Can you burn to many calories?

Beautiful_Disaster108 · July 2012

I burn about 700-1000 calories on a week day on the weekend its way lower. I eat my regular calories but not that ones I burned. Working out helps me not be stressed that's why I do so much. I do spinning, cardio, and walk on the treadmill, I want to work out more though but I don't want to burn to many calories, is that possible? Or can I burn alot more?

julialla · July 2012

You can burn as many as you please, as long as you are staying safe and steering clear of injury. But, you should be eating your exercise calories back, so that you are at the very least, netting 1200 calories (or your BMR) a day. Have fun!

nmazahearti · July 2012

I'm also worried about that. I don't want to or feel the need to eat my burned calories back. Why do I have to?

heybales · July 2012

I burn about 700-1000 calories on a week day on the weekend its way lower. I eat my regular calories but not that ones I burned. Working out helps me not be stressed that's why I do so much. I do spinning, cardio, and walk on the treadmill, I want to work out more though but I don't want to burn to many calories, is that possible? Or can I burn alot more?

Those calorie burn estimates are based on what exactly?
What said it was that level of burn?

How intense are you making it?

Because yes, intense cardio over about 30 min is indeed stressful to the body, and cortisol is increased, and fat is retained. Besides the fact that at intense levels, you are burning mainly carbs anyway, so you are totally training your carb-burning system if always intense.

If you can keep it low key for all that time, you won't burn as many calories, but your body won't find it as stressful, and you actually may not shoot yourself in the metabolism.

If that is always intense, that is where you are headed.

Here's another concern no matter what level, but it'll be worse at high levels of effort burning mainly carbs.

Let's say that 1000 cal burn was totally in the fat-burning zone, so you got 50% fat burn, 50% carb. That's 500 calories worth of carbs you burned off.
Do you eat 500 calories worth of carbs daily? And mind you, that's just for the workout, rest of your day is 30-40% carb burn. Do you eat probably 700 cal of carbs daily?

What happens when your glucose stores in your liver runs out (about 400 calories worth) and you start tapping the muscle glucose stores? Your blood sugar must be maintained, muscle will be converted to glucose for that effort, not much, but some.
Your muscle will get what it needs from muscle glucose-stores.
But now your diet doesn't replenish those.
You workout the next day the same way, so lose more in your muscles.

By the 3rd or 4th day, you got no stores left in the muscle, now muscle is broken down not just for keeping blood sugar up, but for giving the working muscle some energy.
In a marathon for recreational runners going too fast, that's the "wall" - switching from mainly stored glucose/fat burning, to converted muscle/fat burning.

Feed our workout, even if it is for stress relief, because you are creating an incredible amount of stress that long of sessions anyway, maybe not mental stress, but body stress. At least that way you aren't breaking down muscle too - which you might like to have more of during weight loss.

heybales · July 2012

I'm also worried about that. I don't want to or feel the need to eat my burned calories back. Why do I have to?

Otherwise your already made deficit of 500 or 1000 becomes 1500 or 2000 daily. And 1000 may not have been realistic for you anyway. 1lb was recommended - did you take it?

You just increase the chances of what I describe in post above, and by not feeding your workouts, you won't get the most bang for your buck.
In which case, don't waste your time and energy on hard workouts, just walk. Because if the body doesn't have the energy to improve (food), it can't, and you are really just spinning your wheels. So might as well do it walking.

Beautiful_Disaster108 · July 2012

So what you are saying is to not burn over 1000 calories a day and do exercise that's not that high impact? I think that's what I got from that and I can barely eat my regular calories there's no way I can do the burned ones to

Determinednoob · July 2012

I burn about 700-1000 calories on a week day on the weekend its way lower. I eat my regular calories but not that ones I burned. Working out helps me not be stressed that's why I do so much. I do spinning, cardio, and walk on the treadmill, I want to work out more though but I don't want to burn to many calories, is that possible? Or can I burn alot more?

Those calorie burn estimates are based on what exactly?
What said it was that level of burn?

How intense are you making it?

Because yes, intense cardio over about 30 min is indeed stressful to the body, and cortisol is increased, and fat is retained. Besides the fact that at intense levels, you are burning mainly carbs anyway, so you are totally training your carb-burning system if always intense.

If you can keep it low key for all that time, you won't burn as many calories, but your body won't find it as stressful, and you actually may not shoot yourself in the metabolism.

If that is always intense, that is where you are headed.

Here's another concern no matter what level, but it'll be worse at high levels of effort burning mainly carbs.

Let's say that 1000 cal burn was totally in the fat-burning zone, so you got 50% fat burn, 50% carb. That's 500 calories worth of carbs you burned off.
Do you eat 500 calories worth of carbs daily? And mind you, that's just for the workout, rest of your day is 30-40% carb burn. Do you eat probably 700 cal of carbs daily?

What happens when your glucose stores in your liver runs out (about 400 calories worth) and you start tapping the muscle glucose stores? Your blood sugar must be maintained, muscle will be converted to glucose for that effort, not much, but some.
Your muscle will get what it needs from muscle glucose-stores.
But now your diet doesn't replenish those.
You workout the next day the same way, so lose more in your muscles.

By the 3rd or 4th day, you got no stores left in the muscle, now muscle is broken down not just for keeping blood sugar up, but for giving the working muscle some energy.
In a marathon for recreational runners going too fast, that's the "wall" - switching from mainly stored glucose/fat burning, to converted muscle/fat burning.

Feed our workout, even if it is for stress relief, because you are creating an incredible amount of stress that long of sessions anyway, maybe not mental stress, but body stress. At least that way you aren't breaking down muscle too - which you might like to have more of during weight loss.

This post is only semi legit (no hate) but the bottom line answer to the specific question is yes and no. The better question is can you create too high of a caloric deficit which is answered with a yes. If you compensate calories burned with calories consumed to avoid the overall deficit being too high then you are ok and avoid the legit concerns of the above post. Think about athletes that train like crazy. Remeber the last olympics when everyone was talking about that swimmer who was eating 10k cals per day? I have seen a 5'6"ish boxer say he eats 7k cals per day to offset his training. Obviously it depends in part on what your current goals are.

heybales · July 2012

So what you are saying is to not burn over 1000 calories a day and do exercise that's not that high impact? I think that's what I got from that and I can barely eat my regular calories there's no way I can do the burned ones to

I'm saying the 1000 cal deficit, already there from MFP if you selected 2lbs loss a week goal, is not helped by burning off and creating another 1000 cal deficit.

You can burn over 1000 cal's a day, and if you are going to do that, just eat at non-exercise maintenance.
Select Activity level of Lightly Active.
Goal loss of Maintain.

Now exercise to hearts content. Knowing that too much cardio is still stressful on the body and the hormones released from such stress will cause undesired effects regarding fat usage.

Not really the high impact, but the long high intensity is the problem, on a already big deficit. You could walk 10 min, run 10 min, walk 10 min, and get enough impact workout to improve bone density.
Weight lifting also doesn't burn as many calories, but fat is used more during the recovery time. So throw in a 2-3 heavy lifting sessions.

Can you burn to many calories?

Replies

Categories