Getting the Most out of the Gym

The reason to burn more calories at the gym is to create a deficit to lose weight. It's easier to do that through eating less. I don't focus on what I burn but I use cardio exercise for reasons other than weight loss. I use it to help combat my depression, I use it to get my fitness up. I have had days I've made myself go to the gym because I don't have any calories left for dinner, but they're few and far between.

Weights are what I'm trying to use for weight loss. They're your best bet, because not only do they help strip fat while building your lean muscle but the benefits with weights will not only help you hours after you've left the gym but will help you in every day life. How often do you need to run for 30 minutes? Not a lot. How often do you need to lift something heavy, whether it be a child/box/books/ect? At least once a week, if not daily.

My gym routine is 5 min elliptical (warm up) then the NROLFW program (generally 30 minutes) then 20-30 minutes on the treadmill.

How do you get the most calories burned while at the gym? I usually go for an hour, and I do 10 minutes of incline walking, then weights for 3 mins and bike for 3 mins and switch off for 18 minutes. After a 4 minute break, I go on the elliptical for 28 minutes and usually end up burning anywhere from 400-600 calories. Anyone have a better way to burn more?

The most calories burned at the gym is whatever allows you to keep the heart rate elevated to the highest level for your available time.

Problem with that though if you plan on doing it multiple days in a row.
That level of intense cardio is a huge % of carb burning.

You could easily hit 800 cal burn in 60 min.
80% of that would be carbs burned, so 640 cals of carbs.

Do you eat 640 cal's worth of carbs in day?
Because this isn't even including ALL the other daily activity that also burns carbs from 30% to 50% of the total burn.

So your limited carb stores in muscles and more importantly in the liver (about 1500 and 400-450 respectively) get depleted. Actually, during the workout your liver is almost emptied, and for blood sugar to stay in safe range, muscle during the workout is being broken down to keep that up.

Now - do that several days in a row, and you can easily deplete your storage of glucose - which means at some point one of those workouts is going to be tearing down muscle to convert to glucose for energy needs.
And while muscle does have weight to it also, I sure hope you don't want to burn it off. If so cut off an arm and be done with it.

Nope, don't do it, and for sure eat back your exercise calories. But even with that, I'd doubt you'd eat enough carbs to cover the whole day's usage.

Now, if you want to include what burns the most calories in AND out of the gym - weight lifting. So much that you need a rest day the next day, so nothing daily, except perhaps walking as recovery.

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/WT&End.html
Wayne Westcott, Ph.D. conducted a study in which 72 over weight individuals participated in an eight week exercise program. The participants were placed in two groups.
The first group performed 30 minutes of endurance exercise on a stationary cycle.
The second group performed only 15 minutes of exercise on the stationary cycle plus an additional 15 minutes on weight resistant exercises.

At the conclusion of the study, the "endurance only" group lost a total of 3.5 lbs.; 3 lbs. of which was fat and a half pound was muscle loss.

On the other hand, the "endurance and weight resistive" group lost 8 lbs. with an actual fat loss of 10 lbs. and an increase of 2 lbs. of lean body weight.

I always do the maximum out of gym and end up soaking wet each time.

On my ideal weight lifting days I do:

1. warm up 15 min incline walking with intervals (warm up + brisk walk 3 min + upping incline max for 1 min)
2. warming up the whole body for 5 min
3. weight lifting - 45-50 min
4. 20 min interval running on treadmill
5. stretching for 5 min
(total around 90 min)

On my ideal cardio days:

1. 20 min treadmill - intervals
2. 5 push-ups + 50 abs work + 30 squats with medicine ball
3. 20 min rowing machine - intervals
4. 8 push-ups + 50 abs work + 30 squats with medicine ball
5. 20 min stair treadmill - intervals
6. max push-ups + 25 abs
7. 10 minutes stretching
(total around 90 min)

I count days like this with 500-600 cal. Should I count it more? I am not sure.

How do you get the most calories burned while at the gym? I usually go for an hour, and I do 10 minutes of incline walking, then weights for 3 mins and bike for 3 mins and switch off for 18 minutes. After a 4 minute break, I go on the elliptical for 28 minutes and usually end up burning anywhere from 400-600 calories. Anyone have a better way to burn more?

The most calories burned at the gym is whatever allows you to keep the heart rate elevated to the highest level for your available time.

Problem with that though if you plan on doing it multiple days in a row.
That level of intense cardio is a huge % of carb burning.

You could easily hit 800 cal burn in 60 min.
80% of that would be carbs burned, so 640 cals of carbs.

Do you eat 640 cal's worth of carbs in day?
Because this isn't even including ALL the other daily activity that also burns carbs from 30% to 50% of the total burn.

So your limited carb stores in muscles and more importantly in the liver (about 1500 and 400-450 respectively) get depleted. Actually, during the workout your liver is almost emptied, and for blood sugar to stay in safe range, muscle during the workout is being broken down to keep that up.

Now - do that several days in a row, and you can easily deplete your storage of glucose - which means at some point one of those workouts is going to be tearing down muscle to convert to glucose for energy needs.
And while muscle does have weight to it also, I sure hope you don't want to burn it off. If so cut off an arm and be done with it.

Nope, don't do it, and for sure eat back your exercise calories. But even with that, I'd doubt you'd eat enough carbs to cover the whole day's usage.

Now, if you want to include what burns the most calories in AND out of the gym - weight lifting. So much that you need a rest day the next day, so nothing daily, except perhaps walking as recovery.

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/WT&End.html
Wayne Westcott, Ph.D. conducted a study in which 72 over weight individuals participated in an eight week exercise program. The participants were placed in two groups.
The first group performed 30 minutes of endurance exercise on a stationary cycle.
The second group performed only 15 minutes of exercise on the stationary cycle plus an additional 15 minutes on weight resistant exercises.

At the conclusion of the study, the "endurance only" group lost a total of 3.5 lbs.; 3 lbs. of which was fat and a half pound was muscle loss.

On the other hand, the "endurance and weight resistive" group lost 8 lbs. with an actual fat loss of 10 lbs. and an increase of 2 lbs. of lean body weight.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. It's been alluded to on other posts in a condescending manner and I've been searching for an explanation but no one seems to want to take the time (probably because it's been explained ad nauseum elsewhere on MFP but I couldn't wade through to find it).

I have read a lot about HIIT

http://www.gymboss.com/hiit-workout.php

I have just started to change my elliptical time to a more sprint (170 steps/min) slow (100 steps/min) pattern.

As I have only started doing this I have not got a clue regarding any benefit this is giving me. One thing I do know is it makes the time go a lot quicker as the time on the slow sections seem to go way too quickly.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this. It's been alluded to on other posts in a condescending manner and I've been searching for an explanation but no one seems to want to take the time (probably because it's been explained ad nauseum elsewhere on MFP but I couldn't wade through to find it).

Sadly it is not. There are a lot of massive exercising folks losing muscle where they don't use it, not getting repaired, ect.

Shoot, I did it last month and knew full well it could happen.

I just loved pushing the spin classes 2x week, and one running session. The weight lifting did not help out. Still burned off 2.4 lbs of muscle. Not sure where, but I know what got weaker.

So now I'm remembering to back off the intensity, make it more like intervals, just not intense the whole time. And lost a workout day, and made one session totally recovery zone.

But shoot, much harder to add on than burn off.

It's actually very difficult to exercise properly like for an event and hope to get stronger - on a deficit.

Wow thats 2 amazing workouts! ^^^

tnx, @prettythinlov, I was totally out of shape in January when I started this journey. Now I feel I could move the mountains :-)

How have you become so much fitter in a short period of time?

That's amazing sweetie! Good going. Maybe I should do the C25K. Thank you!