Questions about treadmill workout, please help!

First of all I will tell you a bit about myself. I am 43 years old, 5 feet 2 inches, 117 lbs. I am trying to lose about 10 lbs, to get rid of my belly. I understand that you can not pick where the fat comes off, but if I lose 10 lbs I think it will come off my belly. (only body part with fat) I have a few questions(treadmill), if you can help with any of them, I would greatly appreciate it.

1: I was told at the gym that I should do low intensity to burn more calories. So if I keep my heart rate at low intensity level, I am only walking at 2.4 mph. Any thoughts?

2: I joined the gym 3 weeks ago, and have been doing about an hour five times a week at 3.5 mph. This seems to be a comfortable pace for me. But now that I was told a slower pace would burn more calories, I am confused on what I should do. Am I really burning less calories by walking faster.?

3: Does your weight change the amount of calories you burn during a workout? The treadmill asks for my age (43), but not always for my weight. I am assuming that the lighter you are, the less calories you burn. Am I right in assuming that? Today at the low intensity that they said I should be doing to burn more calories went like this an hour at 2.4 mph = 190 calories burned. Does that sound right? (weight 117 lbs, age 43)

4: Which way will I burn more calories, I guess is my big question here.

Please reply, if you have the answers to any of these questions or any advice. I don't want to be doing something wrong and not getting the results I could be getting. Thanks in advance for your help.

Think about it this way, in physics:

E = .5mv^2

Which means that the energy used is a function of your mass and velocity. This is not ENTIRELY true for calories, but is a good general rule. Going slower does not generally help... I don't know who told you that... the only reason it makes sense is because you'll be able to do longer distances, which continues to burn calories for a longer time.

Now, if you run the same distance as you walk (let's say 3.5 miles), you would theoretically burn the same amount of calories, except for one thing: heart rate. When your heart rate increases, you burn more calories because it takes a while to slow back down. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT, which you'll need to look up) is a great workout plan, one that I highly recommend.

Otherwise, I'd say if you can only run for 1/2 mile, walking 3.5 miles is definitely better, but if you can add in some higher intensity training, that would very much be preferable.

I am also doing circuit training for 45 min 5 times a week. Thank you so much for your advice. So let me make sure I have this clear. So if I do  4 miles at 2.4 or at 3.5 I should burn the same amount of calories? If this is what you are telling me, it only makes sense to go for the 3.5 and get it done in less time right?  As 3.5 is a comfortable pace for me.

Hi-

I am in no way knowledgable about the mechanics of all of this, but I do know what works for me.  I'm 5 feet, 37 years old, and recently went from 134 to 121.  My work out is running on the treadmill.  I do about a 10 minute mile now (6 mph), but when I started I was running a 15-12 minute mile.  I run and either do one of two things.  I either increase the speed .1 mph every 15 second until I get to 7 mph from 5 mph.  I hover for a minute when I get 5.5, 6, and 6.5 mph.  Then I back it down .1 mph until I get back down to a comfortable pace.  OR I run for one minute at 7 mph, one minute at 6 mph, and one minute at 5 mph, continually rotating.  It makes the time go faster, keeps my body guessing, and adds some sprints in there.  I figure if they do sprints on the biggest loser then I should be doing them too!

 

Hope that helps, for what its worth.

So do you feel that what I was told at the gym was wrong? They said I will burn more calories at a low intensity. Is the best idea, to do what I can at the fastest comfortable rate? Thank you so much for the input, I really am so confused about this.

I think what they might have told you is that when your heart rate is lower, after a certain period of time you will burn a higher percentage of calories from fat than if you were doing intense cardio. However, the fallacy of this is that when you do harder cardio you're burning more calories all around so even if a smaller percent of these are from fat stores, you would probably end up burning more overall.

What cabaret_ said.

Also, you do burn more or less based on your weight.

The age is requested by machines typically if you select one of the programs that try to keep you within a certain heartrate, which, as cabaret_ said, isn't really necessary. They ask your age because the simple way to calculate max heartrate is by age (220-age), but this formula is not very accurate, and can be pretty misleading. I think that if you need to push yourself to get your heartrate up, it can be good to know, but don't use it as a sign that you need to slow down. 

I am no expert on weight loss, but I do know that you burn more calories the faster you walk/run. It is only logical. It takes more energy to go faster and our bodies use calories for energy. So... 

Maybe they were trying to say that if you go slower you will be able to walk further which in turn would burn more calories.

Thank you for your reply, I guess I will try switching things up a bit.

Thanks to all of you for your info and advice. Happy to have found this site, for help with health and fitness questions. You guys are great, have a happy and healthy day.

Your diet is probably going to have the biggest impact on your weight loss, so that should be your first priority.  As for your cardio workout, you are better off doing high intensity interval workouts for shorter periods of time, then long drawn out steady state cardio workouts.  But, don't forget to add some strength training too. Lifting weights is what you need to maintain your lean muscle, otherwise you are going to lose muscle along w/ the fat and end up skinny and flabby.  Good luck.

I just started counting calories on the 4th of May. For strength training I am doing a 30 min circuit at the gym. Thank you so much for your reply. So I guess I had started out right at the gym, and that got some bad information. I will go back to pushing myself, instead of the long drawn out slow walking. I enjoyed using the treadmill at 3.5 mph, when I was told to go down to 2.4 mph I must admit, it was very boring. I think what I will try is to go as fast as I can until I cant go any more, then slow down for a while, and return to as fast as I can.  So when I do this will the calories burned reflect in the numbers on the treadmill?

1. At 2.4 mph, what is your heart rate? Different fitness entities have different formulas to calculate what heart range you should be working in so I'll go with Covert Bailey's formula to calculate your maximum heart rate and the YMCA chart to calculate the different heart rate zones. Take 220 minus your age to calculate your maximum heart rate. That gives us 177. Then multiply that by .55 to .65 for low intensity, giving us 97-115 beats per minute. is that where you're at at 2.4 mph? then there's intermediate range which is .65 to .75 percent of maximum heart rate. Athlete training is .75 to .85 percent of maximum heart rate.

2. What is your heart rate at 3.5 mph? If 3.5 mph is "comfortable" for you then I'd say that going slower you will probably not be working hard enough to provoke your body to change.

3. I personally think the amount of calories burned per activity is highly personal and has a lot to do with metabolism. Sure heavier people should theoretically burn more calories but if it's a fat person with a slow metabolism they are, as a rule, inefficient at burning calories. But yes, lighter people burn less calories for the most part.

4. I think in the long run (no pun intended) you should go for the faster pace, not go slower. This is because you sound like you have a pretty solid plan (what with the circuit training), and if you are comfortable with one pace then slowing it down will make your workout ineffective in regard to making you a fitter person.

Original Post by nursescarels:

So do you feel that what I was told at the gym was wrong? They said I will burn more calories at a low intensity. 

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, but I just wanted to make sure this is clear - if your gym told you that you would burn more calories by walking slower for the same amount of time then yes, what you were told is 100% absolutely wrong.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you about "zones" and the "fat-loss zone" or any of that crap.  It simply doesn't matter when you're in a calorie deficit, and you're best doing as high an intensity as you can handle for the 30 minutes or an hour you have to work out.

Now, if you want to talk about what type of work you should be doing (resistance training, intervals, steady-state cardio), that's an entirely different thread - you can search and find 1000 threads on why resistance training is critical to fat loss.

Bottom line - never listen to anyone at your gym again if that's the kind of advice they are giving.

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 hmartin2775
May 13 2008 18:49
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That said, I would not follow that advice.  You don't want your heart rate to go too high (as in heart attack, etc.) but as long as your health is not an issue, I would definitely increase the pace.  I try to exercise at the greatest intensity possible without feeling faint, dizzy, weak, etc.  I think a good rule of thumb is that you should be able to carry on a bit of conversation, but not just jabber on and on like you were sitting in a beach chair!  I would never be able to walk at that pace.  I would get bored and quit exercising, which is much worse for you than raising your heart rate ;)  So, unless there is a health reason to go so slow, I would pick up the pace.  Also, I would move this to the Fitness forum for more experienced and enlightened responses than mine!

So happy to get so many thoughts and ideas from people. Thank you all for being so kind, and helping out a fellow CC'er. I will not listen to anyone at the gym any more, I will come here id I have questions. I should have known better, when they didn't really know what most of the buttons on the treadmill were for.

hey there meedakin,

I am 5'2" and have been on calorie count for a month or so now and at first was not eating enough calories so i only dropped an initial 2 pounds which was probably because i started exercising.  NOw at am at 136-137 pounds.  I eat between 1400-and 1500 calories a day including on workout days.  I am confused as to what i should be eating as in how much on rest days and workout days.  I only work out for about 30-45 mintues a day on the tredmill or elliptical and i have a light active stay at home mom type lifestyle with twin two year olds.  I am frustrated because i'm getting tone, but my body fat, and weight have not budged!  I feel huge when i eat becaus ei feel i have to stuff myself at night just to get in my calories  of 1450!  I dont know what to do!  Am I eating too little or too much!???? Should i be doing harder exercises or something.  I got a heart monitro and have been burn about 300-400 on my workouts and workout about 4 times a week.  A mix of strength and cardio.  What the freak...no one is answering my please in other forums, and i really just want a good straight answer before i give up!

mv3, what you're doing should be good. You're burning about 500 more than you take in on non-exercise days and 300 to 400 more with exercise. That should put you on track to lose a safe 1 to 2 pounds a week. Be sure you're being accurate if you're logging and get plenty of protein (within your calorie count) so you keep as much muscle as possible. High protein foods tend to be more calorie dense so that should make it easier to reach your 1400. Also make sure you're drinking plenty of water so that any sodium effects don't mask weight loss.

Your profile says that you've had eating disorders and been a crash diet junky. You don't have a very large amount of weight to lose so it's probably not going to come off as quickly as you'd like. The hardest part for you will probably be being patient enough. Give your body time to lose in a healthy way and you should be able to stay healthy and fit too.

Thank you for responding.  I just feel hopeless because it's like new territory , trying to lose weight the healthy and right way you know.  It's almost harder and I just felt like maybe i wasn't working hard enough.  Or eating too much.  It's hard to know exactly how much i should eat on different days, and is a 500 calories deficit enough to really see changes, or is my deficit to great....i dont know...i guess i will try to be more patient, but i am giving my body  a month, before i switch it up again and try something different!

-500 x 7 days = -3500 cals/wk =one pound lost (theoretically), so yep, 500 cal deficit is good. Just keep in mind that if you lose around 4 pounds (up to 8 max) in a month, you're doing great. Don't give up, it will work if you give it time and stay on track. Good luck!

thanks. i will try to remember the bigger picture. i weekly deficit can lead to a pound loss!