Read this to be sure of your count

cdhaskins1

Last week I finally bought a heart monitor. BEST purchase in a long time!

I've been at this weight lose/better life goal for about 7 months now.
I'm down 75 pounds, I lift 5 days a week, cardio 6 days a week (Hitt format cardio) and all the while not eating meat or dairy. (well i do eat fish) and of course I follow the EAT MORE LOSS MORE.

Because of my unique style of work out I doubted the MFP cal burned number. (fyi: I do 4X10 and after EVERY 10th rep I do 45 secs a step like you see in a cardio class. Then another 10 reps...step...10 reps...step. etc. I do this for all muscle groups I'm working out and end up doing about 3-4 different exercises per muscle group. I then finish by doing 40-60 flights of stairs on the stair machine from HELLLL)

There's not really an option on MFP for my workout to calculate calories burned so i bit the bullet and got the heart monitor. Granted its not 100% but its WAY more accurate.

It shows on average that I burn 400-500 MORE cals than I thought using the MFP app.

Anyway, get a monitor if you want to keep better track of calories burned. I use a Polar FT4 for what it's worth.

BerryH

Great reminder, thanks for sharing!

Don't forget to take off what you'd have burned if you weren't doing anything, however - say your BMR is 2,500 a day and you work out for an hour, take off 2,500/24 = 104 calories from your HRM calculated burn.

HRMs are a great tool, but they still only give you an estimate based on a single bio-indicator, and even the best is only 75% accurate.

BluthLover

That's awesome!! How encouraging!

cdhaskins1

Don't forget to take off what you'd have burned if you weren't doing anything, however - say your BMR is 2,500 a day and you work out for an hour, take off 2,500/24 = 104 calories from your HRM calculated burn.

Great point! Thank you!

heybales

I've been at this weight lose/better life goal for about 7 months now.
I'm down 75 pounds, I lift 5 days a week, cardio 6 days a week (Hitt format cardio) and all the while not eating meat or dairy. (well i do eat fish) and of course I follow the EAT MORE LOSS MORE.

Because of my unique style of work out I doubted the MFP cal burned number. (fyi: I do 4X10 and after EVERY 10th rep I do 45 secs a step like you see in a cardio class. Then another 10 reps...step...10 reps...step. etc. I do this for all muscle groups I'm working out and end up doing about 3-4 different exercises per muscle group. I then finish by doing 40-60 flights of stairs on the stair machine from HELLLL)

There's not really an option on MFP for my workout to calculate calories burned so i bit the bullet and got the heart monitor. Granted its not 100% but its WAY more accurate.

It shows on average that I burn 400-500 MORE cals than I thought using the MFP app.

Anyway, get a monitor if you want to keep better track of calories burned. I use a Polar FT4 for what it's worth.

Just be aware that the HRM calorie burn estimates is ONLY valid for steady-state aerobic HR range exercise.
Sitting around, and anaerobic, are all very inflated.

Considering your lfiting workout has so much cardio in it, you probably aren't getting a truly good lift anyway, so may be a tad closer.

Why?

Because the HRM thought you reached the high anaerobic heart rate through aerobic exercise, and as such would be a high calorie burn.
But with lifting and true HIIT (which frankly I doubt you could hit with that workout routine), you are not aerobic, that high HR is totally through the stress of anaerobic efforts.

So if you are planning on using those figures for any bearing on your eating level, the lifting is going to be about 1/3 to 1/4 what the Polar reports, the HIIT is going to be about 1/2 to 2/3 what it reports.

How do I know that much?

I had a Polar and measured many sessions just to see the HR, calorie burn wasn't the concern because I knew it was wrong.
But later used a Garmin that was valid, it could tell anaerobic effort and exclude it, and that's what the difference was.

Turns out, MFP estimate of strength training was actually always within 25 cal's of best HRM estimate.

Just a suggestion, is your workout for weight loss focus, or body changes focus?
Only ask because many go nuts with the exercise thinking that is the main weight loss method and it's not.
If it's for body focus, you can't be getting the most bang for your workout time.
Not doubting that you are working hard at your workout, but are you allowing your workout to work hard for you to get the most benefit from the hard work?

cdhaskins1

Jeez heybales! You're making me read your post 3 times to understand it lol...
Goal is to lose weight but to gain lean muscle mass as well.

heybales

Jeez heybales! You're making me read your post 3 times to understand it lol...
Goal is to lose weight but to gain lean muscle mass as well.

Ever play those Infocom text games like Zork from years past? I'm maximum verbosity sadly.

Ya, you've had great progress with that loss no matter what.

I'd suggest you should make the lifting really heavy lifting then by not undermining it with too much cardio. The lifting will actually burn more fat during recovery, unless you can do long slow cardio, than the cardio will do. Now HIIT is like lifting and can have same great benefit, if truly being done.

Cardio during the lifting just interferes with the muscle getting properly re-loaded for the next lift, meaning you can't really push as hard, because in essence, muscles are still tired.

The HIIT day after day means it's reached a level that while difficult, isn't reaching the high intensity it should reach for maximum benefit. Intervals are still good, but SIT isn't as good use of time as HIIT is, for weight loss. Performance yes.

You've heard the phrase, jack of all trades, master of none.

And unless you have a really specific routine to allow rest and recovery between all that lifting, like upper/lower or push/pull alternating routine, the muscles aren't getting a chance to rebuild as well as they could, or at all.

If you've every pressed yourself through a workout using the same muscles where you were still sore from day before lifting, you killed or at least impaired the repair and rebuild stronger phase the lifting is intended for.

At start of exercising these things won't matter as much as you'll see great improvements whether done wise or unwise, but after a while, the progress obtained won't match the effort being put into it.

Hey, at least you got the right diet program for possibly gaining LBM, perhaps some muscle. Because small deficits is indeed required to obtain that.

heybales

You may see thin in another post in this group, but great explanation of why workouts should be smarter rather than more intense all the time.

http://www.fitforcombatsystem.com/math-and-science-how-weightlifting-burns-fat/

cdhaskins1

Read the article. Great stuff!
I will adjust my lifting to lift heavy and do a seperate HITT type cardio.
But I won't change my workout until I stall cause what I'm doing now is working with 2 pounds lost a week for the last 3 weeks.
Thanks for the input! Gonna use it!