How many calories should you be aiming to burn in a session of cardio

MooseJam

what do you think ?

EileenG

Forget trying to burn a specific number of calories. The calorie counters on those machine are notoriously inaccurate. They know that people go for the machines that show the biggest calorie burn, so now they all show mega calorie burn.

Instead, work at the intensity that you feel is doing you the most good. Forget about the stupid "fat burning zone" (a low intensity you burn a higher proportion of cals as fat but very few cals. Work harder and you'll burn more cals overall, including more fat cals). Work hard, expect to puff and sweat. Go the the intensity that pushes your limits.

Cookie_Monster

But surely if you set a base no of cals on a machine you can aim to better it every time you use it. It may not be massivly accurate but realativly it's valid

IE in 10 mins on rower burn 300 first time.
next time aim for 310 and you will have to work harder...
(pulled from top of my head, not accurate)

It can keep it interesting as you are looking at something other than time taken or distance covered for a change:)

davyjose

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

But surely if you set a base no of cals on a machine you can aim to better it every time you use it. It may not be massivly accurate but realativly it's valid

IE in 10 mins on rower burn 300 first time.
next time aim for 310 and you will have to work harder...
(pulled from top of my head, not accurate)

It can keep it interesting as you are looking at something other than time taken or distance covered for a change:)

Or you could aim to make more distance in this time, especially as calories on these machines are dependant on weight, which you would also expect to change.

Khannie

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

But surely if you set a base no of cals on a machine you can aim to better it every time you use it. It may not be massivly accurate but realativly it's valid

Agreed. Distance covered in the same time would give you a similar indication. I know the calorie counters are BS, but I like them none the less. I do use them in a calories burned v's time way too.

delllat

MooseJam wrote: »

what do you think ?

when your clothes are drenched and your eyes are stinging from sweat running into them maintain that pace for another 30 minutes and you should have burned the correct number of calories..;)

too many people may as well stay home for what they do in the gym

the ones who progress fast are the ones who learn what intensity is

corkcomp

delllat wrote: »

when your clothes are drenched and your eyes are stinging from sweat running into them maintain that pace for another 30 minutes and you should have burned the correct number of calories..;)

too many people may as well stay home for what they do in the gym

the ones who progress fast are the ones who learn what intensity is

+1, very true!

j@utis

get yourself a heart rate monitor and go crazy with numbers (see below)...



my average cardio session is 1hour incl. warmup and cooldown.

AARRRGH

I can only speak for myself, but instead of aiming for a set number of calories, I would instead aim to do a cardio activity you enjoy. At least this way you will be more inclined to continue doing this activity long term, and you won't have any disappointments because you only burnt 150 calories instead of 200.