Hot yoga w/wrist band??!!

lexii721
lexii721 Posts: 7 Member
edited November 21 in Fitness and Exercise
has anyone --preferably an average size and weight female- worn there Fitbit like band in a 90 minute bikram class? Im 5'5 130 and was curious how much I may actually be burning.

I just randomly enter 415 calories everyday in my diary

Replies

  • cheshirecatastrophe
    cheshirecatastrophe Posts: 1,395 Member
    edited July 2015
    Hot yoga doesn't actually burn any more calories than regular yoga. Your heart beats faster because of the temperature increase, not because it takes more energy to go through the exercises.

    Science.
    Athletes reported burning as many as 1,000 calories during a single 90-minute Bikram yoga session, according to Tracy. Yet his study of the physiological responses of 11 female and eight male participants between the ages of 18 and 40 found far fewer calories were being burned.

    Women burned 330 calories and men 460 per 90-minute session, according to his research. That’s roughly the equivalent of walking briskly at about 3.5 miles per hour for 90 minutes.

    “We actually measured metabolic rate for the first time,” Tracy says. Tracy says that lay practitioners have probably predicted their calories burned based on heart rate information, and they may have overestimated the number of calories burned because those heart rate calculations didn't account for the higher temperatures in the room.
  • lexii721
    lexii721 Posts: 7 Member
    The faster your heart beats.. The more calories your burning though.... So that's contradictory
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    edited July 2015
    I track 2.5 hours of yoga on the beach—the first hour is with weights—with my Fitbit Charge HR (which has a heart rate monitor). I burn 269 calories.

    You are not burning 415 calories doing 90 minutes of hot yoga.
  • ManiacalLaugh
    ManiacalLaugh Posts: 1,048 Member
    lexii721 wrote: »
    The faster your heart beats.. The more calories your burning though.... So that's contradictory

    Not neccessarily. Otherwise, I'd be skinny as a rail by now just from all my asthma medication (which is basically pure adrenaline). Caffeine also increases the heart rate without increasing metabolism significantly.
  • XavierNusum
    XavierNusum Posts: 720 Member
    I have taken a 110 minute Yin+meditation class with my Polar HRM and only burn about 300 calories. Granted Yin is holding poses longer and less flow, but you get the idea.
  • tiffyland21
    tiffyland21 Posts: 14 Member
    edited July 2015
    heart rate is a way to measure how much calories you burn because when you work out then your heart rate goes up, not necessary higher heart rate = more calories burn in reality. That's why even heart rate monitor isn't 100% accurately either. I'm not explaining it that well but just know, it doesn't really have anything with heart rate but just positive correlate that they could use it to measure calories burn, not causation for calories burn.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
    lexii721 wrote: »
    The faster your heart beats.. The more calories your burning though.... So that's contradictory

    No. That isn't how it works.

    Hot yoga burns about the same as walking ... well, if you pay attention to a university study that hooked people up to calorimeters versus yogi and HR marketing claims.
  • cheshirecatastrophe
    cheshirecatastrophe Posts: 1,395 Member
    edited July 2015
    lexii721 wrote: »
    The faster your heart beats.. The more calories your burning though.... So that's contradictory

    No. Many factors can affect your heart rate, including dehydration, how much you slept the night before, and room temperature. "Calorie burning" is another way of saying "how much energy it takes to complete a task" (Calorie is a unit of energy). It takes you the same amount of energy to hold warrior pose for 20 seconds in an 80 degree room as in a 105 degree room. You are burning the same amount of Calories--using the same amount of energy.

    Heart rate *can* act as a proxy for calorie burning in some types of exercise--steady state cardio like a long slow run is the prime example. Outside of that very narrow range of activity types, the relationship between heart rate and calorie burn is unreliable.

    The article I linked earlier suggested 330 kcal burned by the average woman in a 90 minute yoga class, or 220 kcal/hour. From that you would have to subtract the amount of calories you would have burned sitting on your butt for that hour that are already accounted for in your daily calorie total (for one hour, your sedentary TDEE divided by 24).
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