Exersise and fat burn

[jaketdog]

I have recently begun to try and lower my bf %. I cut out as much food as I could in order to reduce my calorie intake and continued lifting weights.

I got a lot weaker and my bf never moved. Although I lost 2kg muscle mass!

Not good. Now that I know I have been operating at about a 1000 can deficit I will sort that out. Quickly.

So I began to record my calorie intake and introduce some cycling to increase my calorie burn.

My question is related to heart rates and burning fat.

Looking at my last two bike runs I have spent 51 minutes of a 56 min cycle in the peak zone.

4 minutes in cardio and 1 minute in fat burn!

I was out of fat burn within the first half mile!

I thought that I shouldnt be able to stay in the peak zone for that long, So are the zones wrong or is the surge reading wrong?

What is going at that rate doiong to my fitness etc?

Is the correct thing to do to just go a lot slower to keep the heart rate down a bit or just keep pushing as hard as I can?

Thanks for any advice and apologies if these are daft questions this is all new to me.

[Dominique]

When you say "recently", when was that? How did you establish you lost 2 kg of muscle? What was your starting weight and body fat % (and which method was used to determine BF%)?

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to heart rate zones ("peak", "cardio", "fat burn") in relation to fat loss. Just because your Surge said you spent X amount of time in the "fat burn" zone doesn’t mean you will automatically lose Y amount of fat. Fat loss is driven primarily by your caloric deficit.

[jaketdog]

I cut my diet about three weeks ago. Weight down 3.6kg since may 26th. Bf same 33.3 varying by .3 or so. 32.2% today. Lowest its been since measuring.using aria scales to record weight and bf. I guess that the figures given will be within a % margin if error but it should show a trend over time. The "zones" didn't seem to correspond with any thing I read and the time spent in peak zone. Since logging the calorie intake over the last four days its showing around 3400 used and around 900 to 1200 in. That again seems suspicious to me as I would've thought that sort of deficit would cause noticeable signs day to day. Apart from gym strength dropping. Off a cliff! But I am new to this so I could have a lot of this very wrong.

[A_Lurker]

Same comments really as @Dominique mentioned.  I have a body composition scale and it varies a fair bit.  I'd look at trends to determine actual changes,  I don't feel like sharing my fat mass or %, but here's my lean mass chart since June 2nd.  The jumps are huge, that one about halfway through the first section has a four pound difference two days apart.  It's a function of weight, water, and bodily functions.  Looking at a trend is the best way to figure out if you're headed in the right direction.

[A_Lurker]

I was typing my reply as you made your second post.  I think you have to pay way more attention to your diet.  If you're burning 3400 calories a day 900-1200 is way too low to eat.  I eat ~ 1000 calories less than I burn.  On super high burn days I cap my calories at 2500.  When you eat far less than you burn you body thinks you're trying to starve it.  At this point it will hold on to fat and burn muscle.  Everyone is different, but when I eat too little I actually lose less weight.

Anyways, 4 days of tracking calories isn't enough to really know what you've been doing for the last three weeks.  If you think you've been eating that low since back to May you might need to raise your calories slowly back to a more reasonably level.

[GershonSurge]

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@jaketdog 

Since logging the calorie intake over the last four days its showing around 3400 used and around 900 to 1200 in. That again seems suspicious to me as I would've thought that sort of deficit would cause noticeable signs day to day. Apart from gym strength dropping. Off a cliff! But I am new to this so I could have a lot of this very wrong.

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This large deficit can have a severe effect without warning in a couple hours. It's called "hypoglucemia." That means there is not enough sugar in the blood. It can cause a person to pass out without warning. Doing cardio at such a high heart rate makes it worse, as when the heart is beating fast the body burns mostly carbs instead of fat. The reason you couldn't lift was probably there wasn't enough glycogen in your muscle cells. Therefore, they went on strike.

There is a simple antidote. First, don't eat less than your Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR). Second, don't run a deficit more than 1,000 calories a day. Many of us have exceeded the second limit, but few successful dieters eat much less than their BMR. 

[jaketdog]

Thank you all for your advice. I will increase the calorie intake (already started that today) to about -500 or as close as I can get.
What about the cardio and heart rates? Tone it down to a lower % of max? Or just keep pushing it as hard as I can? The aim is just to lean out my body to a healthy level and replace the muscle mass I've lost in this episode and continue to add lean muscle.

[GershonSurge]

@jaketdog,

You mentioned "Pushing as hard as you can" at least twice. This is seldom good advice in exercise or anything else. It's like trying to cram for finals year round. For a beginner, it's prudent to stay far away from "as hard as you can." More experienced people can get closer to the edge, but sometimes they step over. 

The Surge is known to be inaccurate at higher heart rates. The measurement can be either too low or too high. 

[shipo]

@jaketdog, I am the resident hater of the 220-Age formula for calculating heart rates; my opinion is if you can spend 51 minutes of a 56 minute workout in the "Peak" zone, then the formula is not valid for you in the same way it isn't valid for most folks I know.  My advice?  Ignore the zones.

As for burning calories, regardless of whether you're in Fat Burn, Cardio, or Peak, you're still burning calories, and in the end, calories burned is all that matters.

[JohnRi]

If you are a young man, and in good overall health, then I would think the zones aren't that important.

Ideally, the harder you push your heart, the more calories you burn during the exercise.

If you are 75 years old, then you might be pushing it a little too hard.

Really only your doctor can tell you this.

As for eating, I agree with the comment, you are eating way too little.  1800 calories a day is the minimum recommended calories eaten by a male.

When you eat too little your body burns muscle, and stores fat.  So eat about twice what you are eating minimum.

Visit this website, http://fitcal.me and fill it out the TDEE.  You should get some good rough ideas on how much you should eat.

As far a deficits, and weight loss.  Weight loss is a SLOW process.   It took you years to gain the weight.  It will take you months to years to lose it.  I lost 79 lbs in one year.  It will be six months to a year before I get to the weight I want to be.  Somewhere between 170 and 183.  I'm 202 now.

Ideally if you want to lose 10 lbs or less, a 250 calorie deficit is suggested.   11-20, a 500 calorie deficit.  20-40, 750 deficit.  And 40 and about is a 1000 calorie deficit.

I myself just changed to a 500 calorie deficit.  My weight loss will slow, however, I have been very good at maintaining my muscle mass.  Since February I have lost 9 lean mass pounds.  I have also lost 56 lbs of fat. 

Everytime I saw my lean mass falling, I've increased my calories.  I just did another increase starting today.

Good luck to you!

[Dominique]

A few remarks:

- Three weeks is a rather short period. Try to look at trends. I highly recommend Trendweight, which integrates with Fitbit and your Aria. @A_Lurker, @JohnRi and a number of other contributors are using it.

- Keep it simple: fat loss is determined by your deficit, which is in turn determined by what you eat and what you expend. Emphasis should be put on what (and how much) you eat. On the activity side, any activity will burn calories. There’s not much point in trying to optimize HR for maximum fat loss. You would burn more calories by walking two hours everyday at a brisk pace than by performing some crazily intense workout you could only sustain for 20-30 minutes, and only 2-3 days a week.

- Accept the fact calories burned reported by your Surge are just an estimate (more on that here). You will need to find the right balance of eating and activity that will result in a suitable/reasonable/sustainable deficit.

- Accept the fact the BF% reported by your Aria is also an estimate. Use other ways to monitor your progress with fat loss. For instance, use a tape to measure your circumference (waistline), take pictures on a regular basis.

[josephz2va]

From my experience, it's based on your set level of effort you put in to develop a transformation.

• Food Intake - Eliminating what you know is not part of a diet at all. Fast Food and Convenience Store food are two natural enemies. Both have very high carbohydrates and sodium. A donut has 30 to 100 bad carbohydrates depending on the manufacturing.
• Supplement Intake - Finding the right kinds of supplements that would help you achieve your goal. Some work, some don't work. A sports nutritionist store like Vitamin Shoppe can help you choose the right products.
• Physical Training - You can choose either a personal trainer or an online trainer. My preference is Fitstar. Since I have a very difficult time in the evenings doing it due to my lack of energy, I prefer doing it once I wake up. That's where the supplements kick in. I take a pre-workout drink (1-2 doses) with Fitstar Cardio Training in order to complete a 20 to 50 minute training session. After my workout, I take a Protein Shake after the workout has been completed, along with High Potency CLA, and Stimulant Free Fat Burner.
• Cardio Training - Most trainers do advertise a Peak Zone up to 30 minutes, I generally can't handle Peak Zone and sometimes that has been risky according to news outlets of people who can't handle the stress and environment. I focus on Interval Training instead. That ranges from your Low Cardio Zone to High Cardio Zone just below the Peak Zone. So on average I go 130 to 147 my ratio of cardio for as long as I can handle it.

[jaketdog]

Thank you all again for your very informative advice. I will take it on board and change things around. Especially calorie intake and see how things go over the next few months.

[Dominique]

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@josephz2va wrote:

After my workout, I take a Protein Shake after the workout has been completed, along with High Potency CLA, and Stimulant Free Fat Burner.

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Most supplements have very small benefits for fat loss (or muscle building) IMO. Protein is one of the few that are useful for both, but it’s usually found in your diet and it only needs to be supplemented (in the form of protein powder / a shake) if you are not getting enough of it in your diet.

If you look for "High Potency CLA" on Amazon, you will find this. Here is the justification given for CLA (which stands for conjugated linoleic acid): " Well-designed clinical trials suggest that CLA may reduce body fat mass". Doesn’t sound very convincing to me. This study (actually meta-analysis of 18 studies) says: "Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) has been shown to be an effective supplement for reducing fat mass in animals, whereas results in humans have been inconsistent" and "Given at a dose of 3.2 g/d, CLA produces a modest loss in body fat in humans". Examine.com (very good site to assess the efficacy of supplements) provides more details, but bottom line is the same: very limited usefulness.

As to "stimulant-free fat burner", I have no idea what this could be, but I’m also skeptical. The primary condition for burning fat is to be in a caloric deficit. The best way to suppress appetite while in a deficit is to eat low-calorie, nutrient-dense food (primarily veggies).