this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
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me_irl
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I can't believe the number of people on here who keep repeating that exercising can't replace eating less... If you eat the same amount of calories as before but increase the calories you burn by 500 the result is the same as reducing how much you eat by 500 calories while maintaining the same daily needs. Heck, long term doing it through exercising is better for you as well!
Burning 500 extra calories working out is an extremely intense workout, especially considering how sedentary most people are.
The benefits are also short lived, you can burn some extra calories for a bit but your body will adjust, and after a while the number of calories you burn during a workout tapers off and you return to about the same number you were burning before.
This is a well documented phenomenon. Human bodies are really good at conserving energy.
You lose weight in the kitchen, you tone up in the gym.
An estimated 1000 extra calories in about an hour for me is an extremely intense workout (the only time I estimated to have done that, my average heart rate during it was 173 - it was only based on HR and some basic data input like height and weight). I'm not a particularly active person and I'm overweight.
500 though? If you spread it out of 2 hours, its hardly anything at all. When I commuted by ebike daily, I was probably burning double that 6 days a week compared to driving and it felt very casual.
"probably". Like most people, you are severely over estimating what you burn. This morning I cycled 40km without assistance and climbed 500m along the way. It wasn't my hardest workout ever, but not "very casual" either. That was 850 kcal.
Roundtrip commute was 55-60kms. A bit hilly during parts and frequent slowing and speeding up during parts because part of the ride is on a hike & bike trail with frequent pedestrians. Assist does a lot of that work, but I also probably have a broken idea of what counts as casual because I get bored really easily. If I'm trying to exercise for an hour, I aim for an average HR above 160. Anything less and I consider it casual. On the way to work, I'm generally trying minimize sweat, so I probably aim to stay under 130bps (but I fail sometimes), so I'd call that very casual. Still 1 hour at 130bps is about 650-750 Calories/hr for someone of my size (about 210 lbs) according to various calculators vs about 110-120 Calories/hr mostly sitting and standing (if it was just sitting, probably under 100). On the way home, I don't have to worry about sweating, so I exert myself more (guess that was would only be casual instead of very casual?). So overall, the lower estimate of those calculators put it at like 1100 calories above mixed sitting/standing.
In general, I'm hesitant to believe those types of calculators and generally consider HR a mediocre estimator, which is why I express some doubt. Still, about 1000 calories above pure sitting seems quite reasonable.