Target heart rate and exercise machines

[Firefoot]

I have been going to the gym for about 4 weeks now. Mostly using rowing machine, bike and treadmill. Follow this with a minimum 30 minute swim doing constant lengths.

I set the bike and treadmill to the fat burn routine as I mainly want to lose some weight and tone up (have no interest in building any discernable muscle). Both machines recommend a target heart rate of 118 for the fat burn zone. But I find I reach this very easily and the machine then lowers the resistance to keep my heart rate at this level. The upshot is that I can end up doing 45 minutes on the bike without feeling like I have done a huge amount.

Despite doing around 1 hour of gym and 30 mins of swimming 5 days per week, I have only lost 4lbs in 4 weeks. With no exercise and strict diet I can drop 1 stone in 4 weeks so what is going on? I eat under 1000 calories per day, its hard to eat less than that and still have the energy to train.

I am going to increase the target heart rate on the machines and see what happens, I am just very suprised at the lack of weight loss so far.

[wadgebeast]

Try about the 140-160 bpm range, which is fully cardiovascular training without being overly anaerobic. Or, even better, try interval training:

Warm up then:
1 min hard exercise to try and get heart rate up to ~ 160
3-4 mins slow exercise until heart rate drops back to 140-145
Repeat at least 6 times, preferably 9 or 10.

You can do it on different bits of kit to make it more interesting, but I'd leave a bike until the end and start on a rower / runner / x trainer.

I shed half a stone in 3 weeks doing this and without substantially altering my diet.

[MentalSarcasm]

I think it's doing all that exercise on under 1000 calories a day that's doing it. Your body thinks it's being starved and so it starts hoarding fat and burning it off a lot slower to keep you alive longer, which is why you're losing 1lb a week.

Try upping your calorie intake. Don't go beserk and start eating pizza and chips, but more fruit and a few biscuits won't kill you, and should trigger your body back in to "yay I'm not starving any more, time to burn off the fat!" mode.

[insanojackson]

to be honest i have never in 15 years of training most days took any notice of heart rate, i just train as hard as i comfortably can for the time/distance i have decided to do.

[5unny]

This whole 'fat burn zone' or target heart rate is not worth worrying about imo.

Look at it this way -


When you work out at a lower intensity then sure a higher proportion of your calories burnt will come from fat. When you exercise at higher heart rates this proportion is less but in the latter you burn more calories overall.

for example,

If you walk fast/jog for 30 minutes with a low heart rate you will burn around 200kcals, ~50% of which will come from fat = 100kcals of fat.

Run for 30 minutes and really push yourself close to your max heart rate then you will burn around 350 kcals, and sure only 35% of these may come from fat but thats still = 122kcals.

Edited by 5unny on Thursday 13th August 19:47

[Firefoot]

Taken all your comments on board. Cheers people.

Have started to set machines at higher heart rate and also go for interval training. Definitely felt more like I had done some actual work the last few days

Have also been eating a bit more so will see how it goes

[cheeky_chops]

swerni said:

MentalSarcasm said:

I think it's doing all that exercise on under 1000 calories a day that's doing it. Your body thinks it's being starved and so it starts hoarding fat and burning it off a lot slower to keep you alive longer, which is why you're losing 1lb a week.

Try upping your calorie intake. Don't go beserk and start eating pizza and chips, but more fruit and a few biscuits won't kill you, and should trigger your body back in to "yay I'm not starving any more, time to burn off the fat!" mode.

listen to this lady as she speaks the truth.

Your eating way way to little, unless your 4 ft and weigh about 5 stone.
It;s about eating quality foods.
Low GI carbs, white meats and fish and bulking meals out with veg.
Conventional wisdom says eat little and often but that is often easier said than done.
Also try to cut back the carbs in the evening

HTH

listen to both of them! My missus was stuck at 10st 5. I kept telling her to eat more and eat often. Soon as she changed, the weight started to fall. Not fast, just couple of lb over the next 7 days. Also, drink plenty of water

[ewenm]

swerni said:

5unny said:

This whole 'fat burn zone' or target heart rate is not worth worrying about imo.

Look at it this way -


When you work out at a lower intensity then sure a higher proportion of your calories burnt will come from fat. When you exercise at higher heart rates this proportion is less but in the latter you burn more calories overall.

for example,

If you walk fast/jog for 30 minutes with a low heart rate you will burn around 200kcals, ~50% of which will come from fat = 100kcals of fat.

Run for 30 minutes and really push yourself close to your max heart rate then you will burn around 350 kcals, and sure only 35% of these may come from fat but thats still = 122kcals.

Edited by 5unny on Thursday 13th August 19:47

depends on what your objectives are.

It's hard to discount in a single sentence what is one of the cornerstones of every athletes training,

As to the other comment about training for 15 years, I've been training for 25 and in hindsight most of that has been wasted.
If I had taken professional advise back then, with the hours I've spent in the gym I'd be superman by now.

It's not about the quantity of time, it's about the quality.

If you really want to shed some pounds, get out the gym and onto a bike

Swerni is right. I run to a fairly high standard and my training is heavily influenced by heart-rate zones. My coach and I want to ensure each training session is optimised for the desired effect. My morning runs are kept below a certain heart rate as they are for base aerobic fitness and recovery from the previous evening's session. Depending on the target race, the evening sessions will be targeted at aerobic threshold, lactic acid threshold or beyond each of which has a defined heart-rate zone based on testing me in the lab on the treadmill. Obviously that's all tailored to me but you can work out an idea of your zones based on percentages of your max heart-rate.

One thing to consider is whether you're trying to lose weight or lose fat. If you train too hard you will burn the fat but also break down your muscle fibres which are then over-compensated for in recovery, so you may not lose any weight despite your bodyfat percentage dropping. Work a little less hard and you'll burn the fat without building the muscle so your weight will drop.