Only burning 250 cals doing Insanity?!

amberx1127
amberx1127 Posts: 45
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi everybody! So I just recently started doing the insanity program and have just finished my first week. I wear a heart rate monitor while doing the workouts (Polar H7 bluetooth Heart Rate Sensor with strap) and after every workout I have only burned 250-300 cals! I feel like I push myself very hard and I try not to take breaks. If I do take a break it is for a couple of seconds and then I try my best to get back into it. Insanity is by NO means easy for me. I do get very exhausted at times. I am a 5'3" 21 year old girl weighing 110 lbs. Does 250-300 cals seem like a really low burn for me? I am pretty fit and have been working out non stop for almost a year now so can it be that I burn less calories than others?? Everyone I talk to says they burn at LEAST 500!! Not fair!! Why am I burning so little?

Replies

  • torizia
    torizia Posts: 140 Member
    I've done the first 3 days of insanity this week, and have also taken very short breaks and worked hard. I'm 106lbs and 5'3 and have been burning about 300 calories each workout.
    I get a similar burn for other high intensity exercise classes e.g. body combat, and although it seems to be lower than most people, I'm not too worried as I think it's because I'm quite small! I think I'm right in saying that larger people tend to have higher calorie burn?
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    You're not going to like this, but given your size and the fact that you don't quite keep up with the instructor (which is no shame, that workout is *intense*!), that number is likely an over-estimate.

    HRMs are a terrible tool for guesstimating burns for this kind of interval-y exercise, they almost always produce exaggerated results, for most people.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    I am pretty fit and have been working out non stop for almost a year now so can it be that I burn less calories than others?? Everyone I talk to says they burn at LEAST 500!! Not fair!! Why am I burning so little?


    That's pretty much it. That, and the fact that you're taking extra breaks.
  • amberx1127
    amberx1127 Posts: 45
    I've done the first 3 days of insanity this week, and have also taken very short breaks and worked hard. I'm 106lbs and 5'3 and have been burning about 300 calories each workout.
    I get a similar burn for other high intensity exercise classes e.g. body combat, and although it seems to be lower than most people, I'm not too worried as I think it's because I'm quite small! I think I'm right in saying that larger people tend to have higher calorie burn?

    Yeah I kinda figured that may be why but just wanted to know if anybody else was burning as few as me lol I was getting nervous I wasn't working hard enough or something!
  • torizia
    torizia Posts: 140 Member
    I'm afraid so! I've taken 1-2 extra breaks per session to refill my water bottle (less than a minute each) and don't think I could work much harder. My heartrate tends to be about 180, same as when I run, so I figure there's not much else I could be doing!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    - you can't compare you calorie burn to other people...People who are much larger are going to burn far more because they simply have more mass to move. There are numerous other variables involved.

    - people in general do not burn as much as they think they burn. The people that are telling you 500 calories per workout are grossly overestimating their burn...that is almost 17 calories per minute and just no way...one simply does not burn 500 calories in a 30 minute workout. If they are, they are huge individuals. It is quite difficult to burn more than about 10 calories per minute sustained for any significant duration...one would burn a bit more if they were overweight/obese and a bit less if they were at a healthy weight and BF%.

    - You don't have to exercise off every single calorie...you burn calories 25/7 and the exercise burn for the average fit individual generally only constitutes roughly 10-15% of that individuals daily calorie requirements. There is far more to exercise than calorie burning...calorie burn is just a bi-product.

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