Am I getting a worthwhile benefit?

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  • DvlDwnInGA
    DvlDwnInGA Posts: 368 Member
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    You don't have to do cardio to lose weight. It is however great for your heart. It will also help to speed up your weight loss. It also allows you more calories a day to eat. That is just a couple reasons to do it. More to eat, helps you lose weight and get in shape faster and is great for your heart. Looking rediculous and a little bit of pain do not seem like good enough reasons to stop doing it if you ask me. Keep at it, it will get easier.
  • blossomingbutterfly
    blossomingbutterfly Posts: 743 Member
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    blueblueheart wrote: »
    Cardio doesn't have to hurt. No need to jump right into any hardcore stuff. If you hate what you're doing to lose you'll just regain again anyway.

    Walking for an hour would be great. Nice way to clear your head and get your zen on as well.

    If work is far enough away, walking to and from could make a pretty big dent calorie-wise.

    I walk to work and from work each day. It's only 10 minutes each way but it's still 20 minutes total each day. And according to MFP and other sites, I'm buring 107 cals for that walk. That's something. Better than nothing.
  • blossomingbutterfly
    blossomingbutterfly Posts: 743 Member
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    I HATE working out too. I used to do it all the time because I felt like I HAD to. I had lost about 70lbs and I wanted to keep it off. I would do 1hr of elliptical at level 15 and I would beat myself up if I didn't.

    Now I gained it all back and more. We have an elliptical at home and I'm lucky if I can do 8 minutes at level 4! I just cannot do more. I HATE it.

    I too have knee problems. One I busted in a step class because one girl was wayyyy too close to me and had no idea what she was doing, she twirled the wrong way and hit me and I smacked the knee at a weird angle right off the cement floor. Ooops! Since then, it's never been the same.

    There's this machine, I forget what it's called, it's a mix between an elliptical and a stairmaster and it was beautiful. It burned 2x the calories of an elliptical AND it did NOT hurt my knees at all. If only I could remember what it was called...

    Otherwise, what I do is walk. WALK WALK WALK. It's easy on the knees, burns calories, makes it worth it, it's free, no pressure, no one watching, nothing out of the ordinary. Moving is better than sedentary.
  • BeckZombie
    BeckZombie Posts: 138 Member
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    To me, it's worth it. I burn about 300-400 calories for every 35-45 minutes I workout on the elliptical. That means I can have a big dinner or more snacks throughout the day and still stick to my calorie goal. I've lost 10 lbs in just under 2 months doing this. Sure, that's not a ton of weight, but it's definitely something!
  • gmallan
    gmallan Posts: 2,099 Member
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    Focus on creating a calorie deficit by adjusting your diet. Exercise has been shown time and time again to be a really poor modality for weight loss (because people over-esimate their burn and over-compensate by eating more etc.). Exercise, as some of the others have touched on, IS however great for overall health so you should do it for that reason.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
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    I don't do a lot of cardio, but sometimes I'll do a short 10 minutes just so I can eat 100 extra calories for dinner. THAT makes it worth it to me. Besides all the health benefits blah blah blah
  • CJReg119
    CJReg119 Posts: 14 Member
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    bwogilvie wrote: »
    Dr. Yoni Freedhoff's exercise mantra applies: "Some is good. More is better. Everything counts." (See his recent book The Diet Fix.)

    200 calories might not seem like a lot, but it makes a difference. Depending on your calorie goal, it can be a 10-15% increase in daily calories. That, in turn, makes it a lot easier to stick to a calorie deficit.

    That said, I think 200-300 calories for 20 minutes of elliptical is an exaggeration. That's 600-900 calories an hour. I'm now a 153-pound guy, and to burn 600 calories I need to bicycle 70-90 minutes, run for 45 minutes at an 8:00 pace, or row at 160 watts for 11000 meters (which takes 48 minutes).

    The data varies all over the place which is extremely frustrating! It could all be an exaggeration. The 200 was on the low side of my research. Some sites stated the cals burned at upwards of 500! This is hard enough but with variable data makes it confusing, too. With your info here, I'm probably burning like 50 cals for killing myself for that 20 mins on the elliptical
    !
  • CJReg119
    CJReg119 Posts: 14 Member
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    extremelygrumpycat wrote: »
    I HATE working out too. I used to do it all the time because I felt like I HAD to. I had lost about 70lbs and I wanted to keep it off. I would do 1hr of elliptical at level 15 and I would beat myself up if I didn't.

    Now I gained it all back and more. We have an elliptical at home and I'm lucky if I can do 8 minutes at level 4! I just cannot do more. I HATE it.

    I too have knee problems. One I busted in a step class because one girl was wayyyy too close to me and had no idea what she was doing, she twirled the wrong way and hit me and I smacked the knee at a weird angle right off the cement floor. Ooops! Since then, it's never been the same.

    There's this machine, I forget what it's called, it's a mix between an elliptical and a stairmaster and it was beautiful. It burned 2x the calories of an elliptical AND it did NOT hurt my knees at all. If only I could remember what it was called...

    Otherwise, what I do is walk. WALK WALK WALK. It's easy on the knees, burns calories, makes it worth it, it's free, no pressure, no one watching, nothing out of the ordinary. Moving is better than sedentary.

    I am so sorry about your knee! I know how painful bad knees can be. Are you talking about the ARC trainer machine?? Sort of looks like that old "Gazel" thing some guy named Tony sold on TV? They have those Arc machines at my Planet Fitness
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
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    The only way for most of us without expensive equipment to really get an accurate calorie burn for physical activity is to accurately count calories eaten, then compare weight loss/gain with calories eaten. Begin by using the best estimate you can find of calorie burn, and then correct it based on results.

    Regardless of calorie burn, exercise has many positive effects on health and well-being. Gretchen Reynolds's book The First Twenty Minutes documents some (but has no references); Alex Hutchinson's book Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?, documents more and has references to research publications.

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