As people have posted in the past I am working on that last 8-10 pounds to lose and I find I must be VERY diligent in tracking calories burned vrs. calories consumed.
Today I did a 5 hour ride, just over 100 miles (training for IM) My Garmin told me I burned almost 6000 calories on todays ride. Does that seem accurate? I am 6’3", 198 lbs., my speed averaged around 22 mph, my heart rate average was 132. That is a fairly strong pace for me so I was pushing it a bit, but I have a hard time believing I spent that many calories on the ride.
My follow up question is, of those 5000 calories I burned (assuming that is accurate) how many of those calories were “fat” calories? The ride was long and flat so I spent 99% of the ride in in my aerobic zone, so when I do rides like these I would like to have a general idea of how much fat I was able to burn.
I will mull this over a LARGE bowl of spinach, celery, and tuna, and eagerly await those knowledged to answer my questions to give me a reply!
I went for a 5 hour ride yesterday and my powertap told me I did 3,176kj of work. I’ve been told this is roughly equivalent to calories but I have no idea what the truth is.
I’m 5’10 171 lbs. About 50min of the ride was easy and the rest was IM pace. I wasn’t pushing the ride. Not even the hills.
How many calories did you take in on the ride? and how regularly? That will change the fat calories burned.
No it won’t, except perhaps in a situation of extremes. % of calories from fats is correlated with the % of LT the rider held for the duration of the ride. The lower the % of LT, the more the % of total calories coming from fats*, ceteris paribus*. What you eat has little to do with it.
couple of problems to start with. When you say you averaged around 22, is that what your Gamin said or is that you guess based on speeds you were seeing? I know you said you went just over 100 miles, but averaging 22mph you would cover 100 in 4.5 hours. Not that it really matters much in your question. Were you riding in a group or solo? I would guess that the 6000 is a bit high, but no way of knowing for sure unless you know your calorie burn rate per hour at each heart rate level. When you question about how many “fat” calories you burned, you do realize that when they talk about working out in the fat burning zone, they are not referring to adipose fat cells (the spare tire kind of fat). They are referring to using free fatty acids in the system as an energy source. When trying to track calories burned, it really doesn’t matter that much what kind you are burning, in general it is more of a calorie in versus calorie out thing. That being said, based loosely on the information given, I would think you were riding a fine line between the fat burning energy zone and the carbohydrate burning zone. Overall for your long ride and goal of losing weight, that is a good thing since the higher effort will keep your metabolism kicked up longer post ride then if you had gone at an easier work rate.
IM I am training for is Kona. This was my 15th century this year. Can you tell I want to be prepared on the bike.
I have to agree that I don’t think that what you eat during your workout greatly effects the fat calories you burn. The LT % you are holding would seem to be more relative to your fat burn.
However on this particular ride I consumed about 500 calories evenly distributed throughout the ride. I take much more with me, its just that today I felt pretty good and I don’t believe in stuffing myself with calories it its not necessary. Some of my rides I take in much more because my body is telling me “give me food” so I do. Other times, like today, I was able to maintain a decent pace without consuming a lot of calories.
Now don’t get me wrong. If I was doing a brick, or when my IM actually happens, I will “pace” my calorie intake to be much more appropriate. My strategy right now is that I have 4-5 weeks of good volume training left, so if I am going to get these last few lbs. off, I want to get it done now.
Garmin gave me my average. 4 hours 50 minutes. It was a solo ride with two pee stops (I drank a LOT of water) and a quick stop for a powerbar. Yes, I realize that I am not burning adipose fat, but secretly I try to convince myself that maybe I burned a little. I know that fatty acids are what I am utilzing as fuel, I am just trying to get a feel for general ratios of what calories are being burned.
Staying right at the edge of “fat burning” zone and “carbo burning zone” is what I am aiming for. I seem to get the best results when I can manage that edge! Bottom line, if you don’t want to complicate things (like I have done with this post) is CALORIES IN vrs. CALORIES BURNED!
seems like you have a good handle on both what you are doing with regards to the fat burning and the prep for Kona. Sounds like that was a great ride. I would think based on the ride stats that you were right on the line between zones and as you know, that was a good place to be. It’s kind of a danger zone in racing an Ironman though. True that is where you get the best result (riding that line of effort) but it is also a risky line, just a slight bit too hard and you are toast.But based on what you have posted so far, I’m confident you already know that. Good luck in October.
Well you need to come uo to our lab in Mammoth. Warm-up and measure you numbers - then you can go ride for an 1-2 and get retested - ride anouth 1-2 hrs and retest - then finish the ride and retest. You’ll get a good idea of how fat:glycogen changes along the course.
But if your goal is to lose weight - you should focus on how to train to switch your basal metabolism to burn more fat.
“I am working on that last 8-10 pounds to lose and I find I must be VERY diligent in tracking calories burned vrs. calories consumed.”
Parker,
Sometimes those last 8-10lbs are tied to a couple of things many people don’t think about:
too FEW calories:
some people forget that these major rides, runs and swims are so calorie-burning, that the body will actually HOLD onto fat in an attempt to keep its health. Don’t run at an extreme deficit between calories burned and calories intaken; you’ll be hurting yourself (your body may eat its muscle as it breaks down in exercise…“catabolism”) rather than losing fat.
If you did a 5000-6000 cal ride, did you intake those amount of calories? Did you add in your basal metabolic rate - how many calories by just sitting abd breathing, eating, sleeping? You may be waaay DOWN on your calories. You may need to become an eating machine.
not enough fat:
Do you eat enough healthy fats? The body will also hold onto fat if it’s got getting enough healthy fat. That sounds funny but think of it this way: the healthy fats make the cells work better (fat is part of the cell integrity), and without the fats the cells get mean. Keep a record of your food and make sure you are intaking a quality healthy fat ratio by way of fish, fish oil, flax oil, etc. (Aim for omega-3’s)
too much processed food:
You were eating a great salad. Do you do this daily – eat whole foods? Processed food has such crap in it that it will also create and “hold onto” toxic adipose (fat) tissue. If you have a really clean, whole-food diet with low or no processed foods, your body can digest and use most of these nutrients – in processed ‘food’ (and I use the term lightly) there are fewer nutrients and therefore your body isn’t as much nutrition, but your body functions will still rish around AS IF it’s food. It just can’t use it.
Just a few ideas.
If you weight train just a bit you can increase your metabolism (increased muscle increases metabolism). I know weight-training is a bad word around here but that’s what really does work. Most people want to stay light but some bodies aren’t light, and stay lean by having slightly more muscle; and some bodies will never be ‘skinny’ due to their body structure (‘somatype’).
I’m assuming you are saying that your ‘last 8-10lbs’ is adipose tissue (fat). Watch out that with all your training that you aren’t using up MUSCLE if you are under-calorie’d.
These are all odd numbers. You took in only 500 calories over 5 hours, yet averaged 22mph (presumably a solo ride)? How much did you have in your digestive system before you started (i.e., pre-ride meal)?
You were “pushing it a bit”, yet your HR averaged only 132? What’s you max HR?
On an all-out 40K (about an hour), my PowerTap says I burn something north of 1000 calories. Very hard to believe you burn calories at a much higher rate for an effort five times as long. I’d guess you burned closer to 4000 calories, but that’s only a guess.
Also, unless you were doing a drop-dead sprint, all of your time was spent in the “aerobic zone”.
do you have a citation for this? when gina kolada (the NYT science correspondent) attempted to investigate the “fat burning zone”, she could find absolutely no scientific evidence that it exists at all, and concluded that it grew out of anecdotal claims from LA aerobics classes in the mid/late 1970’s.