How many calories?!

Is there any way to up my burn without spending oodles of time at the gym?!

Yes, eat less. That's the best way to create the deficit.

Is there any way to up my burn without spending oodles of time at the gym?!

Yes, eat less. That's the best way to create the deficit.

****!

If you want to burn more calories you could up the incline, the speed, or the level on the machine you're on. Or I think on the machines they have certain settings (fat loss, cardio, etc. ). Maybe you could add weights to your excersices (like running with 2lb weights in your hands)

If you go to a gym that has a trainer you could always talk to them. They can answer any questions you have.

But just remember to not go below your BMR because you don't want a calorie deficit.

350 cals in 45 minutes is a decent burn for a woman. You could probably squeak out a lttile more by doing some HIIT. Check it out in the forums!!

If you don't like being in the gym, just increase your everyday activity - make a couple of trips up the stairs, park further away in the lot, walk to the store instead of drive, etc. I love my fitbit, but I'm sure any other monitor works just fine. Like anything else, when you pay attention to it, you make it a priority.

Since you seem to want to track exercise and calories, I won't tell you that you don't have to (like some people) because that would be, you know, counter productive.

If I understand your question correctly, you don't want to increase your time at the gym, but you do want to increase the amount that you burn. Just do something more intense for an equal amount of time. It may sound over simplified, but I have no idea how intense your workouts are. Circuit training can be a good way to burn a fair bit depending on how you structure it.

Yes, weight loss is about calories, but the fact is that exercise has a small effect on the rate of weight loss. Unless you're capable of literally hours upon hours of daily exercise, the "burn" you create will generally be small compared to the deficit you create through your diet.

This is potentially fairly ridiculous. If I eat the same amount of calories from one week to another, but I spend one of those weeks burning an extra 3000 calories (600cal/day x 5 days), then that's not a small effect. Whether the deficit comes from the energy in or energy out part of the equation makes little difference to the scale.

I'm certain I'm bigger than you but I burn just shy of 1k an hour on a stationary bike at light to moderate pace.
I agree to add inclines, weights, etc to your workout. Honestly, in some types of exercise, the longer you go, the more intensely you burn... I would wonder if stopping at 15 minutes might be counterproductive? Anyway, increasing your incline is "easy" and available on most cross training type machines, as well as interval programs. Some even let you create one for yourself.

Maybe try different exercises, or spend the entire hour on one machine for a week, and see how it compares.

Potentially fairly ridiculous? What does that even mean?

The example you gave is not a realistic one because:

1. Studies show that most people, on average, burn 5 calories/minute. She said she burns 350 calories, 45 min a day. Let's be generous and assumes that's true and she burns about 7.5/minute and works out for an hour, 5 days a week. That's 450 calories per day, 2250 per week. Will it contribute to the deficit? Of course. Can she generate an even larger deficit from her diet and have an easier time doing so? Yes. On top of that, should she even be doing that much cardio in a significant deficit? That depends, but In most cases, no, and it will cause more problems than it solves. Thankfully, she said she does not have the time to do more.

2. Studies show that most people overestimate the expenditure of exercise anyway (see the link I posted).

As I already explained, aside from certain athletes that are capable of performing absolutely massive amounts of exercise (i.e. endurance athletes), exercise will generally not have a significant impact on energy balance.

And to reiterate, I am telling her she does not need to track her energy expenditure from exercise. I am NOT telling her to stop exercising (although I would certainly recommend drastically changing her routine). Exercise has other benefits for overall health, adherence to diet, calorie partitioning, etc.

Potentially fairly ridiculous means I think you're actually being fairly ridiculous but was giving you the benefit of the doubt.

-You have no idea how hard she's working on her cardio. You have no reason to call it overboard. You know very little, but seem to want to assume a lot.

-I actually don't give a damn about your good intentions with regard to her question. You arrogantly quote studies without knowing the specifics of her situation.

-There's all kinds of circuit training routines. Some have a strong strength components. It's entirely possibly that the variety in movements would be sufficient to keep her body from adapting while also maintaining her lean muscle.

-Once again, and hopefully you'll learn something. Your oft referenced studies lack relevance unless the contexts between the studies and the OP are consistent. Since you don't know that, I can't imagine why you'd bother talking about them.

-You have no idea how hard she's working on her cardio. You have no reason to call it overboard. You know very little, but seem to want to assume a lot.

Actually, I do have an idea. Because she said how many calories she is burning and she gave a timeframe.
Of course I am making assumptions based on the limited information she gave, I already acknowledged this multiple times - hence my vague recommendations. And yes I do have a fairly good reason to call it overboard given the information I know - which is that ALL she does is cardio, and she is in a deficit. If she gives more information about her diet/training, I'll modify accordingly. I have not given any specific recommendations. And I have also not told her to try circuit training, which will not help her in the long run.

-There's all kinds of circuit training routines. Some have a strong strength components. It's entirely possibly that the variety in movements would be sufficient to keep her body from adapting while also maintaining her lean muscle.

Given her question of wanting to increase caloric burn, do you actually think she will look into the type of circuit training routine that will allow her to maintain her LBM? You even say "circuit training can be a good way to burn a fair bit". And that's not even getting into the fact that exclusively doing circuit training/metabolic training is not optimal for maintaining muscle mass on a diet. But of course you knew that.

And I hope to God you are joking about "variety in movements" being sufficient to maintaining her muscle mass. Are you going to talk about "muscle confusion" next? Without the high tension muscle stimulus of heavy training, the body has no reason to maintain muscle mass on a diet (other factors are critical as well, such as adequate protein intake).

-I actually don't give a damn about your good intentions with regard to her question. You arrogantly quote studies without knowing the specifics of her situation.

Great, what is your point? Whatever the specifics of her situation are do not discount the accuracy of the studies.

-Once again, and hopefully you'll learn something. Your oft referenced studies lack relevance unless the contexts between the studies and the OP are consistent. Since you don't know that, I can't imagine why you'd bother talking about them.

I already addressed this above. Please elaborate on how they are irrelevant.
The studies I referred to are so general that they apply to everyone. That's what the word "average" means. Notice how I used other qualifying words such as "most" and "generally".
The purpose of mentioning the studies is to simply make her aware of the fact that many people overestimate the caloric expenditure from activity, which leads to either expecting a far greater impact on weight loss than the real world dictates, or eating those calories back under the assumption that they were burned off with activity. Given her question, it's relevant.

I think it is more productive to do what I did then to just go tell her to look into circuit training like you did. If she disagrees, then that's her prerogative.

I'm afraid I lack the stamina to care about wrangling with you Ken.

Perhaps you should try circuit training, it can be a good way of increasing stamina :laugh: