Trying to lose weight and putting it in numbers is demoralizing. I’ve started riding a stationary bike for 5 miles and then doing minor weight lifting after and I maaaaybe lose 200 or so calories. Is that not a good exercise? I’ve been doing this almost everyday starting 2 weeks ago. But it’s starting to feel useless if it’s such a minor amount of calories burnt. Is this a good trend to continue? What am I missing?
Edit: everyone here has been incredibly helpful, and surprisingly consistent with one another. I feel much more confident about what I’m doing and what I need to do. Seriously, thank you all.
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5 miles is only about what I ride to work, No offense but like lets be real, Imagine if I burned up my entire breakfast getting to work? That’s actually a lot and I think maybe on your bike it could be more resistance so I could be wrong. Takes me like 15 minutes to ride that, though. So 300 cal over 5 miles would be amazing but also terrifying. Like yeah, It’s basically 100g of fat but it all adds up. Honestly though, You’re much better off eating less to lose weight. You naturally burn like 2,000 a day so if you just eat under you will lose weight.
You can calculate your base metabilic rate and such online, its never 100% accurate, It’s just a guideline. Helped me lose 100kg. Full disclosure though, While eating less played a major role, I ride my bicycle 200km a week, which includes my days off and when I ride to work and back again. I enjoy riding my bike now and do it for fun, so the number varies from 100 – 400km a week depending on how much i feel like riding and if i need a few trips to the store etc. but it averages 200km basically.
I 100% would not stop though. While losing weight may be your goal, why? Just looks? Do you atleast want to be in shape, fit etc? Exersize will improve all that way beyond losing some excess weight. You will be much more agile and tenacious physically and since it’s cardio, you will hopefully live longer and have a healthier heart / inner health.
Long story short exercise makes you healthy, and your diet makes you lose weight. You must do both for the optimal outcome.
Exercise is not the best sustainable way to keep weight off. Instead eating the appropriate amount of calories for your height, age, level of activity and target weight is what you should eat daily.
You might want to read up a bit on how a good diet (as in eating well, not necessarily less) and training need to go hand in hand to get in “shape”. I think that’s a bit too broad to answer here, but therein I guess lies your answer. And that includes proteins and vitamins!
In the end, weight loss is all about calorie deficiency. And yes, it can feel a bit frustrating, but fear not – everyone can do it 🙂
You are correct, a small snack will outweigh a single training. But I’d suggest getting a (free) calorie tracker, and track your intake, sports and figure out your base consumption.
That will give you a better idea how much you need to train and if you need to potentially reduce your calorie intake.
How do calories work?
Your “calorie turnover” is the total amount of calories your body will “burn” during a day. It consists of your base turnover – what you need to breath, basic body functions; what is necessary if you lie around and do nothing – plus your activity turnover, like, your daily routine needs, plus additional sports. If your intake is higher than that, you gain weight, if it’s lower, you loose weight.
And there are some dramatic factors for the intake, mostly sugar. Every shit we get for convenience, especially soft drinks, are pact with crazy amount of calories; same goes for sweets, obviously.
It most likely will be necessary to consume those only very considerate.
After some health issues I wanted to reduce by BMI, and decided for a “slow” approach; I wanted it to be long lasting, so a “hard diet” definitely wasn’t the way; I also don’t want to reduce the foods I love dramatically, and suffer.
So, I started riding a stationary bike (actually it’s a real bicycle on a training mount, because I don’t like those fitness things), trying to be in low cardio for as long as it seemed feasible; I started at about 20 minutes, and now could go for hours. It took me about six months to get there, but I am now more “fit” than I ever was.
It just didn’t have any “immediate effect”. I lost about 2kg a month, I think. I mostly kept my regular eating habits, but reduced soft drinks and chocolate. I still eat them, but as said, with much more consideration. I added a lot of fruits into my diet (even while they contain sugar, they are still MUCH better for the body because of all the good shit that’s in there. Also, nuts are great protein deliverer, if you don’t want to substitute).
I have never been into sports, but after those six months, I can ride 100km on my bike without too much hassle.
So, in a nutshell, you are on the right way! Take your time, inform yourself, and carefully push the limit!
To finally circle back to the question, I didn’t really answer that because I don’t think the question is so much about “how do calories work”, but “how can I work with them”, so I deviated a bit 🙂
Weight lifting IS a potential way of loosing calories, but for me, it’s more about endurance sports, like cycling. For me, I can much better check that I’m in a healthy region while exercising, I can shape the exercise so it fits my schedule, and I can very easily adjust the amount of training to my fitness level (including stuff like infections, or stressful work times, that will have an additional toll on my body).
If you train for about an hour at the level of what your current fitness allows – so with more intensity when you get fitter – that should put your calorie delta about 300-400 calories “down”. So, if you beforehand slightly gained weight (say, you ate 200 calories too much), you will likely now loose weight (slooooowly). Keep your intake in check, try to reduce that a little bit – you can possibly get into -600 calories per day compared to your prior delta – or, like, -200 to -300 compared to your daily turnover.
You could also try a harder diet, but it will reduce your fitness level, your joy in fitness, and your chance to gain more fitness. I would not suggest that route, especially if you want to sustain your fitness when you hit your personal “I feel good now”-fitness level.
Last but not least: you see I emphasise fitness, not weight. Muscles are heavier than fat. So don’t focus on how much you weigh, but focus on how good you feel, possibly also how healthy. Because that’s what you likely want to aim for, not just “loose wight”.
Expect more noticeable results after 6-8 weeks 🙂
This is the truth.
It’s not out there to demoralize or encourage you, no more than the sky is blue at day to demoralize you. It’s just the fact.
What you need to do is accept the facts, accept the inaccuracies inherent in all real-world measurements, and tailor your action to what works for you.
For example it is incredibly easier to cut out 500 calories from your daily intake than to increase your calorie burn by 500 in a day.
Also 200 calories is not a decent workout in my book. 500 is more like it. But you can’t get to that in the first week if you haven’t worked out regularly before.
Focus on the positives – for the first time you are beginning to familiarize yourself with the facts about your body’s energy needs. You now know how much that extra piece of cheesecake is going to affect you.
Now use that information to attain a 1000 calorie deficit per day, and watch the pounds melt off your body!
Healthy weight loss has a mantra: slow and steady wins the race.
70% of weight loss has nothing to do with exercise and *everything* to do with what you stick in your mouth (no giggity). Exercise helps, but nowhere near as much as watching your food intake. And it isn’t just calories, either, but what those calories consist of.
You’ve heard it a million times: stay away from processed and refines sugars, including (especially, rather) high-fructose corn syrup. Fruit is fine, depending on the fruit and how much of it you eat and the time of day that you eat it (pro tip: stick to fruit in the mornings for best restults). Protein is key, because your body actually expends more calories processing protein than fat or carbohydrates; the higher your protein intake, the more your furnace will burn on its own (just don’t go into ketosis; your kidneys will thank you if you don’t).
You don’t even really need to track your calorie intake. Cut out the refined sugars (no sodas, no fruit juice, use an artificial sweetner in your coffee, and for the love of all that is holy stay the *hell* away from energy drinks) and you’ll be amazed at the results after a few months, even if you *don’t* exercise.
Fun fact for you: soda has zero nutritional value, but thanks to the sugar it is high calorie. If you drink, say, as a single 12oz can of Coca-Cola a day at 127 calories, every day, that’s an extra 889 calories a week that you took in that did *nothing* for you other than add to your waistline. That’s 3,556 calories a month, just shy of the amount of calories it takes to burn a pound of fat. That’s 46,355 calories per year, or 12.87 *pounds* of fat. That’s a bowling ball’s worth of weight you’re no longer carrying around if you cut out just a single can of soda per day for a year, *without* increasing your exercise or making any other change to your diet.
But that’s the kicker: it takes a *year* to see those kind of results, and that’s what demoralizes people the most when it comes to weight loss. Slow and steady wins the race.
If you workout all the muscles in your body, you’ll get a higher weight loss effect than cardio+light workout. This is because when your muscles are tired and “broken”, your body uses up a lot of energy to “repair and grow” your muscles, so it keeps your metabolism elevated and you’ll lose most of your weight throughout the day and even when you’re sleeping. So as long as your diet is an average healthy diet, if you create a 30-45 minute timeslot in your day dedicated to working out, you’ll technically be losing a bit of weight every day every hour forever.
Note: you might not see results so clearly on a scale since you might gain strength and weight in the form of bigger muscles, so my advice is to ignore scales and if you REALLY want to know how your progress is going, just take before and after pics of yourself in the same clothes every month or two.
Source: I’m not a personal trainer but this method helped me go down from 95 kg of almost pure fat to 80 kg of muscle and a toned body +abs. This took me one year of dedication (eating better quality food + working out at home for 20-30 minutes a day)
I’ve been on a weight loss journey for about 4 months and what I did was get one of those smart watches to measure my heart rate while on the stationary bike or the treadmill. I googled what my fat burn heart rate is using a simple calculation tool and stay in that rate for 40+ minutes – not always possible for me though – when I hit the gym 4 or 5 times a week. Pair that with lifting weights and eating healthier and less and I’ve been consistently losing weight. The sustained increased heart rate bit has been key for me.
Weight management is very difficult. While in the end it is KCal in vs KCal out it gets much more complex (I can already feel the hateful glare of /r/lifting). Bike 5 miles, burn ~200 calories. But it doesn’t end there. You have forced a caloric deficit and now feel hungry so you eat and replace those calories. Now some will argue that lifting is better because you will burn some while actually lifting plus the muscle mass built will continue to burn more. Still though you will be hungry eat and the cycle continues.
The biggest thing you can do for weight management is adjust your diet. I am not saying dieting in the sense of caloric deficits (important to have if looking to lose) but more making what you eat count. Some things (like chips) don’t fill you up and are calorically dense. Other things (like apples, celery, steak, chicken) are not so calorically dense and will fill you up. Adding cardio and resistance training are great and have other benefits but most people fail due to their diet.
Exercise is for health.
Good eating habits are for weight control.
As you have seen, it’s hard to burn an extra 200 calories but easy to eat that much… or choose to not eat it. Make small changes that you can maintain and they will add up.
As an example, instead of a double cheeseburger and large fries, have a single burger with lots of veggies for toppings and share those fries. Have foods you enjoy, but eat mindfully and really enjoy eating every bite.
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