Exercise: Go By Calories Burned or a Certain Amount of Minutes?

[Khloé 89]

When working out, do you go by how many calories you burn during a session or just workout for a certain number of minutes, like an hour? I'm trying to get an idea of what others are doing. I'll be 4 months post-op on August 8th.

Also, how many days a week do you workout and for how long at a time (for those of you that just go by a certain number of minutes, not calories burned)?

[DonRodolfo 1,416]

When working out, do you go by how many calories you burn during a session or just workout for a certain number of minutes, like an hour? I'm trying to get an idea of what others are doing. I'll be 4 months post-op on August 8th. Also, how many days a week do you workout and for how long at a time (for those of you that just go by a certain number of minutes, not calories burned)?

I started out doing what my NUT told us all to do and that was to "walk 10 minutes every day". I increased that little by little each month and mow 6 months later I've started working towards being able to finish a 5K. That requires me to get at least 2 miles in at this point working towards 3 miles. I'll admit it's fun to see me burning 600-700 calories each time I do this but it's not my primary concern.

Bottom line: besides the health benefits and burning calories, what would you like to accomplish by working out? I've never run a 5K in my life so that works for me at the moment. I don't have to be the fastest, i just have to finish it, preferably jogging but I'll accept crawling if necessary. Once I do one, maybe I'll shoot for doing it faster the next time or maybe doing a 10k.

I do the treadmill about 4 times per week. On weekends, I seem to burn about 1000 or so calories just doing yardwork - sounds like a workout to me!

[robin04 8]

It depends on my workout. Some workouts are made to burn more calories in a shorter amount of time and have an afterburn (specifically HIIT High Intensity Interval Training) and others burn more calories during the workout b/c they are longer. It's all about what you can put into and what you get out of it. If you are burning too many calories and heart is working too hard it's not as good for you either because you are making your body work too hard.

Recently I've found that I have a pretty low heart rate and my workouts have burned less calories b/c I am having to work harder to get my heart rate up there but I guess it means my heart is pumping more efficiently. I agree with DonRodolfo where it's great to see those huge numbers but at the same time, you want to make sure you are not overworking your own body and making the workout less effective. Listening to your body and setting a goal (like the 5k, completing x weeks in a workout routine, increasing cardio time and weights lifted) is also a great idea!!