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Nerd-It
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blog (coffee shop)
by It should be no surprise that the terms American and fitness are becoming increasingly difficult to use in the same sentence. More than 4 million Americans are already considered "extremely-obese." Obesity differs from simply being overweight; obesity is linked to excessive fat stores. The description is no longer confined to just adults, as obesity is increasingly afflicting American children as well.
As I am no longer in the Army, and therefore not being held to a fitness standard, I began pondering just how much energy my body was burning per day. Was my newfound career in corporate America leading me down an irreversible path? To determine this, I wore a heart rate monitor for the duration of my work day. The monitor features a calorie burn computer based upon the wearer's age, weight, BMI and fitness level. (NOTES: Items in italics represent the activities I share with a sedentary person. "Cooling" refers to additional calories burned until my post-activity heart rate returned to a 110 bpm reference.)
- 100 calories burned per hour sitting in a chair "working"
- 5 calories burned riding an elevator up twenty-seven flights
- 100 calories burned per hour watching TV or surfing the Internet at home
- 750 calories burned for eight hours of sleeping (according to the Fitwatch Calculator)
- 220 calories burned in twenty minutes walking 11/4 miles downhill to my bus (+50 calories burned "cooling")
- 60 calories burned walking one New York City block (west-east) (+10 calories "cooling")
- 25 calories burned walking up five flights of stairs (+35 calories burned "cooling")
- 315 calories burned walking 11/4 miles uphill from my bus (+75 calories burned "cooling")
- 150 calories burned walking a dog for twenty minutes (Note: It was a slow walk, the dog is very old.)
- 660 calories burned in forty minutes of weightlifting
- >900 calories burned in fifty minutes on an elliptical trainer
The results generally confirm the obvious - that physical mobility equates to energy burn and sedentary activity does not. It was surprising, however, to realize how even small amounts of activity could have such large gains in overall calorie consumption. If I were to eliminate walking to my bus, never use the stairs and skip days at the gym, my personal calorie burn would quickly dwindle into a deficit.
A typical, non-active person will essentially burn slightly more than 1500 calories during their waking day simply by sitting at work, walking short distances to and from their car and watching TV. Going to and from the parking lot and garage are barely enough to raise the heart rate to a baseline 110bpm for more than a few moments, hardly constituting real physical activity. Therefore, it's not surprising that Americans have grown enormous; we barely move and yet still eat three large (often unhealthy) meals a day plus an assortment of snacks and soft drinks. This results in a massive calorie surplus beyond the energy requirements a person needs for healthy living.
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Can we get some general statistics about your current condition (age, height, weight, etc)?
I don't want to be too personal, but I am trying to figure how you got over 900 calories from a 50 minute elliptical trainer. The one I use (certainly not scientific) normally reports me at 750 - 800 if I burn it for an hour.
Can we get some general statistics about your current condition (age, height, weight, etc)?
Sure. 27 years old. 6'4". Last December I was 229 pounds and now I'm down to 211. Anyone that knows me personally knows I'm a total klutz in sports - though that doesn't negate that I'm an active person, I'm just the comic relief off the bench. The Army pretty much destroyed my knees, so I can't run anymore, hence why I use the elliptical trainer. I can hit the 900 to 1000 calorie mark on that machine by watching action shows like 24 on the TV with the intensity set to 10 (of 20) on an incline of 10 (of 15 I think ...) and then keeping my heart rate at about 135 to 140.
Actually, I first got the idea of heart rate based training almost seven years ago while I was doing my CTLT time as a cadet. (For the uninitiated, CTLT is like an officer internship in the army). I met a lieutenant that had just come out of OCS (Officer Candidate School) and he described a program they had tried on his class. Rather than improve everyone's fitness by doing the standard Army "sweat-until-it-sucks" method, everyone was given a heart rate monitor and exercised at their own pace so long as it was within a target heart rate for forty-five minutes. These guys apparently had huge improvements such as dropping nearly two to three minutes off their run times. When I could run, I was slow so I gave it a shot and have been a fan of THR based training ever since.
This is exactly the advice I give those who ask me how I lost my weight. I tell them to figure out their target heart rate zone, and shoot to be in the lower-middle of that for as long as they can... then crank down the speed at the end so when the leave the gym still panting (a huge psychological downer for many people).
I burn 500 calories in 37 minutes on the cross elliptical trainer at the gym. This requires me working hard at level 14 (out of 20). I think it has to do with the resistence that you set. I see other women on the machines for the same amount of time and they burn 1/2 of that!
From the website here, that my particular favorite sport burns calories per hour like this (based on a 150lb person):
- Fishing from boat, sitting, 176
- Fishing from river bank, standing, 246
- Fishing in stream, in waders, 422
- Fishing, general, 281
- Fishing, ice, sitting, 141
It's not surprising; pro tournament level anglers can make upward of 200 casts per hour. I probably average somewhere around 60 casts/hour. Although, I do wonder on the Ice Fishing if they took into account shivering and teeth chattering?
It's springtime again in Massachusetts and it's time to shake off the winter lethargy and get in some kind of shape again. Every year now for roughly the last 20 years, I somehow gradually let myself get out of shape in the winter, and gain 10 to 15 pounds... somehow.
Having the time restraints that children, family and work put on me really doesn't allow for a productive gym membership, so I've kept in aerobic shape mostly by running 4 to 5 miles, 3 times a week, 3 seasons out of the year. I also mountain bike quite a bit and enjoy that more than the running. We have a treadmill but "man" I hate the thing. No amount of music, TV or other distractions can keep me consistent on that contraption. I suspect there might be a certain amount of "seasonal affect" involved also; not enough to be completely mental, but enough to sort of sap my desire to keep in shape.
Here's the thing though. My yearly ebb and flow of exercise is getting a little harder to start, and yet my reasons for needing it are growing. Why, you ask? I hate to admit it but I'm finally starting to feel the effects of age a little bit I guess, having turned 41 at the end of last year.
For my birthday my kids picked out one of those heart rate monitoring type watches (are they trying to tell me something?) mentioned in VnutZ79's above piece. Since this is the beginning of my re-training season it will be interesting to see if, based on past experience, this method is beneficial as opposed to the "go until I'm tired, then go a little more, and then stop" method I've been using. I'm not looking for a lot more distance, because I want to save my knees and other joints as long as I can, but another mile added in roughly the same amount of time and getting up to speed in say 1 month instead of 2 would be all I could ask for.
According to this site ; 3-5 times a week for 20 to 60 minutes at 60-90% of age specific heart rate is optimum. Maximum heart rate is generally considered to be [220 – your age] making mine about 180 bpm. My low exercising heart rate would then be [180 X .60]= 108 bpm (walking?) and my high [180X.90]=162bpm. I'll be honest with you, when I first used the heart rate watch just to try it; I found I was past my supposed upper range in the 165 to 170 range sometimes, and for quite a while too. No wonder I felt tired. (I really wonder what it is after mountain biking up a long hill.) I'll try to follow up on this to let you know what happens as the "training season" wears on.
I received an interesting e-mail the other day:
With all the time you have on your hands ... try this. My warped son wanted me to find out how many calories are in "people". You know ... steak ... 8oz. = 230 cal. etc. How many calories are there in the proverbial "pound of flesh"???
Now I know that true calories are measured using a Calorimetry Test with the equation Heat Capacity (C) = Specific Heat (q) / Change in Temperature (dT).
So - what variables would apply to a human being? Would a safe assumption be to break the body down into its components, use the calorimetry equations and then sum the values?
I went ahead and wore the heart monitor while skiing this weekend. Five hours of solid skiing on blue hills worked out to about 3200 calories. Not too bad for an activity that includes riding a chair up a hill.
I suspect that quite a few (but certainly not all) of us who spend our days engaged in computer operations and maintenance and other sedentary lifestyles have accumulated excess weight over the years. Although many 'fad diets' have become popular, the equation still envolves a balance between calories in and out.
A site that attempts to evaluate your expenditure (without cost) is:
http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/calories-burned.php
I have found it to be of help in my effort to lose and maintain a target healthy weight. I hope you might find it useful.
I saw this article about possibly having treadmill workstations at work, largely as a means to help the obese, and thought it was interesting to think about how it could change the office culture.
Scientists Evaluate Walking Workstation For Obese Office Workers
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Right on by Anonymous :: NR0 :: on 29 March 2007
I'm going through the same train of thoughts.
RE: Right on by VnutZ :: NR8 :: on 30 March 2007
Diet info on packages are for 2000 and 2500 calories per day. Still too much...
Actually, if the package describes an entire day's intake it may be right on the money. Combine 1500 calories of lethargic waking day activity with 700-ish calories of sleep and the body will achieve neutral balance with that diet. It's actually unhealthy to diet (for long term effects) by cutting the nutrients to your body and remaining inactive.
Can a fat person do 50 minutes on an elliptical trainer a day? The fatter you get the less likely you recover...
Sure. Just because they're on an elliptical trainer doesn't mean they have to be going all out like everyone else. I've seen plenty of fat people at our gym on the elliptic machines and treadmills just slowly moving along. But that's what matters most for weight loss - 65-65% target heart rate activity for long durations. The guys in the Army's weight control program that lost the weight the fastest (and longest) were the ones who were required to walk everywhere all day rather than simply run two extra miles at the end of the day.
But if the person is so obese that it's not possible for joint pain - then 20 minutes is better than not going at all. They just need to follow it up with something like an exercise bike (even less impact) to maintain that heart rate for a little bit longer to benefit from the exercise.
RE: Right on by guyvia :: NR5 :: on 30 March 2007
I have to disagree with your points:
1) If you have an active job ('blue collar') then 2k is reasonable. Sure, if you pilot a desk all day, then 1.5k is probably more realistic, unless you work out a lot. Also, remember that different heights and builds change this quite a bit. A very lean me is 6'3" 200 lbs, where my step brother at the about the same height (6'4") is only lean if he gets down around 165 lbs. We are both athletic, but in different ways.
2) Yes, a fat person can do 50 minutes on an elliptical trainer every day. They will not have it ratcheted up all the way, but since they are larger, they get equal calorie burn with less speed and resistance. Sure, there are some that are so morbidly obese that they can no longer walk without becoming winded, but these are the extreme minority. For most, it is a matter of persistence of what you can do, not ability to do something extreme.
When advising my students (that want to lose weight outside of karate) on how to lose, I normally suggest that they watch their favorite show (to distract) on the tread mill, aim to be exhausted (high heart rate, heavy breathing) during the ending credits, and then bring the treadmill down a light pace for at least another 15 minutes. This plan normally takes some endurance training to reach, but most get there within a month, and the effects on their health is very noticeable.
As someone who struggles with weight, I find the most important thing is a lifestyle change, not just exercise or reduction of intake.