Calorie Burn Question

jkleeh wrote: »

Any suggestions??

Weigh more. Maybe get really fat eating foods you like, so that you put on enough weight to burn larger numbers of calories.

That's ^^^ a clever way of saying "comparison is the thief of joy." If you're burning 330 cals now, that's a lot better than 0, which is a better and happier and more immediately relevant way of looking at it.

Since you're losing weight, it's really good for you to do strength training. You're going to lose some fat and you're going to lose some muscle; if you use your muscles now, you'll keep a lot more of them. And, like @MsChewMe pointed out, muscle looks really good on everyone.

But weight loss comes from having a calorie deficit over time. Exercise can contribute to that but for most people, some attention to diet is necessary, too. We'd all love if that wasn't true, but most of us need to work on portion sizes in order to nudge the scale down. You probably do, too.

And with all that said, cardio does tend to burn more calories than weight training, so it can contribute more toward being in a deficit. Do you have a bike?

jkleeh wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

jkleeh wrote: »

Any suggestions??

Weigh more. Maybe get really fat eating foods you like, so that you put on enough weight to burn larger numbers of calories.

That's ^^^ a clever way of saying "comparison is the thief of joy." If you're burning 330 cals now, that's a lot better than 0, which is a better and happier and more immediately relevant way of looking at it.


And with all that said, cardio does tend to burn more calories than weight training, so it can contribute more toward being in a deficit. Do you have a bike?

Unfortunately I do not have a bike. My gym has a few different bikes I could use. I tend to run on the treadmill on a incline or use and elliptical for my cardio.

What I am gathering here is that I am stressing about the calorie burn when I don’t need to be. I am working on my diet and portion control. So hopefully in a few weeks I will start to see some movement on the scale.

First, what makes you think you're burning fewer calories?

Second, try to incorporate activity throughout your day ... go for a walk at lunch, take the stairs, etc. etc. it all adds up.

HIIT and circuit training burn a fair bit of calories in a short span of time. There's a lot of discussion around calories burned through EPOC wrt HIIT, but I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about calculating EPOC so I don't bother.

jkleeh wrote: »

What I am gathering here is that I am stressing about the calorie burn when I don’t need to be. I am working on my diet and portion control. So hopefully in a few weeks I will start to see some movement on the scale.

For weight loss alone, the deficit is all that matters. If you have a 500 calorie deficit it doesn't matter if you sit on your butt all day and eat less, or if you go do cardio like mad and eat more. The real deficit is just a numbers game.

That said, the exercise portion has other benefits and shouldn't be ignored. To some extent I personally find that exercise intensity plays a big part in my hunger or lack of hunger, especially when eating at a deficit. If I go bike 20 miles at a more leisurely pace I'm not as hungry as maybe doing less miles of the approximate same calorie burn at a more intense pace.

If you have no trouble with hunger and controlling your food intake, do the exercises you enjoy and will keep doing. Mix it up, have fun, and find what works for you. Sometimes that stroll through the woods is relaxing, and sometimes you might want to go hit it hard at the gym. As for calorie burn, for most people they will burn more calories doing steady state aerobic type stuff at a pace they can maintain for the period of time they have.

90Ibs wrote: »

HIIT and circuit training burn a fair bit of calories in a short span of time. There's a lot of discussion around calories burned through EPOC wrt HIIT, but I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about calculating EPOC so I don't bother.

No neither burn a lot of calories (the recovery periods bring down the average for HIIT) and the EPOC is a small percentage of a small number - completely insignificant.

jkleeh wrote: »

90Ibs wrote: »

HIIT and circuit training burn a fair bit of calories in a short span of time. There's a lot of discussion around calories burned through EPOC wrt HIIT, but I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about calculating EPOC so I don't bother.

Thank you! Today is my all cardio day so I will try and do Alittle more HIIT. I generally only make it 10 minutes before I feel like my lungs are going to explode lol.

Which is why HIIT is not the best choice for someone starting back. Even with the overhyped “afterburn” you don’t burn that many calories.

You can’t compare burns between different devices. I’m pretty certain that your calorie burn has always been in the 300-350 range and the 500 was the outlier.

A beginner with a modest to average fitness level needs to be patient about exercise calories. It is likely you are going to be limited about how hard or how long you can work out. The only way around that is to significantly increase your low-level exercise and casual activity.

sijomial wrote: »

No neither burn a lot of calories (the recovery periods bring down the average for HIIT) and the EPOC is a small percentage of a small number - completely insignificant.

Yeah, hence why I don't bother calculating EPOC, especially since the recovery time of any exercise is probably going to burn calories until at the very least your heart rate goes down. In my experience it burns a good bit of calories in a short span of time. I'm not saying that it would burn as much as 30 mins of walking or jogging, because it doesn't, but if you're pressed for time it's certainly a lot more efficient than going out for a 5-10 min walk.

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

Treadmill. Walk 3 mph with an incline above 8 and you'll burn calories. Easy.

This ^^. I do 40ish minutes on the treadmill at speed 5 and at least a 12% incline. Get me about 350 calories.

jkleeh wrote: »

NorthCascades wrote: »

jkleeh wrote: »

Any suggestions??

Weigh more. Maybe get really fat eating foods you like, so that you put on enough weight to burn larger numbers of calories.

That's ^^^ a clever way of saying "comparison is the thief of joy." If you're burning 330 cals now, that's a lot better than 0, which is a better and happier and more immediately relevant way of looking at it.


And with all that said, cardio does tend to burn more calories than weight training, so it can contribute more toward being in a deficit. Do you have a bike?

Unfortunately I do not have a bike. My gym has a few different bikes I could use. I tend to run on the treadmill on a incline or use and elliptical for my cardio.

What I am gathering here is that I am stressing about the calorie burn when I don’t need to be. I am working on my diet and portion control. So hopefully in a few weeks I will start to see some movement on the scale.

I don't even really think about it a whole lot. I ride because I love to ride and I take all kinds of different rides to train different aspects of my fitness. A short but fast 10 mile time trial training ride is going to burn fewer calories than a longer 30 mile endurance ride at a slower pace...but both are important aspects of my training.

Regardless, in most cases I burn far more calories just being alive and going about my day to day...riding has the added bonus of expending a bit more energy, but in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty negligible...but riding and regular exercise is very good for my overall health and well being.

To put it into perspective...I'm on pace right now to hit somewhere between 2500-3000 miles this year on my bike...so this year I will burn somewhere around 85,000-100,000 calories cycling. This year I'll burn around 660,000 calories simply by existing...