Why you shouldn't train to burn calories
Posted on 10th November 2020 at 15:58
Have you ever found yourself wondering how many calories you've burnt during your spinning class or coaching resistance session?
I've been there, our clients have been there & more than likely, you have too, right?
To put it quite bluntly, it means f*** all in the grand scheme of things. In a roundabout way anyway.
This article isn't to belittle you, it's in fact here to open your eyes that you can actually exercise & train without worrying how many calories you're burning to 'lose fat'.
Let's take an average resistance/weight session. How many calories would you think it burns? The answer is, nobody actually knows. Unless you were in a study chamber, linked up to multiple machines, under the right professional management & so many other variables. We cannot pinpoint to any degree how many calories we're burning.
The same goes for these fitness trackers & watches. They aren't giving an accurate reading of how many calories you've burned. Don't get me wrong, we can have a consistent inaccuracy which gives us some form of data to rely on, but not actual calories amounts.
What i want you to try & focus on is more about the process of exercise & movement itself. Boring right? Not necessarily. All of our programming is focussed towards progressive overload, strength training & general fitness & health. To get more active, where possible, to lift more than the week before, to sleep properly & to help digestion. We are focussing on the bigger picture of leading a healthy, balanced active lifestyle, that most importantly, is going to lead you to your ultimate goal of losing body fat, feeling more confident, having a better sex life & generally loving life.
It is not healthy to walk into a gym to say 'Today I'm going to burn 350 calories on the leg press & Lat pull down'. Or 'Today I am going to train my inner thigh to get rid of the extra fat I have there'.
What is healthy is to turn up & look forward to what your body is able to achieve in that session. Can you lift more than last week? Have you managed 2 more reps than the previous set? Are you finding you're recovering better after sets?
To put a spanner in the works, take a look at this table below of our daily expenditure.
5/10% of our daily expenditure comes from exercise sessions directly. Not a great deal is it? New clients can't believe that when we tell them this.
15% if not higher comes from something we call NEAT, non exercise activity thermogenesis. In simple terms, moving a lot. I mean a lot a lot. If you're sedentary, office based job, you're perhaps reading this on your lunch hour, sat down. This means your NEAT will be considerably lower than those who move a lot during the day.
If I were you, i'd be aiming to get this increased before you worry about how many calories you're burning in a gym session.
Have the best week.
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