I know, I joke around about not needing to hit the gym to lose weight.
But does this mean I recommend you don’t exercise?! Hell no. For health and wellness, exercise is a must have!
But it’s important you having an understanding behind calorie burning and exercising for weight loss.
The amount of calories burned during exercise is grossly over-estimated. I’ve seen all sorts of wild calculations on the internet. I even saw 1 fitness guy, claim doing 1 minute of body squats burns 100 calories 
…..yeah, no. Wrong. Nope.
The truth is, the majority of the calories our body burns is used in keeping us alive e.g. blood pumping, organs operating, oxygen delivery, digestion system running etc. All the functions, our bodies do without our conscious effort.
This energy requirement is referred to as our basal metabolic rate (BMR) or more commonly known as our metabolism.
Now the key factor in calculating our BMR is our bodyweight, and the higher our body weight, the higher our metabolic rate will be.
Someone weighing 100kg, will have a higher BMR than someone weighing 85kg.
You can see in the graph below how our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is used and allocated in our bodies.
BMR – basal metabolic rate
NEAT – non-exercise activity thermogenesis
TEF – thermic effect of food
EEE – Exercise energy expenditure
At the very top, a small amount (in comparison to our BMR) is used in exercise. That’s why for weight loss, putting your focus on your energy intake rather than exercise alone, will be the determining factor in bringing you results.
But so many people have been mislead on how many calories exercising burns.
They get themselves trapped into “I ate 3 extra slices of pizza, no problem I’ll hit the gym for 45 minutes and burn it off”
And then they end up frustrated because they aren’t making any progress. When what’s happened is they probably burnt around 150-200 calories in their workout, but ate an extra 800 calories.
This is what happens to so many people! So really beware of any online calculator telling you. you’ll burn ‘x trillion amount of calories in 45 minutes’…it’s simply not true.
And, if you are not a gym person, don’t worry – You don’t have to gym it.
Focus on smaller portions or having higher calorie foods less often first.
Then find something you like…walk, do a home workout, bike, swim. Whatever, you like and enjoy. Just know you don’t have to hit the gym, if that’s not your thing.
Don’t forget to request your Exercise Calorie Burn worksheet below.
You can do this!
