Aerobic exercise consumption

Don't believe the exaggerated propaganda on the Internet that "jogging consumes 700 calories in 1 hour" and "doing Pamela dance in 1 hour to lose 1 pound". When ordinary people do regular low-intensity aerobic exercise, the actual consumption per hour is mostly in the range of 200-600 calories. There is no unified fixed value. The specific number is directly linked to your weight, exercise intensity, movement standard, and even the sleep state of the day. Individual differences can be more than 2 times different.

I encountered a very interesting thing when I was leading a fat loss camp two years ago: two girls, both 165cm tall, one weighing 65kg and the other 47kg, followed me for 5 kilometers on the same day, with the same pace of 6 and a half minutes. They were both wearing the same calibrated sports watch. After running through the data, the heavier one consumed 420 kcal and the lighter one only 270 kcal. Some students raised their hands on the spot and asked if the watch was broken.

In fact, it’s really not the fault of the equipment. If you think about it, if you run the same mile, a 65kg person will have to move his extra weight of dozens of kilograms 1,000 meters forward. The work done is much more than that of a 47kg person. Isn’t it natural that the consumption is high? Many people come up and ask, "How much can you burn by running for an hour?" They don't even tell you your own weight. In fact, you can't get an accurate answer at all.

Oh, by the way, there is another controversial point that has been quarreling for many years: does it take 30 minutes of aerobic exercise to start burning fat?

Academic exercise physiologists will definitely tell you that this is wrong: the body's three major energy supply systems are working at the same time from the first second you start moving. It's just that glycogen accounts for a higher energy supply and fat accounts for a lower amount in the early stages of exercise. Even if you just stand up and take two steps, fat is still supplying energy. But if you ask most practical fitness instructors on the market, they will probably still recommend that you do aerobic exercise for 30 minutes. In fact, both sides are right, but their stances are different: for ordinary fitness enthusiasts, they may still be warming up and struggling to find the state in the first 10 minutes. Only if the effective exercise time is 30 minutes, the absolute amount of fat energy supply will be enough, and the efficiency of fat loss will be higher. There is no need to argue over this matter.

I feel this very deeply. I loved climbing Xiangshan Mountain on weekends two years ago. When I went there for the first time, I took pictures of the scenery while climbing. I took a break when I got tired. It took me two hours to reach the top. My watch recorded a consumption of only 310 calories, which was not as high in calories as the bowl of noodles I ate later. The second time I went with my cross-country friends, I didn’t stop the whole way, my heart rate was stable at around 130, and I rushed up within an hour. My consumption reached 580 kcal, which was almost double the difference. You see, it’s the same mountain climbing, but the intensity is different, and the consumption can be ridiculously different. Not to mention that many people paddle during aerobics, raising their arms to their chests and then lowering them, without raising their legs, and their cores are loose. Compared with the people next to them who tighten their cores throughout the whole process and do their movements in place, the consumption difference of 30% is considered low.

Another point where people are easily fooled by marketing accounts is the so-called “afterburn effect”. A lot of propaganda claims that fat burning continues for more than ten hours after aerobic exercise and that you can lose weight while lying down. In fact, it is not that exaggerated. The academic community has long had data: the EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) of ordinary low-intensity aerobic exercise is very limited, which means that within 1-2 hours after the end of exercise, it can consume dozens of calories, which is almost the calories of half a bottle of sugar-free Coke, which cannot be counted on at all. Of course, if you are doing standard high-intensity intermittent aerobic, the afterburn effect will indeed be higher, but the problem is that most ordinary people simply cannot meet the intensity requirements of HIIT. What they are doing to make them gasp for breath is actually low-intensity intervals. The extra consumption is not enough for you to eat one more cookie.

Finally, to be honest, if you really need to rely on aerobic brushing for energy consumption, don’t always worry about which type of exercise is the most efficient in burning fat. First, find something you can stick to, and something that can stabilize your heart rate in the range of (220-age) × 60% to 70%. It is much more effective than doing an exercise that makes your teeth itch for half an hour. Don't focus too much on the consumption figures. After all, if you can't help but drink an extra cup of full-sugar milk tea after exercise, you may have to run an extra 40 minutes to offset it. Moving is better than lying down. You really need to control calories. It's true that you should eat three points for three points and seven points for exercise.