Questions about HIIT Exercises

No exercise needed to lose weight just a calorie deficit.

Exercise is great for health and fitness and it enables you to eat more but not needed for weight loss.

But yes it's a good workout and if you like it do it.

Hey, I'm breastfeeding too and adding back in 300 calories for breastfeeding (older baby) with a goal of losing 0.5-1 lbs a week. My doctor told me not to drop below ~1600-1800 calories a day and not to try to lose weight too fast to maintain supply, so probably a goal of 1 lb/week or less would be safe.

BrittanyBrines wrote: »

Cool so set my goals then log the BF and just make sure to eat those back? What is a good calorie intake for weight loss? I have never counted calories before. I have just done a lot of cardio (used to be a horse trainer before moving to the city so I "worked out" a lot and never had to worry about counting calories).

Basically we can't tell you that but MFP will...just setup your profile put in your weight loss goals (not too aggressive) which means 2lbs a week isn't suitable if you are trying to lose 20lbs....or 50lbs....75 and up maybe...and it will give you the calories to lose weight without exercise...

Eat at that limit and if you exercise log that in the exercise area and eat back about 50-75% of those too (because MFP is setup to eat them back and 50-75% because they tend to over esitmate) and log breastfeeding as well and bam weight lost...

BrittanyBrines wrote: »

Cool so set my goals then log the BF and just make sure to eat those back? What is a good calorie intake for weight loss? I have never counted calories before. I have just done a lot of cardio (used to be a horse trainer before moving to the city so I "worked out" a lot and never had to worry about counting calories).

There's a couple ways you can count calories. There's the MFP method and the TDEE method. Both will take some trial and error since they're based on estimations/averages and everyone is different.

The MFP method determines your calorie goal based on estimated BMR plus day to day activity level (sedentary such as office work, active such as construction, etc.) and then minus the number of calories required for weight loss (typically 500 calories for 1 lb loss per week). You then log all your food AND all your exercise. You would eat back the exercise calories you earn since those aren't taken into account when determining the base calorie goal.

The TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) method is a little simpler in my opinion. You can use an online calculator to determine what your TDEE is (I like the TDEE calculator on IIFYM.com). It's based on your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, the calories you burn by being alive) plus the calories you burn through daily activities (walking to the car, doing laundry, etc.) plus the calories you burn through exercise. This is an average across the week instead of specific to one day. So say you have a BMR of 1,400 + 300 calories chasing kids and doing your daily work + 250 calories of exercise on average = a TDEE of 1,950. This is the number of calories you would need to eat to neither gain nor lose any weight. To lose weight you simply reduce this number by 20% (so 1950 x .8 = 1,560) and eat that number of calories every day. To use this method with MFP you can just play around with your goals until the calorie goal is close to what the TDEE calculator gives you.

The reason I say that I find the TDEE method simpler is because it's averaged across the week and I can eat the same number of calories every day. With MFP you get to eat more on workout days but get less on rest days and you have to track all your exercise (you also run the risk of overestimating how much you're burning in a workout). With TDEE you don't have to track workouts at all. If your average amount of exercise goes up or down, you may need to make adjustments to your calorie goal but that's all.

In your case, with the breastfeeding, if you use the MFP method you can just log 500 calories (or whatever number of calories your doctor tells you is needed for milk production) as "quick add" exercise calories. If you decide to use TDEE then just add those calories to whatever goal the TDEE calculator gives you. And, of course, if you're not losing then simply adjust calories down or if you start to have trouble producing then adjust up. Trial and error.

And, of course, you can always (and if you have concerns, I would say "should") just call your doctor and ask them about dieting while breastfeeding.

Congrats on both the new baby and your new fitness goals!!

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

Carlos_421 wrote: »

Many will tout the "fat burning zone" you can get into with steady state cardio but this is outweighed by the sheer number of calories burned by HIIT in less time.

Worth setting some expectations here. As a true HIIT session is relatively short one isn't actually expending many calories, although that's a bit moot if one is on top of the diet. I'd generally account for about 150 to 180 cals in a 20 minute period, so given a 15 minute warm up and cool down I'm gaining less than half of the calories expended from the HIIT portion of the session.

The rest of the analysis of where the deficit will come from is a bit flaky, the body will deplete glycogen, fat and lean tissue, not specifically from fat or glycogen or lean tissue. By incorporating some resistance training there is the potential to retain more lean mass.

All that said, even if it's not true HIIT there is some benefit in doing some CV exercise.

The point is that 20 minutes of HIIT will burn more than 20 minutes of steady state cardio. Yes, HIIT sessions are typically shorter. However, the beauty of them is that they burn more calories per minute than steady state cardio due to their intensity.

As for the body pulling energy from more than just fat stores, I was only explaining the concept of a deficit and how that the type of exercise used to create the deficit doesn't matter. I wasn't saying that an exercise induced deficit results in pure fat loss without any loss of lean body mass.
I did mention that HIIT is often credited with helping to retain more lean mass similar to strength training but didn't go into more detail about how both fat and lean mass are lost in a deficit because it didn't seem relevant to the question.

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

Carlos_421 wrote: »

The point is that 20 minutes of HIIT will burn more than 20 minutes of steady state cardio. Yes, HIIT sessions are typically shorter. However, the beauty of them is that they burn more calories per minute than steady state cardio due to their intensity.

If the originator was talking about true HIIT then I wouldn't disagree about slightly higher expenditure, although I'd challenge the idea that an extra 4-5 calories per session is actually significant enough to be worth worrying about.

It's worth recalling that if you're talking about HIIT then the access to the fuel stores in the anaerobic phase are very different from the access in aerobic elements, so while the higher intensity elements might have an impact on VO2Max, when sustained over a period of about three months. So the greater benefit is about improvement, rather than the calories expended.

I'd still suggest that 23-24 minutes of steady state is going to be as effective in terms of calorie expenditure, particularly if it's not true HIIT that the individual is doing.

didn't go into more detail about how both fat and lean mass are lost in a deficit because it didn't seem relevant to the question.

Interesting interpretation of relevant and irrelevant. Notwithstanding any debate about the accuracy or otherwise of the treatise, I'd suggest that knowledge that weight loss comes from across the range of fuel sources is pretty significant.

You're saying that there's only 4-5 calories difference between 20 minutes of HIIT and 20 minutes of steady state cardio?? One of the main reasons so many people prefer HIIT is because it doesn't take near as long to burn the same number of calories.

And do we have any reason to doubt that the OP is talking about true HIIT?

Also, as I already explained, the explanation I gave was not a treatise or even intended to be precise in regards to all the physiological processes involved. It was only a crude illustration to demonstrate that a deficit will result in weight loss regardless of the type of cardio chosen. Why you seem to want to debate other issues such as where weight loss occurs, the cardiovascular effects of each type of exercise and any benefits beyond weight loss is beyond me since I don't even disagree. This isn't a debate about which type is better. It's a question of whether she needs one when she enjoys the other.

And yes, considering that the OP's question was whether or not she needed to add steady state cardio to her regimen in order to lose weight (which she doesn't), I would say an explanation of how that weight is lost from both fat and LBM is off-topic, significant though the subject may be.

Carlos_421 wrote: »

You're saying that there's only 4-5 calories difference between 20 minutes of HIIT and 20 minutes of steady state cardio??

Broadly yes, because that's how the physics works.

One of the main reasons so many people prefer HIIT is because it doesn't take near as long to burn the same number of calories.

The benefits aren't really easily dumbed down to more calories, the effect of EPOC is disputed with the majority of studies indicating about twisce the effect of long duration steady state, though 4-5% of a large number is generally still more than 8-10% of a small number

A lot of people posit that HIIT is better without reflecting that the majority of studies are talking about a planed programme over a significant period, with the consequent better outcome being quite limited in applicability.

There are significant benefits around improving VO2Max and BMR if one is doing true HIIT. That said, without the corresponding aerobic base those gains are more limited than they could be if the HIIT is complemented with base training.

I would observe that most of the studies that compare HIIT and steady state exercise do use a baseline case of very low intensity steady state, the traditional fat burning zone. So if, for example, one was to compare a 20 minute steady state run with a 20 minute sprint interval session the difference in effect would be much reduced as a study would be comparing with a 20 minute walk.

And do we have any reason to doubt that the OP is talking about true HIIT?

Yes

And yes, considering that the OP's question was whether or not she needed to add steady state cardio to her regimen in order to lose weight, I would say that an explanation of how weight is lost from both fat and LBM is off-topic, significant though the subject may be.

Well given that weight loss is about calorie deficit, neither your treatise nor my observations could be trully said to be entirely apposite to the question.

Carlos_421 wrote: »

P.S. to Mammal: "Treatise: a written work dealing formally and systematically with a subject."

And the whooshing noise would be the sarchasm