Does biking burn fat faster?

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  • StevLL
    StevLL Posts: 921 Member
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    :laugh: The only thing that really makes me burn more calories when I'm biking is being chased by something. :bigsmile: I don't run, so I don't know how it compares, but if I was walking and something chased me I think I'd be lunch. :cry:

    sorry been in the sun too long today!
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
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    You burn fat eating in a calorie deficit.. Exercise is just to make your body look better.

    But this is cardio, so wouldn't it help burn fat?

    Not if you are over estimating calories burned, no it wouldn't help burn fat.

    Plus weight lifting does more for fat burn then cardio does.

    I "burn" fat by lifting, running and eating at a deficit.

    I think this is poor advice. You lose fat by burning more than you consume. The cardio is going to increase your calorie burn and increase your deficit. Weight lifting increases muscle mass which will increase BMR , but the amount of muscle you are going to build is minimal to zero especially when you are in caloric deficit. Further, it would take years of weight lifting to generate an amount of muscle mass that would make a real difference in your BMR.

    While it is true you can't build muscle in a calorie deficit, you can retain muscle.. and the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism.. The less you have, the lower it is.

    Since OP edited her original post and stated she does not need to lose much but just wants to stay trim/fit, my advice makes perfect sense.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    You burn fat eating in a calorie deficit.. Exercise is just to make your body look better.

    But this is cardio, so wouldn't it help burn fat?
    Not really, cardio mostly burns glucose, fat burning is too slow to keep up with need. Most fat burning occurs during sleep.

    And also, the human body reaches for homeostasis, burn more fat in a specific time period, and you burn less fat at other times in order to compensate. A consistent calorie deficit burns the same amount of fat, regardless of exercise levels.
  • move257
    move257 Posts: 313
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    I hope so, I do it a lot!! It's a great workout and much more enjoyable (to me at least) then running or anything like p90x. I mean p90x or Insanity, great workouts but I don't want to be stuck indoors all the time!! When you bike you get to take in the scenery and such. As long as you're eating clean and you're getting out there and moving, you're already doing great :)
  • bpotts44
    bpotts44 Posts: 1,066 Member
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    You burn fat eating in a calorie deficit.. Exercise is just to make your body look better.

    But this is cardio, so wouldn't it help burn fat?

    Not if you are over estimating calories burned, no it wouldn't help burn fat.

    Plus weight lifting does more for fat burn then cardio does.

    I "burn" fat by lifting, running and eating at a deficit.

    I think this is poor advice. You lose fat by burning more than you consume. The cardio is going to increase your calorie burn and increase your deficit. Weight lifting increases muscle mass which will increase BMR , but the amount of muscle you are going to build is minimal to zero especially when you are in caloric deficit. Further, it would take years of weight lifting to generate an amount of muscle mass that would make a real difference in your BMR.

    While it is true you can't build muscle in a calorie deficit, you can retain muscle.. and the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism.. The less you have, the lower it is.

    Since OP edited her original post and stated she does not need to lose much but just wants to stay trim/fit, my advice makes perfect sense.

    She wants to lose 5-7 lbs and your advice is biking wouldn't help because she might overestimate the calories. Frankly, your advice sucks. The truth is lifting weights and doing cardio are both beneficial and she would need to be in caloric deficit to lose the weight.
  • BSchoberg
    BSchoberg Posts: 712 Member
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    If you're looking purely at calorie burn running will typically burn more given the same length of time.

    The real question is which do you enjoy more. Doing exercise x rather than exercise y just for the calorie burn is a bad idea as you're less likely to stick with it. Exercise is not meant to be a chore, doing laundry is - think of exercise as play time.

    ^^^ THIS - or, if not play time, think of it as your YOU time and a special thing you do just for you.
  • fatboypup
    fatboypup Posts: 1,873 Member
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    i like bicycling
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
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    If you're looking purely at calorie burn running will typically burn more given the same length of time.

    The real question is which do you enjoy more. Doing exercise x rather than exercise y just for the calorie burn is a bad idea as you're less likely to stick with it. Exercise is not meant to be a chore, doing laundry is - think of exercise as play time.

    Agreed. I was about to type exactly the same thing!
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
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    You burn fat eating in a calorie deficit.. Exercise is just to make your body look better.

    But this is cardio, so wouldn't it help burn fat?

    Not if you are over estimating calories burned, no it wouldn't help burn fat.

    Plus weight lifting does more for fat burn then cardio does.

    I "burn" fat by lifting, running and eating at a deficit.

    I think this is poor advice. You lose fat by burning more than you consume. The cardio is going to increase your calorie burn and increase your deficit. Weight lifting increases muscle mass which will increase BMR , but the amount of muscle you are going to build is minimal to zero especially when you are in caloric deficit. Further, it would take years of weight lifting to generate an amount of muscle mass that would make a real difference in your BMR.

    While it is true you can't build muscle in a calorie deficit, you can retain muscle.. and the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism.. The less you have, the lower it is.

    Since OP edited her original post and stated she does not need to lose much but just wants to stay trim/fit, my advice makes perfect sense.

    She wants to lose 5-7 lbs and your advice is biking wouldn't help because she might overestimate the calories. Frankly, your advice sucks. The truth is lifting weights and doing cardio are both beneficial and she would need to be in caloric deficit to lose the weight.

    Which she wouldn't be if she was overestimating calories.. Which tends to happen a lot on this site.

    Losing only 5-7 pounds is pretty hard... and you have to be pretty much spot on with a calorie deficit for that to happen.

    I never said biking wouldn't help.. she can bike to China for all I care. I just said that a calorie deficit burns fat (which you agreed is true since fat is weight) and exercise helps the body look better.

    I suggest you learn to read before you go telling people that their advice sucks.
  • xshortiex
    xshortiex Posts: 120 Member
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    Wow, okay, I never meant to start an argument or anything.

    I know that in order to burn fat and lose weight, I need to be in calorie deficit. So I guess, for clarification for dad106, what I was asking was this: will biking be more beneficial to increasing my calorie deficit than power-walking on the treadmill (which is what I'm currently doing)?
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
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    Wow, okay, I never meant to start an argument or anything.

    I know that in order to burn fat and lose weight, I need to be in calorie deficit. So I guess, for clarification for dad106, what I was asking was this: will biking be more beneficial to increasing my calorie deficit than power-walking on the treadmill (which is what I'm currently doing)?

    and my answer to that is it depends on you and how fit you are.

    The more fit you are, the less calories you burn over all... So you need to see which exercise burns more calories and stick with that.

    I use to walk on a treadmill(not necessarily power walk, but walk on an incline at a speed of like 3.5-40) and as time went on, I realized I wasn't burning as many calories as I used to... and I wanted to up my calorie burn back into the 300-400 range doing cardio, so I took on running.
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    Wow, okay, I never meant to start an argument or anything.

    I know that in order to burn fat and lose weight, I need to be in calorie deficit. So I guess, for clarification for dad106, what I was asking was this: will biking be more beneficial to increasing my calorie deficit than power-walking on the treadmill (which is what I'm currently doing)?

    I guess I'll cut and paste my reply from the beginning of the thread then...
    None of them. All exercise burns calories. How many calories depends on the intensity. So pick one that you like versus which one you think is better. They're all the same, what matters is the effort you put in. Personally I like the elliptical because it's low impact and it's a good warmup to real exercise because you use upper and lower body.

    Pick one and go hard.
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,616 Member
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    Wow, okay, I never meant to start an argument or anything.

    I know that in order to burn fat and lose weight, I need to be in calorie deficit. So I guess, for clarification for dad106, what I was asking was this: will biking be more beneficial to increasing my calorie deficit than power-walking on the treadmill (which is what I'm currently doing)?

    Ah, don't worry, you didn't start an argument. This argument breaks out about once every ten minutes on this site... :-)
  • arc918
    arc918 Posts: 2,037 Member
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    Calories in vs. calories out for sure. A couple years back I put on 10+ lbs while running 50+ miles per week. I was eating more than I was burning.
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    Wow, okay, I never meant to start an argument or anything.

    I know that in order to burn fat and lose weight, I need to be in calorie deficit. So I guess, for clarification for dad106, what I was asking was this: will biking be more beneficial to increasing my calorie deficit than power-walking on the treadmill (which is what I'm currently doing)?

    Ah, don't worry, you didn't start an argument. This argument breaks out about once every ten minutes on this site... :-)

    NO IT DOESN'T! HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH A THING!

    (actually I just want to see more of that awesome white cat)
  • xshortiex
    xshortiex Posts: 120 Member
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    Ah, okay.
    Well, admittedly, I'm not super fit at the moment. My endurance is terrible, but like I said in my edited original post, I believe I'll be able to push myself harder on the bike than on the treadmill, so I guess I'll try that :)

    My only problem with "seeing what burns more calories" is that I'm not exactly sure how many calories I'm burning. I don't log exercise anymore, but the few times I did, I got really confused because I had walked at 4.0mph on my treadmill for 50mins and my treadmill said I burned 500cals. However when I logged this, MFP told me I burned like 245cals. (I posted a topic about this yesterday, I think).
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
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    Ah, okay.
    Well, admittedly, I'm not super fit at the moment. My endurance is terrible, but like I said in my edited original post, I believe I'll be able to push myself harder on the bike than on the treadmill, so I guess I'll try that :)

    My only problem with "seeing what burns more calories" is that I'm not exactly sure how many calories I'm burning. I don't log exercise anymore, but the few times I did, I got really confused because I had walked at 4.0mph on my treadmill for 50mins and my treadmill said I burned 500cals. However when I logged this, MFP told me I burned like 245cals. (I posted a topic about this yesterday, I think).

    Thats when most say to invest in an HRM, like Polar FT4 or FT7, to a pretty accurate estimation of calories burned.

    If you can't do that, then I can tell you I used the treadmill at my gyms calorie count before I got an HRM and I did fine.. but I would suggest not eating back all calories if you go that route.
  • MissNations
    MissNations Posts: 513 Member
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    I would do both. Alternate days or weeks so you don't get bored.
  • Nikki_Nx
    Nikki_Nx Posts: 27 Member
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    cycling has gotten in in the best shape of my life, its awseom cardio and if u can go and really give 'er sh** then youre gonna hit some HIGH burns. theres lots of vids on youtube that u can follow along with, u gotta PUSHHHHHHH urself hard! ur gonna be a sweaty mess and ur gonna love it! i swear, give it 5 weeks, do at least 3hrs/wk...you'll see what im talking about :D

    Thanks for that advice.....I want to get into cycling....used to love cycling everywhere when I was a kid, have gone and bought some lovely well padded cycle shorts (why is it that bicycle seats are always so uncomfortable?LOL)...and gloves to wear. One of my goals is to be able to cycle into work :o)
  • Nikki_Nx
    Nikki_Nx Posts: 27 Member
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    What about Spinning? Have you tried that? Thats similar to biking :o)

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