focus on time spent exercising or # of cals burned?

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When you go to the gym, do you focus on the amount of time spent working out (i.e., stamina or giving yourself credit for working out, no matter what you did) or the number of calories burned?

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  • JenMc14
    JenMc14 Posts: 2,389 Member
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    It depends on what I'm doing. If I'm lifting, I want to give it max effort, and lift as heavy as I can, regardless of calories burned. If I'm doing cardio, I want to get the best bang for my buck, and try to burn more calories. I'd rather do a shorter, intense HIIT session than a long leisurely walk, because my workout time is limited.
  • craftytasha
    craftytasha Posts: 22 Member
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    I only workout 2-4 times a week because my part time job (11 hours each weekend) is labor intense and I honestly don't have the time to exercise very much being a student. If I work out for a long time, I give myself way more credit then if I do an intense workout for 20 minutes. I feel like if you're excessing properly for several hours a week and eating well, results will happen. I'm quite out of shape so it's difficult to do intense workouts that burn 400+ calories.
  • numinousnymph
    numinousnymph Posts: 249 Member
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    when it's cardio i always focus on calories burned. for me time only factors into cardio if i'm using it to do interval training.
  • solarpower03
    solarpower03 Posts: 12,161 Member
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    I would rather focus on diet calories
  • favoritenut
    favoritenut Posts: 217 Member
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    I got myself an HRM so I could know how much I'm burning, but I found myself not exercising if my HRM wouldn't work or I forgot it, yay I know stupid logic. but now I wear the watch and start it for the time, I just log 1 calorie burned anyway and I got to thinking that I will burn more exercising than sitting on the couch for 20minutes.
  • Nice2BFitAgain
    Nice2BFitAgain Posts: 319 Member
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    I only have 35 minutes for a workout on weekdays - I go for HIIT if doing cardio and pack as much effort in to my lifting the other days