Does Calorie Burn go down as you build endurance?

tryinghard71

I searched the forums and could not find this answer. Not a fitness buff. New to it all. I was wondering does calorie burn go down as you build endurance? For example I use to burn HRM 500 plus calories doing slim in 6 burn it up. Today I only burned 412. I do notice I am not struggling as much as I did in the beginning. Thanks for your help in advance!!!!

Just wanting to make sure that is why I am burning less and that it is not a HRM issue.

BenChase

more or less, short answer is yes. as you lose weight you don't have as much resistance (think how much energy it takes to carry 200 lbs compared to 150lbs?) as you lose weight the job of everything you do becomes so much easier making it less work for you and less energy it takes to complete the same tasks. and though the choice is yours, i personally have kept working out more and more to burn even more calories than when i first started

tryinghard71

Thanks!!!! That is what I needed to know. I am going to ramp it up and do a little more!!!

LilRedRooster

Yup. In short, your body adapts to stresses to become more efficent at jobs presented to it. When you build cardiovascular and muscle endurance, your body is adapting to use less energy for the tasks presented. Which is why mixing up routines is so important, because our bodies are too smart to keep expending more energy than they have to.

tryinghard71

Thanks! I need to mix it up.

Azdak

No, not unless you lose weight. The lower number on your HRM is more of a HRM anamoly than anything else.

When you start an exercise routine, your HR response will go through a couple of phases:

1. Intitial Adaptation: depending on what you do and how you do it, your body goes a little "haywire" when you first start a routine. It doesn't really know what to do with the load and the response--both externally and internally--is kind of "uncoordinated". HRM calorie numbers and even avg HR are pretty meaningless, because you aren't really experiencing a steady-state response. This just take a couple of sessions to adapt and to start getting a more consistent physiological response. So, if you get reading of like 500 calories for a new workout or class, and after several sessions, it is down to 450 or so, nothing has really changed in your body. You are just a little more coordinated -- that means you should ignore the first number.

2. If weight decreases, then calorie burn decreases--even at the same intensity. Calorie burn is directly affected by body mass. This doesn't show up on an HRM unless you change the settings.

3. Over time, as your fitness level improves, your HRM calorie number will go down. This usually does NOT mean you are burning fewer calories. It just means your HRM settings are out of date because your fitness level has improved.

4. If you do the same thing over a long period of time, it is theoretically possible that improved mechanical efficiency could result in a very small decreased in calories burned at the same absolute workload. However, that same improved efficiency means you can work at a higher level, so the point is moot.

5. You need to vary your training stimulus in order to make continued improvement. That does not mean frequently changing exercises. It means varying the intensity and duration of workouts. Randomly changing exercise to "confuse" the body does not result in increased calorie burn.

tryinghard71

Thanks!!! Great info!!!!!!