Does being out of shape mean you burn more calories?

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neasy23
neasy23 Posts: 47
in Fitness and Exercise
If two people are the same weight/height and do the exact same activity will the person who is more out of shape burn more calories assuming their heart rate is higher?

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  • vtmoon
    vtmoon Posts: 3,436 Member
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    at the start yes, until your body gets comfortable doing whatever exercise that is you are doing. Your heart is struggling to pump blood fast enough to the body parts that are using it, which means your body over all is working harder to do the same activity.
  • JohnMessmer
    JohnMessmer Posts: 536
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    Yes. The more out of shape you are the more rapidly you will burn calories and lose weight, I am living proof that this is the case. At some point it will adjust, hopefully not until I am down in Twoderville somewhere.
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    Yes, but the flip side is that the person who is out of shape won't be able to do the activity as long as the person who is in shape. So they'll probably burn more calories initially but the gap will shorten and close as time goes on. Also, the in shape person should be able to do increased intensity which would increase calorie burn. So as long as you keep pushing yourself as you get in better and better shape, you should be able to keep the calorie burns similar (or even higher).
  • kmuree
    kmuree Posts: 283 Member
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    What they said! :bigsmile:
  • Cr01502
    Cr01502 Posts: 3,614 Member
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    Theoretically yes. However the in shape person burns fat more readliy than the unfit individual.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    I answered the exact same question earlier this morning, so I am not going to repeat it. But all the other comments are wrong. If you are doing the exact same activity at the exact same workload, then calorie burn will be mostly the same. After an initial adaptation, fitness level has no real effect on the RATE of calories burned (cals/min)--only weight.
  • neasy23
    neasy23 Posts: 47
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    Thanks for all of the replies. Funny how so many answers on this board can differ!

    If HRM is an accurate way to measure cal burned, and assuming somebody out of shape would be at an increased heart rate doing an activity, then it stands to reason that more calories would be burned.

    I was surprised to burn 225 calories doing 30 day shred for only 25 minutes. Perhaps it's my level of fitness (or lack thereof) that is allowing me at this point to burn that amount!
  • reneecgc
    reneecgc Posts: 179 Member
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    As I lost weight I burned less calories. That is what my HRM monitor shows.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    Thanks for all of the replies. Funny how so many answers on this board can differ!

    If HRM is an accurate way to measure cal burned, and assuming somebody out of shape would be at an increased heart rate doing an activity, then it stands to reason that more calories would be burned.

    I was surprised to burn 225 calories doing 30 day shred for only 25 minutes. Perhaps it's my level of fitness (or lack thereof) that is allowing me at this point to burn that amount!

    That's a big "if" -- and in this case it can be very misleading. Heart rate by itself means nothing in terms of calories burned. Heart rate is only an indicator of RELATIVE intensity--i.e. what percentage of your maximum are you working at.

    Like all relative measures, it means nothing without the scale--if I promised to increased my gift to you by 100 PERCENT!, it would mean little if the original gift was only $1.00.

    So, heart rate can ONLY tell you what percentage of your maximum you are working. It cannot know what that maximum is.

    Your maximum aerobic capacity is your VO2 max, or, the maximum amount of oxygen you can process. In order to determine your ABSOLUTE workload, you need to know two things: A) your true maximum heart rate and B) your VO2max. If you know these two numbers (plus the other standard setup info) and your HRM can be programmed with these numbers, and you are doing steady-state cardio exercise, THEN an HRM can be 80%-85% accurate.

    As I have mentioned many times before, any cardio work level -- e.g. running @ 6 mph -- has a relatively fixed energy cost. As you train, your VO2 max increases. This means that working at the same intensity level --in this case running @ 6 mph-- now represents a LOWER percentage of your maximum. Since heart rate is relative, and you are working at a lower percentage of maximum, your heart rate at this workload will be lower. However, the calorie burn (assuming weight is the same) is still the same. HRMs record lower numbers because the settings were not updated with the increased VO2 max.

    This is the problem with using HRMs as the "reference" standard for calories burned and assuming that they directly measure calories. They don't. They guess at calories burned, based on a set of assumptions about how you are working out and the personal information programmed into the watch. If any of those assumptions are not true, then the calorie numbers become significantly less accurate.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    As I lost weight I burned less calories. That is what my HRM monitor shows.

    Losing weight is a completely different factor than fitness level. The two often go together (increased fitness and lowered weight), but body weight is the only factor that is significant.

    If the increased fitness allows one to work at a higher workload, and one can update the VO2max settings in the HRM, then that will offset some of the decrease in calories burned that occurs from the weight loss.
  • neasy23
    neasy23 Posts: 47
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    Azdak... Seems to all make sense! Thanks for your input
  • monty619
    monty619 Posts: 1,308 Member
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    If two people are the same weight/height and do the exact same activity will the person who is more out of shape burn more calories assuming their heart rate is higher?

    simply put... yes it does.

    for this reason i stay far away from cardio until i start to reach a plateau then i incorporate it... or sometimes to bust myself thru a plateau il intentionally get out of shape by not doin cardio for a week (yes that short of time gets you out of shape) then hop back on it.

    BUT doin HIIT is always max training and heart rate will always be maxed, just recovery time will be quicker which is why i think its optimal to do HIgh intensity interval training.
  • sandyswims
    sandyswims Posts: 25 Member
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    Azdak, thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic yet again. I see you explain over and over again, the science behind this most popular misconception, but this time you really nailed it on the head! Great analogy and fantastic explanation. Everyone relying solely on their heart rate monitors should read this gem.

    That's a big "if" -- and in this case it can be very misleading. Heart rate by itself means nothing in terms of calories burned. Heart rate is only an indicator of RELATIVE intensity--i.e. what percentage of your maximum are you working at.

    Like all relative measures, it means nothing without the scale--if I promised to increased my gift to you by 100 PERCENT!, it would mean little if the original gift was only $1.00.

    So, heart rate can ONLY tell you what percentage of your maximum you are working. It cannot know what that maximum is.

    Your maximum aerobic capacity is your VO2 max, or, the maximum amount of oxygen you can process. In order to determine your ABSOLUTE workload, you need to know two things: A) your true maximum heart rate and B) your VO2max. If you know these two numbers (plus the other standard setup info) and your HRM can be programmed with these numbers, and you are doing steady-state cardio exercise, THEN an HRM can be 80%-85% accurate.

    As I have mentioned many times before, any cardio work level -- e.g. running @ 6 mph -- has a relatively fixed energy cost. As you train, your VO2 max increases. This means that working at the same intensity level --in this case running @ 6 mph-- now represents a LOWER percentage of your maximum. Since heart rate is relative, and you are working at a lower percentage of maximum, your heart rate at this workload will be lower. However, the calorie burn (assuming weight is the same) is still the same. HRMs record lower numbers because the settings were not updated with the increased VO2 max.

    This is the problem with using HRMs as the "reference" standard for calories burned and assuming that they directly measure calories. They don't. They guess at calories burned, based on a set of assumptions about how you are working out and the personal information programmed into the watch. If any of those assumptions are not true, then the calorie numbers become significantly less accurate.
  • literatelier
    literatelier Posts: 209 Member
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    Well put. Can also be compared to walking a mile vs. running a mile. You'd burn about the same amount of calories even though presumably your heart rate would be faster while running. The distance and your body weight are what factor the energy burned.

    That's a big "if" -- and in this case it can be very misleading. Heart rate by itself means nothing in terms of calories burned. Heart rate is only an indicator of RELATIVE intensity--i.e. what percentage of your maximum are you working at.

    Like all relative measures, it means nothing without the scale--if I promised to increased my gift to you by 100 PERCENT!, it would mean little if the original gift was only $1.00.

    So, heart rate can ONLY tell you what percentage of your maximum you are working. It cannot know what that maximum is.

    Your maximum aerobic capacity is your VO2 max, or, the maximum amount of oxygen you can process. In order to determine your ABSOLUTE workload, you need to know two things: A) your true maximum heart rate and B) your VO2max. If you know these two numbers (plus the other standard setup info) and your HRM can be programmed with these numbers, and you are doing steady-state cardio exercise, THEN an HRM can be 80%-85% accurate.

    As I have mentioned many times before, any cardio work level -- e.g. running @ 6 mph -- has a relatively fixed energy cost. As you train, your VO2 max increases. This means that working at the same intensity level --in this case running @ 6 mph-- now represents a LOWER percentage of your maximum. Since heart rate is relative, and you are working at a lower percentage of maximum, your heart rate at this workload will be lower. However, the calorie burn (assuming weight is the same) is still the same. HRMs record lower numbers because the settings were not updated with the increased VO2 max.

    This is the problem with using HRMs as the "reference" standard for calories burned and assuming that they directly measure calories. They don't. They guess at calories burned, based on a set of assumptions about how you are working out and the personal information programmed into the watch. If any of those assumptions are not true, then the calorie numbers become significantly less accurate.

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