knowing how many calories youre burning while exercising

Krisydee103

How do you do that. I have a hard time because none of the calculators I've found consider heart rate, type of work out, intensity etc... It makes me feel that it isn't very accurate. Heres my info:

Im 26 years old
Weight 171 lbs.
Work out on the elliptical for 30-32 minutes everyday
I do intervals of 2 mins rest (which my heart rate will be at 170) and 1 min of intense (which my heart rate is than at 185)
That's it. I know the rest part isn't really "rest" But my goal is to burn as many calories as I can.

I would love to know how many calories I am burning doing this.

Thank you

dustin807

I don't know how to determine how many calories are burned during your exercise sessions. But I have found that it is really a useless metric to keep track of.

I used to have students come to my boot camp with the electronic calorie counting devices. And they would be so discouraged to find that they only burned about 300 calories during our hour boot camp. That's like burning off 2 cans of Sprite.

The bulk of calories burned is actually determined by your RESTING metabolic rate (RMR). The amount of calories burned outside of our resting metabolism (through exercise, thermic effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller contributor to overall calories burned per day.

We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body — and how hard it works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic rate.

With that in mind, your number one priority when exercising for fat loss should be to increase the amount of muscle mass on your body (thereby increasing your resting metabolic rate, i.e., metabolism), and not trying to burn calories.

I never advise anyone to count calories during exercise. The number of calories burned are so small as to only be discouraging.

On average, I would estimate you are burning 350 calories in 30 minutes. But maybe you are real hard charger and manage to burn 400 calories in 30 minutes. Scrap that. Let's say you are the most determined animal-intesnse elliptical user ever, and you manage to burn 800 calories in 30 minutes.

A six inch tuna sub (with nothing on it) is 480 calories. A hamburger is 610 calories. A coffee frapachino with soy milk is 173 calories. When you look at it in those terms, the amount of calories burned during your 30 minutes of exercise doesn't seem as important.

However, I would be shocked, completely floored if you were getting 800 calories in 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Here's a good link that states 171 pounds at 30 minutes of vigorous exerertion on the elliptical = 334.46 calories.

http://www.self.com/calculatorsprograms/calculators/caloriesburned/elliptical_trainer/result?weightPounds=171&duration=32&activity=&met=7.7&submit=

Here's an article that supports my theory that it's actually more important to get stronger than burn calories during your exercise:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_hierarchy_of_fat_loss&cr=

I hope this helped.

TP2323

So you suggest to do more strength work than cardio then?

YouHadMyCuriosity

I don't know how to determine how many calories are burned during your exercise sessions. But I have found that it is really a useless metric to keep track of.

I used to have students come to my boot camp with the electronic calorie counting devices. And they would be so discouraged to find that they only burned about 300 calories during our hour boot camp. That's like burning off 2 cans of Sprite.

The bulk of calories burned is actually determined by your RESTING metabolic rate (RMR). The amount of calories burned outside of our resting metabolism (through exercise, thermic effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller contributor to overall calories burned per day.

We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body — and how hard it works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic rate.

With that in mind, your number one priority when exercising for fat loss should be to increase the amount of muscle mass on your body (thereby increasing your resting metabolic rate, i.e., metabolism), and not trying to burn calories.

I never advise anyone to count calories during exercise. The number of calories burned are so small as to only be discouraging.

On average, I would estimate you are burning 350 calories in 30 minutes. But maybe you are real hard charger and manage to burn 400 calories in 30 minutes. Scrap that. Let's say you are the most determined animal-intesnse elliptical user ever, and you manage to burn 800 calories in 30 minutes.

A six inch tuna sub (with nothing on it) is 480 calories. A hamburger is 610 calories. A coffee frapachino with soy milk is 173 calories. When you look at it in those terms, the amount of calories burned during your 30 minutes of exercise doesn't seem as important.

However, I would be shocked, completely floored if you were getting 800 calories in 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Here's a good link that states 171 pounds at 30 minutes of vigorous exerertion on the elliptical = 334.46 calories.

http://www.self.com/calculatorsprograms/calculators/caloriesburned/elliptical_trainer/result?weightPounds=171&duration=32&activity=&met=7.7&submit=

Here's an article that supports my theory that it's actually more important to get stronger than burn calories during your exercise:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_hierarchy_of_fat_loss&cr=

I hope this helped.

While I agree that strength training and building/maintaining muscle can be extremely valuable in transforming your body, I have to politely disagree with the sentiment that knowing how much (or how little) you are burning is useless. People tend to overestimate how much they burn, one hundred percent agreed. But realizing that you burned 300 calories, not 600, is incredibly important to knowing how many calories you can consume. Let's go with your statement that a burger is 610 calories. If I work out for an hour, and assume (overestimating) that I burned 800 calories, I'm going to be much more likely to eat that burger plus some. If I know that I actually burned 300 calories, I may just have the burger and skip the fries, or I may look for a less calorie rich option for dinner.

I do, however, think PP is on to something with saying that building strength can be (for some people) more valuable than cardio. Cardio has it's time and place, in burning calories and cardiovascular health, but if your goal is weight loss, cardio will mostly result in you being just a smaller version of your overweight self. If you want to transform your body, strength training will give you the most bang for your buck by helping preserve lean body mass (which, yes, to a certain degree, burns more calories than fat), but helps you look much better.

For example, I've been strength training for a couple months, and look smaller at the weight I currently am than when I weighed less in the past.

Sorry to get off topic, to answer your actual question, you could look into heart rate monitors, etc- just know that calorie burns are generally estimates. However, those estimates can help you, like I said, know whether you are more in the 300 calorie range, 500 calorie range, 1000 calorie range, whatever it is, so that you are not eating too much as a result of assuming a calorie burn that is twice as high as reality.

sijomial

......
We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body — and how hard it works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic rate.

With that in mind, your number one priority when exercising for fat loss should be to increase the amount of muscle mass on your body (thereby increasing your resting metabolic rate, i.e., metabolism), and not trying to burn calories.
........

Actually that is very misleading. Muscle at rest makes up a minor percentage (c. 28%) of resting energy expenditure.
Adding a few pounds of muscle will have a negligible effect on RMR. Approx 6 calories per pound of muscle per day.

The training involved to add those few pounds of muscle has a far greater impact on your calorie balance!

Krisydee103

Thank you so much guys for the long and informative replies!!!

ideang

I track my calories burn by heart rate. I use this site. http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

I also go by NET calories burned, not gross to help from over estimating calorie burn.

luckydays27

wear a heart rate monitor to get the amount of cals burned.

However, I seriously doubt you could keep your heart rate at 170 for 2 mins, then go to 185 for 1 min and keep this up for 20-30 mins. Your likely, you can keep it at around 145 for a long time, and have spikes of somewhere between 170-180 for short spurts, maybe a min. Keeping your heart rate close to your max for a complete workout is really, really difficult to do.

scorpio516

However, I seriously doubt you could keep your heart rate at 170 for 2 mins, then go to 185 for 1 min and keep this up for 20-30 mins. Your likely, you can keep it at around 145 for a long time, and have spikes of somewhere between 170-180 for short spurts, maybe a min. Keeping your heart rate close to your max for a complete workout is really, really difficult to do.

Depends on her heart.
I did a run in February this year for 48 minutes where I averaged 171 BPM with 185 BPM max, when my max is in the low 190s.

Krisydee103

I was in the military for 4 years, I have incredible cardio. I have a great rate built into my elliptical. I also don't work out to where I'm comfortable. I push the whole time, no matter if I cry, drip sweat or hurt. Just so you are aware that I am 100% that that is my heart rate. You aren't going to be burning much calories at 145 unless you are overweigh and do not work out regularly.

Hornsby

I average around 165-170 for nearly 1.5 hours on long bike rides all the time. Just sayin'.

grownANsexy

Thank You so much. As of today I will not count another calorie burned!!