Why You're Not Burning As Many Calories As You Think
If you rely on the calorie counters on exercise machines to work out how many calories you're burning, chances are you're not burning as many calories as you think.
If you jump on the exercise bike and burn 300 calories, you haven't actually burned 300 extra calories.
Why not?
If, instead of going to the gym, you just sat around the house and did nothing, your body would have been burning calories just to keep you alive.
So if you want to get an accurate idea of how many extra calories you're really burning during your workout you'll need to substract the calories you would have burned just sitting around doing nothing.
In other words, you'll want to know the difference between net and gross energy expenditure.
-
Gross energy expenditure (GEE) refers to the number of calories
you burn during exercise plus resting energy expenditure (REE) for an equivalent time.
-
Net energy expenditure (NEE) refers to just the number
of calories you burn during exercise.
Calorie counters often display gross energy expenditure - so they don't accurately represent the additional energy that is used during exercise.
Let me give you a real world example of this, which comes from a study by researchers at Appalachian State University [1].
The study tracked a group of overweight women taking part in an aerobic exercise program. The program involved 45 minutes of aerobic exercise, performed at 70-80% of maximum heart rate, in a group of overweight women.
The gross number of calories burned was
255. In contrast, the net figure (remember, the net figure represents the "real" number of extra calories you've burned) was just 187 calories.
In other words,
if you rely on the numbers given by the digital readouts, it might appear that
you've burned 36% more calories than you really have.
Keep this in mind the next time you train with the goal of burning a specific
number of calories. For example, if you go to the gym to burn 300 calories,
I'd suggest that you add 30%, and aim for 390 calories instead.
About the Author
 Christian Finn holds a master's degree in exercise science, is a certified personal trainer and has been featured on BBC TV and radio, as well as in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pro, Zest and other popular fitness magazines.
If you want better, faster results from the time you spend in the gym, click here now for instant access to his step-by-step muscle-building and fat-burning workout routines.
Related Articles
Reference
Utter, A.C., Nieman, D.C., Shannonhouse, E.M., Butterworth,
D.E., & Nieman, C.N. (1998). Influence of diet and/or exercise
on body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese women.
International
Journal of Sport Nutrition, 8, 213-222
|
| 
