not burning as many calories as before

lunamo14

hi guys,

I've been exercising 6 days a week for the past 5 months. I bought a HRM a month ago and been doing mostly Turbofire and Les Mills Combat and was burning between 800- 1000 easily for a 60 mins session

For the past week or so, I've been doing the same programs and I'm lucky if I burn between 200- 300 calories for the same amount of time. I've been mixing my workouts this week by doing Turbofire, Les Mills, Strength training and the Biggest Loser dvds to confuse my body to burn more but nothing seems to be working. Could it be my HRM? (I bought it at Sears but I can't include age, weight, etc.) All my watch is giving me is the time and calories burn.

what am I suppose to do? I really don't want to exercise more than 90 mins a day??? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

According to the scale, I'm maintaining instead of losing but I gaining more muscles.

Thanks,

Caroline

omma_to_3

Does your HRM have a chest strap, so it's continuously monitoring your heart rate? You will burn fewer calories as you lose weight and become more fit. However, if your HRM doesn't have a chest strap, it will not be very accurate and the calorie burn will be based on whenever you happen to take your HR.

phjorg

you're just now starting to report the correct calorie burn as you are getting into normal shape is all. The 800-1000cal/hour before was wayyyy too high. Consider this, tour de france riders burn 700cal/hour. so either you're able to work out at an intensity thats much greater than the best elite male athletes in the world, or your calorie burn calculations are horribly inflated during that time. I would suggest to you it's the latter.

lunamo14

no, My HRM doesn't have a chest strap. It's a watch that i wear on my wrist during my workouts. i feel like I had a great workout afterward. doesn't 200-300 calories a bit low for 60 mins of high intensity cardio?

what do you guys burn in 60 mins of high intensity?

Thanks to all that reply.

phjorg

no, My HRM doesn't have a chest strap. It's a watch that i wear on my wrist during my workouts. i feel like I had a great workout afterward. doesn't 200-300 calories a bit low for 60 mins of high intensity cardio?

what do you guys burn in 60 mins of high intensity?

Thanks to all that reply.

firstly any HRM also includes your BMR. so subtract the 100-150cal of that you would burn anyway in that hour and your HRM is basically saying you only burned 50-200 calories from exercise.

so that is a bit low, agreed. a slow jog/fast walk is around 2cal/min. so 120cal/hour. So I'm guessing you went at an intensity higher than a fast walk for that hour. As for how much obviously I can't say, but I would venture that a recalibration of your HRM might be in order.

Energizer06

no, My HRM doesn't have a chest strap. It's a watch that i wear on my wrist during my workouts. i feel like I had a great workout afterward. doesn't 200-300 calories a bit low for 60 mins of high intensity cardio?

what do you guys burn in 60 mins of high intensity?

Thanks to all that reply.

Well, I would recommend the chest strap HRM. Much...much...much more accurate. On average a person will typically burn 200-300 calories every 30 mins of moderate to high intensity cardio. This will lower quite a bit as you become more "fit". But rarely would you decrease that much (800-1000 to 200) even in a 5 month period if your intensity level is the same.

omma_to_3

no, My HRM doesn't have a chest strap. It's a watch that i wear on my wrist during my workouts. i feel like I had a great workout afterward. doesn't 200-300 calories a bit low for 60 mins of high intensity cardio?

what do you guys burn in 60 mins of high intensity?

Thanks to all that reply.

The most I would say people typically reach is 10 calories per minute once they're more 'fit'. When I first started running, I topped that by a fair amount (600 calories for 45 minutes!) but that doesn't last very long. Now, I burn less than 10 per minute when running (maybe 8.5 to 9 calories per minutes instead).

But yes, the 200 to 300 is low. But an HRM without a chest band isn't very accurate for calorie burn. If you plan on eating those calories back, I wouldn't use it.