I still have a heck of a lot to learn about all of this...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
I need to learn more about burning calories...
Today I rode my bike for 20 miles in 87 minutes & burned 855 calories! Last week, I rode the same route but my time was 4 minutes slower, yet I burned 971 calories. My average heart rate this week was 131 and last week it was 135. I am confused about the big difference in calories burned between the 2 weeks. Once again I texted SPUF & she explained that my heart is getting conditioned, so now I need to work harder (adding resistance) or go faster to increase the calorie burn. I am still confused because I don't think I could have ridden any faster or any higher gears than I rode today. She also mentioned "muscle memory" which is why she continually changes the strength training exercises around.
I still have a heck of a lot to learn about all of this...
I still have a heck of a lot to learn about all of this...
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I'm not a Dr. and I don't play one on TV but here's what I learned: when you were exercising LESS intensely, more of those calories were burned from stored fat. Your body metabolizes (BURNS into ENERGY) stored fat more efficiently in the presence of oxygen (aerobic)in your blood. Once you go Anaerobic your body needs the energy more rapidly and it choses to work with the stored glucose in the liver, then to the glucose in your blood as it's MAIN source of energy. Remember a few things: when you are exercising in the range where you burn the most calories from fat (get a metabolic test from the gym. The computer will automatically graph for you the type of calories burned as a result of differing heart rates- This will show you what heart rate you need to shoot for in order to burn the most calories from fat. This will be a less vigorous workout and thus will burn less calories in the long run, but more will be from stored fat. The up side is that the effort it takes to stay within the heart range you need will allow you to exercise longer to burn more calories. This won't necessarily increase your capacity for more efficient burning of fat for energy, though it will condition your heart and lungs (and of course muscles). For maximum caloric AND to TRAIN your body to utilize the stored fat more efficiently so that it will burn more calories from fat at higher exertion, Interval Training is the key. Because you train at lower heart rates during the off times, you can go longer because the exertion feels less uncomfortable...And because you can go for longer you will be able to burn more total calories from stored fat. When you go into the intervals your body is then training without oxygen which allows you to burn even more total calories due to the intensity. This simultaneously conditions your body to go longer in the aerobic stage (getting "in shape" both heart and lungs and muscles) AND as a result, burn more calories from fat and so on...SPUF...please correct me if I'm wrong. I had this explained to me by the trainer who administered my metabolic and aerobic threshold tests. Sorry if it is confusing. If I could show you the graph it would be easier I think. GTG... Hope this helped some. Remember also that as you gain more muscle it takes more calories (energy) to drive them (raising your metabolism) burning EVEN MORE calories ALL the time!!! LUV U...keep up the great work and motivation!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the explanation...I have heard something like this before, but your knowledge is certainly greater than mine! Does the fat burning vs. fitness level on the heart rate monitor attempt to determine aerobic & anaerobic levels? I know to get a truly accurate measure, you need to breath into a mask & be hooked up to a machine. When I ride, I only spend just a couple of minutes in the fat burning level.
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