Calculating calories burned at work?

FitCattitude

Absolutely! It's so encouraging while exercising to see that you're in the fat burning zone and to at last be able to be clear about how many calories exercise sessions burn up. Also makes it far easier to fill in myfitnesspal and thus eat right. I like removing the guesswork; makes you feel much freer to concentrate on being more active and enjoying that. Also means that effort put into this really pays off; no time wasted from under or over guessing, that can make progress slower. Efficient!

Just thought I'd touch quickly on a myth it sounds like you are referencing with comment about being in the fat-burning zone.

You burn more % fat calories in that zone because you are burning so much less calories.

If you go harder, and burn more calories, of course the % of the fat burned is less - but guess what, it's the same quantity if not more.

The fat-burning zone as the place to stay for general exercise and calorie burn is a myth, if you are limited on time you should go harder.
Because your whole day needs to be taken in to the picture, not just the mere time of the workout.

The fact is, you burn same amount of fat during the workout going harder, but more calories which are carbs, then after your next meal more carbs are going to muscle storage that were used up, your insulin goes down faster, and you go back into fat burning mode faster then.

But, the fat-burning zone, better called the Active Recovery HR zone as it was prior to the fad, is useful for exactly what the name implies - need a recovery workout while repairing from prior hard day, that will get the blood flowing to aid healing.

But as a goal for a workout in general day after day, you really are missing out on burning more calories, which means you could be eating more.

Thank you for advice and it's cool to know especially about the recovery aspect. Someone mentioned to me about high intensity workouts burning more fat, so I've got an intervals timer app ready and look forward to burning more fat that way. They said to start off with 2 minutes fast eg cycling, and rest for a minute, and said the active time can then increase a bit as rest decreases. Does 2/1 sound a good starting place?

heybales

Thank you for advice and it's cool to know especially about the recovery aspect. Someone mentioned to me about high intensity workouts burning more fat, so I've got an intervals timer app ready and look forward to burning more fat that way. They said to start off with 2 minutes fast eg cycling, and rest for a minute, and said the active time can then increase a bit as rest decreases. Does 2/1 sound a good starting place?

The fat burning part of intervals is because it can mimic a weight lifting workout, for those that only want to do cardio but no lifting.

It burns high carbs during the workout, it burns more fat afterwards because if done right, it requires the same repair that lifting does.

So to that end, need to reverse the times for the hard and easy section, actually, shorten the hard time.

15-45 seconds all out, as hard as you can go. Crank the tension and increase the speed of pedals just slightly for that long. 15 at start, as you get more fit, getting closer to 45 sec.
Then rest for 3 x as long as the hard section, so 45 sec to 135 sec. Uncrank tension and spin easy but still good speed, you'll have lactic acid to clear out, and recharge the energy system for the next one.
10 sets of that.
Start and end with 5 min minimum warmup.

That is just like lifting, do a set, rest. If you don't rest long enough, you won't be able to do the next hard part as hard. It'll always feel as hard of course, because you are pushing as hard as you can.
But just like lifting, if you didn't put in enough rest, you couldn't do the same weight on next set.

And it's the overload to the muscle that requires the repair process that burns more fat. You can't overload if you go too long, because automatically you can't go as hard.
And going past 45 seconds calls on a different energy source system that doesn't mean repair for getting stronger, but add more carbs to muscles to go longer next time.

2:1 is an interval plan, but it's not HIIT. Not even Short Interval Training (SIT), just plain intervals, it'll train your body to clear the lactate acid that is built up going that hard for that long, and it'll raise your anaerobic threshold.
Since your goal isn't performance improvements - wrong kind of intervals recommended.

HIIT will also raise anaerobic level.

SpencerGJackson

I do strength exercises every other day and jog/bike on the other days.

I honestly don't feel exhausted by walking. I feel perfectly normal dispite high resting heart rate. Im in healthy weight for my height as well. 137 at 5'3

HRM might be useful for the biking. Not for strength training, which isn't aerobic if done right, and isn't steady-state HR at all.
Strength training just log as that from database. It may seem low compared to equal time cardio, but that is very true.

Jogging, the database can actually be more accurate than HRM - IF, if you select a speed you actually did the whole time level. Round down if needed, unless you had incline, then round up.
If you warm-up walk 5 min, jog slow 4-5 mph, finally reaching 7 mph, and then walk 5 min cooldown - logging that as running 7 mph is obviously wrong and will be inflated calorie burn.
If you went total distance 6 miles in 1 hr workout, then of course average of 6 mph, then that's what it's logged for.

Biking, the database is only decent if you went 60 min or more and didn't have many stops for lights or signs, and again are honest with the speed. With a long non-interrupted ride, the up/down hill will cancel each other, head/tail wind will too, meaning your avg speed is good. But start and stop with resting time waiting for light, and coasting down and sprinting off, all ruin the estimate.
At the least, total time (minus stops) and distance of the ride gives an average that will be underestimated in database.
Inaccuracy there would likely be about the same as inaccuracy of HRM.

And a workout doesn't have to feel exhausting to be beneficial.
In fact if you had a good lifting workout, and really tore up the muscle fibers, you do an intense cardio session the next day leaving you exhausted, you likely just killed the repair process from the lifting, compared to what it could have been.
And if you do a hard exhausting run, and the next day do leg strength training, you likely won't be able to lift as much with tired muscles. If you can't overload the muscles with weight because of tired muscles, you aren't creating a need to repair stronger.

And since recovery and repair take longer in a diet, that's bad for either workout.
Day after day of exhausting workouts will at some point be mediocre after mediocre workouts - might feel the same, but totally different response from the body.

And if your cardio is training your body to shoot the HR up to almost max you can do, that lower end resting HR will be very slow if at all to respond by going lower.

Sounds like you should spend some time walking.

So what you are saying is I should walk vs jog on the off days in order to allow my muscles to build and rest more effectively?

If that's correct then how would i work cardio in?
I'd like to lower my resting heart rate below 90, my goal is around 70-75.

heybales

So what you are saying is I should walk vs jog on the off days in order to allow my muscles to build and rest more effectively?

If that's correct then how would i work cardio in?
I'd like to lower my resting heart rate below 90, my goal is around 70-75.

If you can stand to jog slowly, and perhaps slower than normal, you could jog easy.
Of course as you get more fit, you can go faster with HR at same place. That's when you really shock yourself, speed 2 weeks at what seems very slow, and then you notice you have to increase the pace to keep the HR up, and then higher, ect.
The vast majority that have done this have seen in 3-4 weeks their speed is back to where it was before, but with that lower HR.

Top of the Active Recovery HR zone isn't that low, but it is lower than many are used to running.
It's why many say forget it and just walk for recovery. Listen to music, enjoy the outdoors, ect.

And that would be enough cardio, just walking, if your resting HR is that high.

Can't recall if I stuck this in here already. It would be the top of the fat-burning zone as it's called here, that's the fad name, wish they'd drop it. And of course as restingHR drops, you'll revisit the zone's since they will change.
www.calculatenow.biz/sport/heart.php?

SpencerGJackson

So what you are saying is I should walk vs jog on the off days in order to allow my muscles to build and rest more effectively?

If that's correct then how would i work cardio in?
I'd like to lower my resting heart rate below 90, my goal is around 70-75.

If you can stand to jog slowly, and perhaps slower than normal, you could jog easy.
Of course as you get more fit, you can go faster with HR at same place. That's when you really shock yourself, speed 2 weeks at what seems very slow, and then you notice you have to increase the pace to keep the HR up, and then higher, ect.
The vast majority that have done this have seen in 3-4 weeks their speed is back to where it was before, but with that lower HR.

Top of the Active Recovery HR zone isn't that low, but it is lower than many are used to running.
It's why many say forget it and just walk for recovery. Listen to music, enjoy the outdoors, ect.

And that would be enough cardio, just walking, if your resting HR is that high.

Can't recall if I stuck this in here already. It would be the top of the fat-burning zone as it's called here, that's the fad name, wish they'd drop it. And of course as restingHR drops, you'll revisit the zone's since they will change.
www.calculatenow.biz/sport/heart.php?

Okay. Maybe I'm walking wrong then because walking doesn't have a noticeable affect on my heatt rate. I use a heart rate app on my phone and its not that higher after my walk.

That's why i jogged because it's my understanding that pushing yourself and getting your heart pumping hard is how you lower your resting rate.

Is this wrong?

heybales

So what you are saying is I should walk vs jog on the off days in order to allow my muscles to build and rest more effectively?

If that's correct then how would i work cardio in?
I'd like to lower my resting heart rate below 90, my goal is around 70-75.

If you can stand to jog slowly, and perhaps slower than normal, you could jog easy.
Of course as you get more fit, you can go faster with HR at same place. That's when you really shock yourself, speed 2 weeks at what seems very slow, and then you notice you have to increase the pace to keep the HR up, and then higher, ect.
The vast majority that have done this have seen in 3-4 weeks their speed is back to where it was before, but with that lower HR.

Top of the Active Recovery HR zone isn't that low, but it is lower than many are used to running.
It's why many say forget it and just walk for recovery. Listen to music, enjoy the outdoors, ect.

And that would be enough cardio, just walking, if your resting HR is that high.

Can't recall if I stuck this in here already. It would be the top of the fat-burning zone as it's called here, that's the fad name, wish they'd drop it. And of course as restingHR drops, you'll revisit the zone's since they will change.
www.calculatenow.biz/sport/heart.php?

Okay. Maybe I'm walking wrong then because walking doesn't have a noticeable affect on my heatt rate. I use a heart rate app on my phone and its not that higher after my walk.

That's why i jogged because it's my understanding that pushing yourself and getting your heart pumping hard is how you lower your resting rate.

Is this wrong?

Becoming aerobically fit is how you lower your resting HR. Your body can take in more air with a breath, get more oxygen out of it, have more red blood cells to move it, heart can pump slower to move same amount needed to burn needed fat fuel at rest, more mitochondria to use it for oxidation, ect.
Those improvements all allow the HR to beat less when resting. And beat less when performing a certain pace or speed of exercise too.

If your resting HR is 90, and you walking say 4 mph is still 90-100, then indeed some slow jogging is in order, because you could probably go higher.

Pumping hard is subjective.
To some people that means totally out of breath, about as hard as you can go. But that's barely even aerobic, that's anaerobic. That doesn't make the same improvements, and will take longer to make aerobic improvements that will lower your HR.
To some that means just a hard jog, more effort than a walk.
Without HRM, you should be able to talk in complete sentences, too fast if only a few words can be spoken at a time, too slow if you could sing barely.

You want to be at 50%-60% of HRR (like that link gives) until you see some improvement to fitness, as evidenced by restingHR lowering in the morning. And pace going up while at same HR.
You'll want to burn about 1500 calories weekly spread out with those workouts to see systemic changes. Too infrequent and no real need to improve, too frequent and not enough time to recover well and actually make the changes.
Once you see what speed is needed to hit that HRR, use this to see what the calorie burn is of it. For logging to MFP, use the NET option. For what a database or HRM or Fitbit would be showing to compare, use the Gross option.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html