Cardio isn't for "fat burning".

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Replies

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,989 Member
    stealthq wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    So at what point can we break CICO? If a person binges on something extreme like 7000 calories at a sitting, they are not going to metabolize that into 2 pounds of fat overnight. At some point, the body will not be able to keep up and will just ship it out the back end. Where is that point?
    Well if I did that, bathroom breaks would be at least 3-4 times the next day. The body is very efficient at storing energy so it's kinda hard to say. Just about anything we eat will cause insulin to be released and excess calories will be stored.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    I can't remember where but I read that the average person could make use of about 25k calories in a 24 hour period give or take. So, yes, I think you can store several pounds of fat from one ridiculous binge.

    Ok, so the intestines have transports that absorb the nutrients. They have a max rate - google U says 60g/hr for glucose which is like 5000 calories in 24 hrs. The body can also slow down digestion to try and get more out of it. Length also matters - longer intestine = more calories extracted from X food.

    Now suppose you have 2 identical people eating identical food, one who exercises for 2+ hrs a day vs the other being sedentary. Both eat their TDEE (so active guy eats more to keep even).

    If you could show the active person has faster digestion, and/or more inefficient digestion (body is busy doing other things) , and/or that adaptations were suppressing those transporters for periods after activity, that active person would be "getting" less calories out of food (ie, the holy grail of dieting - a magic pill that impairs absorption). The active guy can eat more, gain less.

    In Racing Weight, Matt refers to physiological adaptations that happen when people "commit' to doing an activity 5+ times a week - rowers look like rowers, runners look like runners, swimmers like swimmers. The body seems to resist holding fat more than can be accounted for by CICO.

    Point being, I believe cardio exercise helps fat loss/burning beyond what shows on the calories in/out spreadsheet.

    Wonder what he means by 'commit'. I've distance run 5+ times per wk for more than a year and don't 'look like a runner'. Certainly don't resist holding fat any more now than before, and I ought to be able to see it since I'm ~25% BF and haven't really changed.

    Either there's more to it than that, or he's biased and looking at competition athletes that are doing more than just 5+ activity sessions a week.

    That was my thought, maybe the author is used to college athletes who are training a lot more than those of us who might be running a lot of miles. A lot of people training for marathons will train up to 40 mpw. But a lot of college runners might be running 50-70 or even 100. Then it's all down to calories again.

    My personal experience has been the opposite, the math doesn't work for me and my friends as far as counting exercise calories towards expect lbs lost. Obviously that's just anecdotal. I'm guessing something to do with the body becoming more efficient at the new activity as well as reducing NEAT for the rest of the day or even just somehow lowering your metabolism for a smidgeon for the rest of the day so you burn less at rest. Like, a little bit of exercise and I can count 100%. A moderate amount and I can only count 80% and it drops from there as I increase activity. But that's not science, just something I'm thinking about and trying to explain in the anecdotes of myself and those around me.
    Homeostasis happens. The body is very efficient at adaptation which is why when people under eat, their metabolic rates can drop quite low. It figures out how to dole out calories based on continuous physical behavior.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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  • upoffthemat
    upoffthemat Posts: 679 Member
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    sawi8210 wrote: »
    If I'm still at a calorie deficit, how does alcohol play into this? Or does it still come down to calories in vs out, regardless if it's wine, or grilled chicken?? (Sorry if this has been asked before!) I just don't want to unknowingly hinder my efforts if I happen to have 2 glasses of wine or cocktails. (But still creating a calorie deficit)
    Don't drink before bed. Fat is the primary fuel at rest, but if you have alcohol in your system, then until it's metabolized (alcohol can't be stored in the body), all other energy sources are nixed.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

    Hmmm, so if I do my workout drunk I run less risk of losing muscle mass? ;)



    just kidding
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    _Waffle_ wrote: »
    For low intensity exercises, is it body fat or dietary fat burned, or both?

    You'll do better if you just think of it as energy. During lower intensity exercises the body will pull some from the muscle cells themselves, and some from blood stream. The blood stream energy will be replenished by energy stored in your liver. Once that is used up it will then use stored body fat for energy. This is released into your blood and is no different than the dietary fat that you've eaten that day which might be remaining. It doesn't wait until your totally out of energy so the stored fat/energy is mixed in with things you may have eaten recently.

    There are strategies for helping your body to prefer stored fat over glycogen but that includes starting the exercise in a fasted state and doing 90+ minutes of exercise. You can run out of glycogen energy storage in your cells too but that's all really outside the scope of this discussion.
    Ok thanks guys. I understood the glycogen/carbs being burned for higher intensity exercise but the fat component for lower intensity exercise is what had me confused.
    I'm trying to get my body to burn through glycogen more, so it seems like I need to stick to higher intensity exercise.

    Why are you trying to burn through glycogen more? Is that for training purposes?
    I'm trying to cut down on excess blood sugar floating around in my bloodstream, since my overall blood sugar level is too high.

    Have you discussed this with your doctor and learned the difference between glycogen in the muscle and blood glucose numbers?
    I have not. He didn't go into specifics of what I should be doing, other than that I should keep up exercising. While I'm sure there are other factors involved, I do know though that for a few months I did a lot of low to moderate intensity exercise (not much vigorous) and surprisingly my overall blood sugar level actually increased.

    Then definitely talk to your doctor. Exercise increases your insulin sensitivity and should help lower your numbers but if you blood sugar is rising after exercise then there may be a medical issue that needs to be addressed.
    I'm not sure that he is very experienced when it comes to the specifics of exercise intensity as it relates to this topic. I contacted him about it and he just told me that he thought aerobic exercise would burn more carbs on a consistent basis as opposed to weights/isometric exercises.
    That being said, my blood sugar level is still being monitored on a continual basis.

  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited March 2016
    _Waffle_ wrote: »
    For low intensity exercises, is it body fat or dietary fat burned, or both?

    You'll do better if you just think of it as energy. During lower intensity exercises the body will pull some from the muscle cells themselves, and some from blood stream. The blood stream energy will be replenished by energy stored in your liver. Once that is used up it will then use stored body fat for energy. This is released into your blood and is no different than the dietary fat that you've eaten that day which might be remaining. It doesn't wait until your totally out of energy so the stored fat/energy is mixed in with things you may have eaten recently.

    There are strategies for helping your body to prefer stored fat over glycogen but that includes starting the exercise in a fasted state and doing 90+ minutes of exercise. You can run out of glycogen energy storage in your cells too but that's all really outside the scope of this discussion.
    Ok thanks guys. I understood the glycogen/carbs being burned for higher intensity exercise but the fat component for lower intensity exercise is what had me confused.
    I'm trying to get my body to burn through glycogen more, so it seems like I need to stick to higher intensity exercise.

    Why are you trying to burn through glycogen more? Is that for training purposes?
    I'm trying to cut down on excess blood sugar floating around in my bloodstream, since my overall blood sugar level is too high.

    Have you discussed this with your doctor and learned the difference between glycogen in the muscle and blood glucose numbers?
    I have not. He didn't go into specifics of what I should be doing, other than that I should keep up exercising. While I'm sure there are other factors involved, I do know though that for a few months I did a lot of low to moderate intensity exercise (not much vigorous) and surprisingly my overall blood sugar level actually increased.

    Then definitely talk to your doctor. Exercise increases your insulin sensitivity and should help lower your numbers but if you blood sugar is rising after exercise then there may be a medical issue that needs to be addressed.
    I'm not sure that he is very experienced when it comes to the specifics of exercise intensity as it relates to this topic. I contacted him about it and he just told me that he thought aerobic exercise would burn more carbs on a consistent basis as opposed to weights/isometric exercises.
    That being said, my blood sugar level is still being monitored on a continual basis.

    You mean you have doctor that doesn't know much about physiology or you just don't give him enough details? He's right in general and I don't think your weight workout is intense enough for him to be wrong. You aren't squatting the gym after all just doing some low intensity lifting from what I recall.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,989 Member
    makingmark wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    sawi8210 wrote: »
    If I'm still at a calorie deficit, how does alcohol play into this? Or does it still come down to calories in vs out, regardless if it's wine, or grilled chicken?? (Sorry if this has been asked before!) I just don't want to unknowingly hinder my efforts if I happen to have 2 glasses of wine or cocktails. (But still creating a calorie deficit)
    Don't drink before bed. Fat is the primary fuel at rest, but if you have alcohol in your system, then until it's metabolized (alcohol can't be stored in the body), all other energy sources are nixed.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

    Hmmm, so if I do my workout drunk I run less risk of losing muscle mass? ;)



    just kidding
    Lol, absolutely. Now as to the EFFECTIVENESS of calorie burn when running drunk........................

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png
  • DamienWard
    DamienWard Posts: 1 Member
    I ran a marathon last year (and was doing circuit training for an hour twice a week) and lost no weight because I was not eating well.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
    DamienWard wrote: »
    I ran a marathon last year (and was doing circuit training for an hour twice a week) and lost no weight because I was not eating well.

    The marathon itself, only burns about 2500-2800 calories. How much training were you doing per week and for how many weeks leading up to it? How many calories were you eating per day, and how many hours per week did you run? Were you trying to lose weight?

    Completing a marathon is one thing. Competing in one is an entirely different things.

    There is also a great study in Matt's book that looked at three groups of athletes. One group lost weight while doing high intensity intervals (I can't remember if it was 6 weeks or 10 weeks - but the type of time frame one would be doing that getting ready for a marathon or major endurance event on the bike), one group maintained their weight while doing high intensity intervals, and one group lost weight, but did no high intensity intervals.

    The group that lost weight and did the intervals saw no improvement in their performance. Which was really depressing when I read that 2 years ago as I was in that predicament. The other two groups saw performance gains - the group that maintained their weight and did the intervals saw improvement, as did the group who did no intervals, but lost weight.

    Lesson learned, at least from a competitive stand point, is to lose the weight in the kitchen during the off season before ramping up the intensity training.

    He talks about off season weight loss/gain here:

    http://www.cxmagazine.com/training-tuesday-matt-fitzgerald-talks-offseason-weight-loss



  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    edited March 2016
    _Waffle_ wrote: »
    For low intensity exercises, is it body fat or dietary fat burned, or both?

    You'll do better if you just think of it as energy. During lower intensity exercises the body will pull some from the muscle cells themselves, and some from blood stream. The blood stream energy will be replenished by energy stored in your liver. Once that is used up it will then use stored body fat for energy. This is released into your blood and is no different than the dietary fat that you've eaten that day which might be remaining. It doesn't wait until your totally out of energy so the stored fat/energy is mixed in with things you may have eaten recently.

    There are strategies for helping your body to prefer stored fat over glycogen but that includes starting the exercise in a fasted state and doing 90+ minutes of exercise. You can run out of glycogen energy storage in your cells too but that's all really outside the scope of this discussion.
    Ok thanks guys. I understood the glycogen/carbs being burned for higher intensity exercise but the fat component for lower intensity exercise is what had me confused.
    I'm trying to get my body to burn through glycogen more, so it seems like I need to stick to higher intensity exercise.

    Why are you trying to burn through glycogen more? Is that for training purposes?
    I'm trying to cut down on excess blood sugar floating around in my bloodstream, since my overall blood sugar level is too high.

    Have you discussed this with your doctor and learned the difference between glycogen in the muscle and blood glucose numbers?
    I have not. He didn't go into specifics of what I should be doing, other than that I should keep up exercising. While I'm sure there are other factors involved, I do know though that for a few months I did a lot of low to moderate intensity exercise (not much vigorous) and surprisingly my overall blood sugar level actually increased.

    Then definitely talk to your doctor. Exercise increases your insulin sensitivity and should help lower your numbers but if you blood sugar is rising after exercise then there may be a medical issue that needs to be addressed.
    I'm not sure that he is very experienced when it comes to the specifics of exercise intensity as it relates to this topic. I contacted him about it and he just told me that he thought aerobic exercise would burn more carbs on a consistent basis as opposed to weights/isometric exercises.
    That being said, my blood sugar level is still being monitored on a continual basis.

    You mean you have doctor that doesn't know much about physiology or you just don't give him enough details? He's right in general and I don't think your weight workout is intense enough for him to be wrong. You aren't squatting the gym after all just doing some low intensity lifting from what I recall.
    I told him what I had been doing, and my question to him was about overall exercise intensity for my situation. I'm not saying that he's entirely clueless, although from his message it did sound like this probably a deeper question than he may be used to. Now, lately I have decided to supplement some of the walking I do with running, and he did suggest that I continue with that.
  • mwyvr
    mwyvr Posts: 1,883 Member
    Being in good cardio vascular health makes you feel fantastic.

    Sure does.

  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    I have a job where I can pedal a stationary bike all shift. Down from 212 to 185 since Jan. 25th of this year. Cardio doesn't do too much usually, but if you can do it at an easy pace for extended periods of time, it is huge for fat loss.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    _Waffle_ wrote: »
    For low intensity exercises, is it body fat or dietary fat burned, or both?

    You'll do better if you just think of it as energy. During lower intensity exercises the body will pull some from the muscle cells themselves, and some from blood stream. The blood stream energy will be replenished by energy stored in your liver. Once that is used up it will then use stored body fat for energy. This is released into your blood and is no different than the dietary fat that you've eaten that day which might be remaining. It doesn't wait until your totally out of energy so the stored fat/energy is mixed in with things you may have eaten recently.

    There are strategies for helping your body to prefer stored fat over glycogen but that includes starting the exercise in a fasted state and doing 90+ minutes of exercise. You can run out of glycogen energy storage in your cells too but that's all really outside the scope of this discussion.
    Ok thanks guys. I understood the glycogen/carbs being burned for higher intensity exercise but the fat component for lower intensity exercise is what had me confused.
    I'm trying to get my body to burn through glycogen more, so it seems like I need to stick to higher intensity exercise.

    Why are you trying to burn through glycogen more? Is that for training purposes?
    I'm trying to cut down on excess blood sugar floating around in my bloodstream, since my overall blood sugar level is too high.

    Have you discussed this with your doctor and learned the difference between glycogen in the muscle and blood glucose numbers?
    I have not. He didn't go into specifics of what I should be doing, other than that I should keep up exercising. While I'm sure there are other factors involved, I do know though that for a few months I did a lot of low to moderate intensity exercise (not much vigorous) and surprisingly my overall blood sugar level actually increased.

    Then definitely talk to your doctor. Exercise increases your insulin sensitivity and should help lower your numbers but if you blood sugar is rising after exercise then there may be a medical issue that needs to be addressed.
    I'm not sure that he is very experienced when it comes to the specifics of exercise intensity as it relates to this topic. I contacted him about it and he just told me that he thought aerobic exercise would burn more carbs on a consistent basis as opposed to weights/isometric exercises.
    That being said, my blood sugar level is still being monitored on a continual basis.

    You mean you have doctor that doesn't know much about physiology or you just don't give him enough details? He's right in general and I don't think your weight workout is intense enough for him to be wrong. You aren't squatting the gym after all just doing some low intensity lifting from what I recall.
    I told him what I had been doing, and my question to him was about overall exercise intensity for my situation. I'm not saying that he's entirely clueless, although from his message it did sound like this probably a deeper question than he may be used to. Now, lately I have decided to supplement some of the walking I do with running, and he did suggest that I continue with that.

    Yes, running would be a great idea and so would upping your lifting intensity. You can't go wrong being more active.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    gdyment wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    So at what point can we break CICO? If a person binges on something extreme like 7000 calories at a sitting, they are not going to metabolize that into 2 pounds of fat overnight. At some point, the body will not be able to keep up and will just ship it out the back end. Where is that point?
    Well if I did that, bathroom breaks would be at least 3-4 times the next day. The body is very efficient at storing energy so it's kinda hard to say. Just about anything we eat will cause insulin to be released and excess calories will be stored.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    I can't remember where but I read that the average person could make use of about 25k calories in a 24 hour period give or take. So, yes, I think you can store several pounds of fat from one ridiculous binge.

    Ok, so the intestines have transports that absorb the nutrients. They have a max rate - google U says 60g/hr for glucose which is like 5000 calories in 24 hrs. The body can also slow down digestion to try and get more out of it. Length also matters - longer intestine = more calories extracted from X food.

    Now suppose you have 2 identical people eating identical food, one who exercises for 2+ hrs a day vs the other being sedentary. Both eat their TDEE (so active guy eats more to keep even).

    If you could show the active person has faster digestion, and/or more inefficient digestion (body is busy doing other things) , and/or that adaptations were suppressing those transporters for periods after activity, that active person would be "getting" less calories out of food (ie, the holy grail of dieting - a magic pill that impairs absorption). The active guy can eat more, gain less.

    In Racing Weight, Matt refers to physiological adaptations that happen when people "commit' to doing an activity 5+ times a week - rowers look like rowers, runners look like runners, swimmers like swimmers. The body seems to resist holding fat more than can be accounted for by CICO.

    Point being, I believe cardio exercise helps fat loss/burning beyond what shows on the calories in/out spreadsheet.

    Wonder what he means by 'commit'. I've distance run 5+ times per wk for more than a year and don't 'look like a runner'. Certainly don't resist holding fat any more now than before, and I ought to be able to see it since I'm ~25% BF and haven't really changed.

    Either there's more to it than that, or he's biased and looking at competition athletes that are doing more than just 5+ activity sessions a week.

    You don't list mileage or photos, but 40+ miles per week would be the bottom end. Serious/competitive is 80+ miles/week. Elite is 130+ with cross training on top. I'm not disputing diet matters (it does a lot) but I think the OP is looking at it with a bit too much of an accounting/excel eye.

    I've been just below the bottom end on average. Up until the holidays, I was doing 3 x 5-8, an 8-10 and a 10-15.

    I was also doing cross-training.

    But basically, it's not just a 5+ times per week commitment, it's also a commitment to a competition-prep level of work which makes sense. For running at least, the lower end is equivalent to the latter stages of marathon training.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    stealthq wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    So at what point can we break CICO? If a person binges on something extreme like 7000 calories at a sitting, they are not going to metabolize that into 2 pounds of fat overnight. At some point, the body will not be able to keep up and will just ship it out the back end. Where is that point?
    Well if I did that, bathroom breaks would be at least 3-4 times the next day. The body is very efficient at storing energy so it's kinda hard to say. Just about anything we eat will cause insulin to be released and excess calories will be stored.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    I can't remember where but I read that the average person could make use of about 25k calories in a 24 hour period give or take. So, yes, I think you can store several pounds of fat from one ridiculous binge.

    Ok, so the intestines have transports that absorb the nutrients. They have a max rate - google U says 60g/hr for glucose which is like 5000 calories in 24 hrs. The body can also slow down digestion to try and get more out of it. Length also matters - longer intestine = more calories extracted from X food.

    Now suppose you have 2 identical people eating identical food, one who exercises for 2+ hrs a day vs the other being sedentary. Both eat their TDEE (so active guy eats more to keep even).

    If you could show the active person has faster digestion, and/or more inefficient digestion (body is busy doing other things) , and/or that adaptations were suppressing those transporters for periods after activity, that active person would be "getting" less calories out of food (ie, the holy grail of dieting - a magic pill that impairs absorption). The active guy can eat more, gain less.

    In Racing Weight, Matt refers to physiological adaptations that happen when people "commit' to doing an activity 5+ times a week - rowers look like rowers, runners look like runners, swimmers like swimmers. The body seems to resist holding fat more than can be accounted for by CICO.

    Point being, I believe cardio exercise helps fat loss/burning beyond what shows on the calories in/out spreadsheet.

    Wonder what he means by 'commit'. I've distance run 5+ times per wk for more than a year and don't 'look like a runner'. Certainly don't resist holding fat any more now than before, and I ought to be able to see it since I'm ~25% BF and haven't really changed.

    Either there's more to it than that, or he's biased and looking at competition athletes that are doing more than just 5+ activity sessions a week.

    That was my thought, maybe the author is used to college athletes who are training a lot more than those of us who might be running a lot of miles. A lot of people training for marathons will train up to 40 mpw. But a lot of college runners might be running 50-70 or even 100. Then it's all down to calories again.

    My personal experience has been the opposite, the math doesn't work for me and my friends as far as counting exercise calories towards expect lbs lost. Obviously that's just anecdotal. I'm guessing something to do with the body becoming more efficient at the new activity as well as reducing NEAT for the rest of the day or even just somehow lowering your metabolism for a smidgeon for the rest of the day so you burn less at rest. Like, a little bit of exercise and I can count 100%. A moderate amount and I can only count 80% and it drops from there as I increase activity. But that's not science, just something I'm thinking about and trying to explain in the anecdotes of myself and those around me.

    Curious if you're using 0.63 * weight in lbs * miles to figure calories burned.

    What you're describing is what I was experiencing last year around this time when I was training for a half. I was using the standard calculation that MFP and just about every other calculator uses and was very slowly gaining when I thought I was eating to maintain. Forgot that it was calculating gross cals and not net - that makes a bigger difference the longer you run. Switched to the above calculation for net cals and got the results I wanted.
  • oilphins
    oilphins Posts: 240 Member
    edited March 2016
    MommyMeggo wrote: »
    Like! I wish I could email this to a few people in my life that give me shyt for buying weights and a bar vs a treadmill and scoff at* my food diary. Dummyheads.

    Why are they dummyheads? Weights and a bar are perfect for burning fat but if you want to burn more calories, you need cardio as well. I've been an avid runner for 10 years now and I don't do weights anymore but I do cross training which includes boxing three days a week. Burpees, planking, skipping, pushups and so forth. I've been more toned now at 46 than at 26 because of the cross training added to my running. Weights are excellent for burning fat but you won't burn 1000 calories in an hour just lifting weights as opposed to running 10-12 km whether it be outside or on a treadmill. Why not add a little bit cardio to your routine Meggo? Even a short 15-20 minute run. Just a suggestion. By the way niner, thanks for some great input.
  • ZeroTX
    ZeroTX Posts: 179 Member
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.
  • Harleyford10
    Harleyford10 Posts: 19 Member
    Ok so I'm new to all of this. So what your saying is with my exercise and if I eat say 500 cal less then I'm suppose to a day I will lose weight? Honest question cause I really don't know.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    ZeroTX wrote: »
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.

    I've never understood this logic. Muscle burns *slightly* more calories than fat at rest. I can do steady state cardio for a far longer period than I can lift, which means I'll have a much larger direct calorie burn doing cardio. And EPOC seems to be mostly overrated with very impractical requirements for exercise to get it to be significant increases in calorie burn.

    All of which doesn't matter if you aren't eating at a deficit. Which is the point of the original post.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,002 Member
    edited March 2016
    Exercise is not fat burning. Food is not fat burning. Being in a negative energy balance state is fat burning. Exercise can help you get into a negative energy balance state but that can be wiped out if your diet is not on par with your exercise and goals...
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    ZeroTX wrote: »
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.

    not true ...

    you can run three miles and burn more calories then you would during an hour lifting session ....and at ten minutes a mile you can get three miles in in a half hour...
  • DaddieCat
    DaddieCat Posts: 3,643 Member
    ZeroTX wrote: »
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.

    But it doesn't though. Resistance work doesn't really burn all that many calories. I know that I can burn way more running for an hour than lifting for an hour.
  • oilphins
    oilphins Posts: 240 Member
    ZeroTX wrote: »
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.

    Agree with ndj1979. You burn way more calories running than weights but you'll burn more fat lifting weights. that's why I always say to do both together if you have the time including cross training as well.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited March 2016
    oilphins wrote: »
    MommyMeggo wrote: »
    Like! I wish I could email this to a few people in my life that give me shyt for buying weights and a bar vs a treadmill and scoff at* my food diary. Dummyheads.

    Why are they dummyheads? Weights and a bar are perfect for burning fat but if you want to burn more calories, you need cardio as well. I've been an avid runner for 10 years now and I don't do weights anymore but I do cross training which includes boxing three days a week. Burpees, planking, skipping, pushups and so forth. I've been more toned now at 46 than at 26 because of the cross training added to my running. Weights are excellent for burning fat but you won't burn 1000 calories in an hour just lifting weights as opposed to running 10-12 km whether it be outside or on a treadmill. Why not add a little bit cardio to your routine Meggo? Even a short 15-20 minute run. Just a suggestion. By the way niner, thanks for some great input.

    You probably aren't burning 1000 calories an hour by running 10 to 12 km either. In terms of net calories you are only going to burn 2/3 x bodyweight per mile so that would be roughly 6 to 7 miles in an hour, which is a decent pace but you would have to weigh nearly 250 pounds to burn 1000 net calories/hour at a 10km/hr pace.

    It takes me around 80 minues (9 miles) to do about 1000 net calories.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    oilphins wrote: »
    MommyMeggo wrote: »
    Like! I wish I could email this to a few people in my life that give me shyt for buying weights and a bar vs a treadmill and scoff at* my food diary. Dummyheads.

    Why are they dummyheads? Weights and a bar are perfect for burning fat but if you want to burn more calories, you need cardio as well. I've been an avid runner for 10 years now and I don't do weights anymore but I do cross training which includes boxing three days a week. Burpees, planking, skipping, pushups and so forth. I've been more toned now at 46 than at 26 because of the cross training added to my running. Weights are excellent for burning fat but you won't burn 1000 calories in an hour just lifting weights as opposed to running 10-12 km whether it be outside or on a treadmill. Why not add a little bit cardio to your routine Meggo? Even a short 15-20 minute run. Just a suggestion. By the way niner, thanks for some great input.

    You probably aren't burning 1000 calories an hour by running 10 to 12 km either. In terms of net calories you are only going to burn 2/3 x bodyweight per mile so that would be roughly 6 to 7 miles in an hour, which is a decent pace but you would have to weigh nearly 250 pounds to burn 1000 net calories/hour at a 10km/hr pace.

    you and your silly math ...no one cares about that math stuff...we just want 1000 calorie burns, because calorie burns...
  • blues4miles
    blues4miles Posts: 1,481 Member
    edited March 2016
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    So at what point can we break CICO? If a person binges on something extreme like 7000 calories at a sitting, they are not going to metabolize that into 2 pounds of fat overnight. At some point, the body will not be able to keep up and will just ship it out the back end. Where is that point?
    Well if I did that, bathroom breaks would be at least 3-4 times the next day. The body is very efficient at storing energy so it's kinda hard to say. Just about anything we eat will cause insulin to be released and excess calories will be stored.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    I can't remember where but I read that the average person could make use of about 25k calories in a 24 hour period give or take. So, yes, I think you can store several pounds of fat from one ridiculous binge.

    Ok, so the intestines have transports that absorb the nutrients. They have a max rate - google U says 60g/hr for glucose which is like 5000 calories in 24 hrs. The body can also slow down digestion to try and get more out of it. Length also matters - longer intestine = more calories extracted from X food.

    Now suppose you have 2 identical people eating identical food, one who exercises for 2+ hrs a day vs the other being sedentary. Both eat their TDEE (so active guy eats more to keep even).

    If you could show the active person has faster digestion, and/or more inefficient digestion (body is busy doing other things) , and/or that adaptations were suppressing those transporters for periods after activity, that active person would be "getting" less calories out of food (ie, the holy grail of dieting - a magic pill that impairs absorption). The active guy can eat more, gain less.

    In Racing Weight, Matt refers to physiological adaptations that happen when people "commit' to doing an activity 5+ times a week - rowers look like rowers, runners look like runners, swimmers like swimmers. The body seems to resist holding fat more than can be accounted for by CICO.

    Point being, I believe cardio exercise helps fat loss/burning beyond what shows on the calories in/out spreadsheet.

    Wonder what he means by 'commit'. I've distance run 5+ times per wk for more than a year and don't 'look like a runner'. Certainly don't resist holding fat any more now than before, and I ought to be able to see it since I'm ~25% BF and haven't really changed.

    Either there's more to it than that, or he's biased and looking at competition athletes that are doing more than just 5+ activity sessions a week.

    That was my thought, maybe the author is used to college athletes who are training a lot more than those of us who might be running a lot of miles. A lot of people training for marathons will train up to 40 mpw. But a lot of college runners might be running 50-70 or even 100. Then it's all down to calories again.

    My personal experience has been the opposite, the math doesn't work for me and my friends as far as counting exercise calories towards expect lbs lost. Obviously that's just anecdotal. I'm guessing something to do with the body becoming more efficient at the new activity as well as reducing NEAT for the rest of the day or even just somehow lowering your metabolism for a smidgeon for the rest of the day so you burn less at rest. Like, a little bit of exercise and I can count 100%. A moderate amount and I can only count 80% and it drops from there as I increase activity. But that's not science, just something I'm thinking about and trying to explain in the anecdotes of myself and those around me.
    Homeostasis happens. The body is very efficient at adaptation which is why when people under eat, their metabolic rates can drop quite low. It figures out how to dole out calories based on continuous physical behavior.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

    Thanks this explains a lot and matches up with my experience. I think as we metabolically adapt to exercise we become more efficient about calorie burning. Therefore one would need to continually run/walk more or faster to keep burning the calories they want. But hopefully most people running are doing that to some degree, that's generally the goal to run longer or run faster. Or maybe the people who say "change things up a bit!" are on to something. Seems silly to suggest your body gets used to exercise, but I think maybe at the beginning of a new program it can burn a lot more than it will later once you get more efficient and your body attempts to adapt to maintain balance.

    stealthq wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    gdyment wrote: »
    So at what point can we break CICO? If a person binges on something extreme like 7000 calories at a sitting, they are not going to metabolize that into 2 pounds of fat overnight. At some point, the body will not be able to keep up and will just ship it out the back end. Where is that point?
    Well if I did that, bathroom breaks would be at least 3-4 times the next day. The body is very efficient at storing energy so it's kinda hard to say. Just about anything we eat will cause insulin to be released and excess calories will be stored.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    I can't remember where but I read that the average person could make use of about 25k calories in a 24 hour period give or take. So, yes, I think you can store several pounds of fat from one ridiculous binge.

    Ok, so the intestines have transports that absorb the nutrients. They have a max rate - google U says 60g/hr for glucose which is like 5000 calories in 24 hrs. The body can also slow down digestion to try and get more out of it. Length also matters - longer intestine = more calories extracted from X food.

    Now suppose you have 2 identical people eating identical food, one who exercises for 2+ hrs a day vs the other being sedentary. Both eat their TDEE (so active guy eats more to keep even).

    If you could show the active person has faster digestion, and/or more inefficient digestion (body is busy doing other things) , and/or that adaptations were suppressing those transporters for periods after activity, that active person would be "getting" less calories out of food (ie, the holy grail of dieting - a magic pill that impairs absorption). The active guy can eat more, gain less.

    In Racing Weight, Matt refers to physiological adaptations that happen when people "commit' to doing an activity 5+ times a week - rowers look like rowers, runners look like runners, swimmers like swimmers. The body seems to resist holding fat more than can be accounted for by CICO.

    Point being, I believe cardio exercise helps fat loss/burning beyond what shows on the calories in/out spreadsheet.

    Wonder what he means by 'commit'. I've distance run 5+ times per wk for more than a year and don't 'look like a runner'. Certainly don't resist holding fat any more now than before, and I ought to be able to see it since I'm ~25% BF and haven't really changed.

    Either there's more to it than that, or he's biased and looking at competition athletes that are doing more than just 5+ activity sessions a week.

    That was my thought, maybe the author is used to college athletes who are training a lot more than those of us who might be running a lot of miles. A lot of people training for marathons will train up to 40 mpw. But a lot of college runners might be running 50-70 or even 100. Then it's all down to calories again.

    My personal experience has been the opposite, the math doesn't work for me and my friends as far as counting exercise calories towards expect lbs lost. Obviously that's just anecdotal. I'm guessing something to do with the body becoming more efficient at the new activity as well as reducing NEAT for the rest of the day or even just somehow lowering your metabolism for a smidgeon for the rest of the day so you burn less at rest. Like, a little bit of exercise and I can count 100%. A moderate amount and I can only count 80% and it drops from there as I increase activity. But that's not science, just something I'm thinking about and trying to explain in the anecdotes of myself and those around me.

    Curious if you're using 0.63 * weight in lbs * miles to figure calories burned.

    What you're describing is what I was experiencing last year around this time when I was training for a half. I was using the standard calculation that MFP and just about every other calculator uses and was very slowly gaining when I thought I was eating to maintain. Forgot that it was calculating gross cals and not net - that makes a bigger difference the longer you run. Switched to the above calculation for net cals and got the results I wanted.

    I literally just switched over to using this system 2-3 weeks ago for exactly the reason you describe. I think it's .33 x lbs x miles for calories walked too. So using .33 for calories walked and .63 for calories run. I will say the math is starting to make sense. But I know there are a whole lot of other people out there convinced they can burn 1,000 calories running in an hour (sure if they are 180 lbs and running 8.5 miles in an hour / 7 minute-miles). Anyways, just piping up to say I agree and this new math seems to be working a lot better for me. Yes it means I have to eat less to lose the weight I want, but at this point I just wanted the math to start working out again (I also started plugging in fast food as 1.1 hamburgers or 1.2 French fries to account for possible larger serving sizes and I'm sure that helped but is another story).

    Edited to add: I was using the calories my Garmin/HRM gave me. I am still suspicious it was an overestimate. Just because I am unfit beginner and my HR is high during runs does not mean I am really burning "more" calories than I will hauling the same pounds the same distance at the same speed, right? Right.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,989 Member
    Dvdgzz wrote: »
    I have a job where I can pedal a stationary bike all shift. Down from 212 to 185 since Jan. 25th of this year. Cardio doesn't do too much usually, but if you can do it at an easy pace for extended periods of time, it is huge for fat loss.
    The percentage is higher, but it still boils down to total calories burned. Extended periods of time will definitely help, but for sake of the average person who say walks for 1 hour, calories burned from fat would be about 195 calories on average out of 280 calories. Someone running would burn about 500 calories for the same duration, but 300 calories from fat. So still a higher burn of total fat calories. But any activity will burn more calories than being sedentary.
    Realize though that even though that fat is burned, part of it will be replenished through eating EVEN in a calorie deficit. A deficit doesn't mean that all weight loss is coming from fat, like the fitness industry wants people to believe. Smart people know that some of that loss will be water and lean muscle tissue too.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    oilphins wrote: »
    MommyMeggo wrote: »
    Like! I wish I could email this to a few people in my life that give me shyt for buying weights and a bar vs a treadmill and scoff at* my food diary. Dummyheads.

    Why are they dummyheads? Weights and a bar are perfect for burning fat but if you want to burn more calories, you need cardio as well. I've been an avid runner for 10 years now and I don't do weights anymore but I do cross training which includes boxing three days a week. Burpees, planking, skipping, pushups and so forth. I've been more toned now at 46 than at 26 because of the cross training added to my running. Weights are excellent for burning fat but you won't burn 1000 calories in an hour just lifting weights as opposed to running 10-12 km whether it be outside or on a treadmill. Why not add a little bit cardio to your routine Meggo? Even a short 15-20 minute run. Just a suggestion. By the way niner, thanks for some great input.

    You probably aren't burning 1000 calories an hour by running 10 to 12 km either. In terms of net calories you are only going to burn 2/3 x bodyweight per mile so that would be roughly 6 to 7 miles in an hour, which is a decent pace but you would have to weigh nearly 250 pounds to burn 1000 net calories/hour at a 10km/hr pace.

    you and your silly math ...no one cares about that math stuff...we just want 1000 calorie burns, because calorie burns...

    Oops sorry! :blush:
  • wilsoncl6
    wilsoncl6 Posts: 1,280 Member
    This all seems like a philosophical discussion about fat loss. Do you need exercise to burn fat? No. Does exercise alone burn fat? No. However, doesn't exercise burn energy which must be replaced or supplemented by stored fat, which causes fat loss? Isn't saying exercise doesn't burn fat kind of misleading as it does in a roundabout way, if the person doing the exercise doesn't replace that energy with food?
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    wilsoncl6 wrote: »
    This all seems like a philosophical discussion about fat loss. Do you need exercise to burn fat? No. Does exercise alone burn fat? No. However, doesn't exercise burn energy which must be replaced or supplemented by stored fat, which causes fat loss? Isn't saying exercise doesn't burn fat kind of misleading as it does in a roundabout way, if the person doing the exercise doesn't replace that energy with food?

    Not really, as exercise would only end up burning fat, if you were in a deficit (ate below TDEE). If you ate 3200 cals, have a TDEE (including exercise) of 3000 you would not burn fat, unless you did even more exercise and didn't eat more to compensate. TDEE of 3500 and still eating 3200.
  • ilex70
    ilex70 Posts: 727 Member
    ZeroTX wrote: »
    Lift weights. Burns significantly more calories than cardio. Cardio is just torture.

    Yes, during a tough cardio session = torture. After? Feel great. :)

    Lifting weights? During, okay. After? OUCH!

    Yeah, I know I need to do it anyway.
    Ok so I'm new to all of this. So what your saying is with my exercise and if I eat say 500 cal less then I'm suppose to a day I will lose weight? Honest question cause I really don't know.

    Plug your current info into MFP and set a goal weight loss per week and it will give you a calorie goal. Using the MFP method you could then eat back exercise calories, so if you burned 200 calories you could eat an extra 200 and still lose weight. Though most people only eat back half.

    Alternately you can google a TDEE calculator and enter your current stats there along with your daily activity level and get your estimated maintenance calories at your current weight and activity level. To lose weight eat 20% less than that.

    The exercise just increases your Calories Out. But if you Calories In = Calories Out then exercise will just make you more fit, not help you lose weight.
  • wilsoncl6
    wilsoncl6 Posts: 1,280 Member
    erickirb wrote: »
    wilsoncl6 wrote: »
    This all seems like a philosophical discussion about fat loss. Do you need exercise to burn fat? No. Does exercise alone burn fat? No. However, doesn't exercise burn energy which must be replaced or supplemented by stored fat, which causes fat loss? Isn't saying exercise doesn't burn fat kind of misleading as it does in a roundabout way, if the person doing the exercise doesn't replace that energy with food?

    Not really, as exercise would only end up burning fat, if you were in a deficit (ate below TDEE). If you ate 3200 cals, have a TDEE (including exercise) of 3000 you would not burn fat, unless you did even more exercise and didn't eat more to compensate. TDEE of 3500 and still eating 3200.

    But isn't that what I was saying. The only thing done by itself that's going to burn fat is eating below your TDEE. However, doing that along with cardio will speed the process along because you're not replacing the energy stores depleted by cardio. The title of the board should read, cardio on it's own will not burn fat instead of what it does say, so it's a little misleading.