Fitness Blender and calories question

LaurenW432
LaurenW432 Posts: 14
in Fitness and Exercise
Hello.

I've been doing workouts from Fitness Blender the last few days. They are really hard, or I find them hard anyway. I've mainly been doing the 23 minute tabata workout, (as well as weight training on non cardio days). My question is, in the bottom right of the video, there's a counter, adding up all the calories you're burning as you go along. What confuses me is, it says 158-254 calories burned, but that's a pretty big difference. Does anyone know what the indicator actually shows? Is it just supposed to be a calories range? Because I worked pretty hard, some serious leg burn with the lunge pulses! I'd like to think I worked off 254, but I don't want to input it and it be wrong. I'm 166 pounds, 5'9, female. Can anyone give me a slightly more accurate idea or explain what 158-254 actually means?
Thanks!

Replies

  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    Hello.

    I've been doing workouts from Fitness Blender the last few days. They are really hard, or I find them hard anyway. I've mainly been doing the 23 minute tabata workout, (as well as weight training on non cardio days). My question is, in the bottom right of the video, there's a counter, adding up all the calories you're burning as you go along. What confuses me is, it says 158-254 calories burned, but that's a pretty big difference. Does anyone know what the indicator actually shows? Is it just supposed to be a calories range? Because I worked pretty hard, some serious leg burn with the lunge pulses! I'd like to think I worked off 254, but I don't want to input it and it be wrong. I'm 166 pounds, 5'9, female. Can anyone give me a slightly more accurate idea or explain what 158-254 actually means?
    Thanks!

    Height, weight, age, gender, exertion level, and more are all used to calculate calorie burn. Fitness Blender doesn't have that info. Women burn less than men. Younger burn more than older. Larger burn more than smaller. Fitter burn less than newbies.......it's all relative.

    Start with the smallest number....eat those calories back for a few weeks. If you feel tired & run down...eat more. If you stop losing weigh altogether....you might be eating more than you think.
  • LH85DC
    LH85DC Posts: 231 Member
    You're right- it's a range for calorie burns. I'm pretty sure that they have a video somewhere in which they try to explain how they develop the range. Basically, they try to come up with a reasonable expectation of what you'll burn from said workout. But since they have no way of knowing 1) your specific details (height, sex, weight, fitness level) and 2) how hard you're working, they give a range. The assumption being that someone who is heavier and at a lower fitness level but who is still working as hard as they can will burn more calories than someone who is at a normal weight, and presumably a higher level of fitness. Given that you're at what's considered a normal weight for your height but you're working hard, I'd expect that you're burning somewhere in the middle of that range...

    As an example: When I do fitness blender videos I usually list about 1/2 of the calories from their range on my tracker (I'm 5'4, female and about 127- so right in the middle of the normal weight range, and about average physical condition- I'm no marathon runner!). So if the range is 154-258, I'd give myself between 154-180. Especially if you plan to eat those calories back, you don't want to overestimate your calories burned, or you could find yourself chipping away at your deficit.

    Does that help?

    (Edited to clarify my example)
  • TheGymGypsy
    TheGymGypsy Posts: 1,023 Member
    My advice would be that if you feel like you are really exerting yourself to just use the middle number. You might be overestimating or underestimating a little but without a heart rate monitor it's difficult to be sure.
  • LaurenW432
    LaurenW432 Posts: 14
    Thanks for these replies. LH85 that really helped yeah, thank you. I put it in as 160, don't want to get carried away!
    I've seen a lot of people talking about eating calories back. I am never at my calorie goal, I'm always under, unless it's the weekend I might treat myself a bit. But generally, my net cals are usually about 1200ish. Am I supposed to be eating more?
    Thanks.
  • LH85DC
    LH85DC Posts: 231 Member
    I'd guess that you could probably get away with eating more than 1200 net and still lose weight, but it's hard to say for sure without more details. I'm assuming that you don't plan to lose a lot more since you're already in the normal range, right? What is your MFP account set at? (i.e. how many lbs a week did you tell MFP you wanted to lose?) Because with less than 20 lbs to lose I wouldn't suggest trying to lose more than .5 or 1 lb a week... I lost my last fifteen pounds or so eating 1900 calories total (I do TDEE, so don't eat back my exercise calories- I only track them on my Fitbit site, not here), and I'm not as tall as you are!

    I'm always in favor of eating as much as you can while still losing weight, but this is up to you. If you're losing at a reasonable pace and you're comfortable with the calorie intake, then keep at it for a while. But if you're feeling tired or fatigued, or you start feeling like you can't finish your workouts, then reconsider your intake :) Add me as a friend if you have other questions, I'll probably forget to come back and check here again!

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