looking forward to starting Les Mills in a few weeks and continuing to lose weight and inches.
No - it's not efficiency.
You weigh less, it takes less energy (calories) to move a smaller weight. That's why your estimates are falling.
Nothing more complex than that.
Remember your estimate is simply "General aerobics" and time - it does not and cannot know if you are getting fitter or trying harder.
Let me also chime in to say that "lower HR" does NOT equal "lower calorie burn" if the aerobic workload is the same (or greater) with aerobic steady state exercise. Calorie burn is based primarily on aerobic workload (e.g. METs or watts). Heart rate reflects the percentage of one's Max HR during exercise.
An 80kg untrained person working at 7 METs will burn approx 560 calories/hour. If that 7 METs represents 80% of their aerobic max, then heart rate will be fairly high. If that 80 kg person increases their aerobic max with training and doesn't lose weight, they will still burn 560 calories/hour if working at 7 METs. However, since aerobic max has increased, that 7 METs may now represent only 65% of max. So heart rate will be lower, but since MET value and weight are the same, calories burned will be the same as well.
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70% of your calorie burn is from your resting metabolic rate. It is calculated using your fat free body mass. Muscle up and burn more fat 24/7, even when you are asleep, not just while you are doing steady state cardio. Here is a workout that might be what you are looking for (a bit of both worlds).0
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@sijomial I was using the General Aerobics category. I've been using my Fitbit's calories since February. The category shows way more calories than my Fitbit does but I figured going with the lower number was safer.
And I created a separate entry for CIZE and always used my Fitbit calories.
I added weights to my workout several months ago, every other day, and my Zumba workout has light weights, that I do weekly.
The new workout I'll be starting uses weights regularly which is why I thought it would be a great next step. It incorporates HIIT, plyo, weights cardio and martial arts.
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70% of your calorie burn is from your resting metabolic rate. It is calculated using your fat free body mass. Muscle up and burn more fat 24/7, even when you are asleep, not just while you are doing steady state cardio. Here is a workout that might be what you are looking for (a bit of both worlds).
The one problem with this line of thinking is that you can only build muscle while eating in a surplus. If one is losing fat, one is eating in a deficit.
Lifting weights while cutting is to help retain muscle, not add muscle.
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@sijomial I was using the General Aerobics category. I've been using my Fitbit's calories since February. The category shows way more calories than my Fitbit does but I figured going with the lower number was safer.
And I created a separate entry for CIZE and always used my Fitbit calories.
I added weights to my workout several months ago, every other day, and my Zumba workout has light weights, that I do weekly.
The new workout I'll be starting uses weights regularly which is why I thought it would be a great next step. It incorporates HIIT, plyo, weights cardio and martial arts.
Good - it sounds like you have a plan. Nice mix.
In the end if you are getting fitter, stronger, healthier and your weight loss is running to schedule then it's working.
It's the results that matter, not agonising over the detail of if the MFP categories or Fitbit are right.
I did almost 13 hours of exercise this week using a whole variety of estimating methods some of which were precise measurements of power, some HRM based, some from GPS tracking apps, some random finger in the air guesstimates!
As long as my weight does what I want (maintenance) then the accuracy is of little importance.2 -
The one problem with this line of thinking is that you can only build muscle while eating in a surplus. If one is losing fat, one is eating in a deficit.
Lifting weights while cutting is to help retain muscle, not add muscle.
I was thinking long term. Periodicity. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to change focus for a season, especially if you are stalling.0 -
70% of your calorie burn is from your resting metabolic rate. It is calculated using your fat free body mass. Muscle up and burn more fat 24/7, even when you are asleep, not just while you are doing steady state cardio. Here is a workout that might be what you are looking for (a bit of both worlds).
The one problem with this line of thinking is that you can only build muscle while eating in a surplus. If one is losing fat, one is eating in a deficit.
Lifting weights while cutting is to help retain muscle, not add muscle.
If you're cutting and lifting to not lose muscle, and you're losing weight but gaining strength, then aren't you adding muscle? I've been losing three pounds a week but my lifts have improved.
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