Big news! I have reached my 2nd really big goal.. I have finally hit 20 kgs of weight loss (44lbs).
I am beyond happy! I have been working my ass off even more so than usual ... and it's great to see results. I said to my family today ... I LOVE EXERCISE. It is the best feeling ever.
Recently I've been doing quite a few 6.30am fitness classes at the gym, and I'm surprised by just how much I am enjoying them. That endorphin and adrenaline rush really wakes me up and keeps me going all day. Highly recommended :)
Time for a before after shot (some of my friends may have already seen this!).
This is my face back in May and June 2010 versus 5 days ago. I'm not sure what my weight was in 2010, I think it was more than my starting weight so the difference here is probably slightly more than 20kgs.
And now moving onto something a bit more serious... the truth about how many calories you actually burn during a workout.
During my journey so far I have realised that the information out there about expected calorie burn for a particular exercise is hugely varied from one source to the next.
Of course any exercise you do is amazing and good for you, but it can also be tricky when you are following a 'regime' and possibly cheating yourself by not having the right info.
e.g. the old me would go exercise, then eat McDonalds for dinner, thinking I earned it because I went hard out.
If I knew the truth about calories I just burned, and the calories I was just about to eat..I may have chosen differently.
When I first started my exercise routine (mainly walking) I just used the default data provided to me either on Myfitnesspal or the fitness app I use on my phone endomondo, and overall it was ok but some of the figures seemed really high. Its not until I got my heart rate monitor that I realised just how off some of the measurements were and effectively I'd been cheating myself.
(I have a polar FT7 by the way and I love it. It adds another level of empowerment to my training.)
Please note the figures below are based on my measurements, weight, height, age etc.
To give you a great example of the difference between what's marketed versus what you actually get out of it.. Zumba market themselves as being able to burn up to 1000 calories in a one hour class. The key word being 'up to'.
In reality, for me to burn 1000 (which I actually managed today!) involved a 55 minute intense martial arts style fitness class at the gym and a 45 minute session of fitness boot camp (cardio / strength), my heart rate was averaging around 160 beats per minute for the entire thing. That's 1hr and 40 minutes of intense working out! I haven't actually done a zumba class with my monitor yet, but now I know what it takes to burn 1000, I'm very interested in the outcome! I have more of an understanding on what my body can achieve for various workouts, so I estimate a zumba class would probably be about 500 calories.
Another example is the sport inspired high intensity class (body attack) I do at my gym.. when I log this on MFP it defaults to 730 calories..(this is the up to range the gym says you could achieve). I've never been able to get past 620 and again that's going for it as much as I can with my heart rate regularly hitting high 170s and 180s.
Running is similar.. when I use GPS on my phone and the have endomondo app going a 26 minute circuit it reckons burnt 364 calories, when in reality it was actually 217 calories on my Heart rate monitor.
Walking for 10 minutes at a brisk pace MFP reckons it will burn about 120 calories.. in reality its more like 70. When you start multiplying those 10 minutes..the difference ends up being quite large!
Granted in the grand scheme of things the differences generally aren't that huge, but you can see how if you are really serious about keeping to your regime, the little differences can add up. And the issue is really more around fitness fads and products where they promise you 'XYZ' and it turns out that's not actually the case!
There is a lot of debate out there whether you should eat back your exercise calories, or whether you should eat some or none of it back. Some people say don't do it because then you won't lose weight and may even gain it. But I now believe this could be happening because people are over estimating exercise burn. If you're wondering, I generally eat most of my calories back because the body needs that fuel..and I'm still getting results. :)
Bottom line - I think it's almost easier to guestimate your approximate burn based on how tired you feel, how much effort you think you put in etc. Eventually you will get to learn roughly how much you will be achieving in an exercise session.
For anyone really serious about losing weight, or wondering why their efforts might not be working as well as they thought they would, I highly recommend a heart rate monitor (they are affordable and comfortable to use) and you can't get much more accurate than that. Combine that with actually caring about what goes into your body as well, and you've pretty much got a winner!
Either way...keep exercising. Anything you do benefits your body!!
I found this quote and I love it:
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