Am I Exercising Too Hard?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a similar thread in GQ, but it died a quick death. I hope that some of you will have some thoughts/experiences. I’ll try not to make it too long…

I’ve always been active, but the last year I decided to start working out harder and with more regularity. I’ve lost about 10lbs. so far, but it took me almost a year. My weight fluctuates like crazy with my cycle, so that can get a little frustrating.

I had a history of dieting for quite a few years, then it became pretty extreme, with fasting 1 or 2 whole days a week and binging the rest of the week. I was pretty thin for me (size 8). Then I decided the whole thing was bullshit and just stopped…needless to say I gained a lot of weight, went up to a size 16 at 210lbs. I did get counseling for the whole eating thing, and I’m doing great now. I try to eat moderately, if I feel like I’m getting out of control, I keep a journal, but I REFUSE to starve myself or deprive myself of foods that I like.

I eat about 1700-2500/cal. a day. Yes, it varies that widely. It depends on how hungry I am. I’m not looking for advice on the # of calories, though, because I don’t want to go hungry.

So, I’ve been exercising very regularly for about a year now. My resting heart rate is 60-65 (I’ve clocked myself at 58 several times as well during the day). I use a mio heart rate monitor that you put your fingers on the face of the watch to take your pulse. I’m female, weight fluctuates between 196-200lbs. depending on my cycle. I’ve been lifting weights (as much as I can doing 8-12 hard reps), I mostly focus on my upper body because my lower half tends to get really muscular, and I don’t want chunky calves as I’ve had in the past. I’m pretty strong for a fat girl–I can do 3 sets of man push-ups with 6 reps…I’m working on doing more. I also do various aerobic activity 3-5x/week, depending on my schedule, but rarely less than 3x, and at least 20 min. I do 30-60 minutes when I haven’t done lifting in the same workout.

My BIG question is that when I do aerobics, my heart rate is very high, 167-172. If I work out at less than that intensity, I feel like I’m doing nothing. Of course, there’s the conflicting advice, but supposedly, for weight loss I’m supposed to go up to 155 at the highest. This is not working out to me, I don’t even break a sweat here.

The last piece, is I used my heart rate monitor to calculate my calories burned in a day, and according to this monitor, in a typical day when I exercise, I burn about 4500-5000 calories. I estimated my nighttime calorie burning based on a “how many calories do you burn while you’re sleeping” calculator, and the rest were actually based on my compulsively checking my heart rate with the monitor.

Of course, this seems extremely high, but all the parameters in the monitor are correct. One website said the heart rate is THE indicator of calories burned, but let’s say two people are exercising and they have the same rate of perceived exertion, but one person is exercising at 155BPM and the other at 170BPM. Wouldn’t they burn the same number of calories?

So, I’ve lost 10 lbs., and it’s continuing, but it’s VERY SLOW and I’m getting kind of impatient. Is there anyone who has had a similar experience or knows physiology to give me some insight?

I really appreciate your responding…I’m so confused. More questions are also welcome.

2

I don’t have time to go in detail right now, but the heart rate is very overrated as an indicator of fitness and metabolism. It was originally used because it’s easy to measure and it correlates well with the values that really matter. But somewhere along the way that got transformed into the notion that the heart rate is everything and you better stick to these numbers or else you’re wasting your time.

Also, weight is a poor indicator of progress. You’re probably adding a bit of muscle as well as losing fat, so your actual changes are more than the scale shows. Get yourself an accu-measure body caliper and learn to use it–body fat is what you’re concerned about.

I can go into a little more detail later.

3

Out of curiosity, are you using your heart rate monitor to see what your heart rate is while exercising, or are you using one of the monitors on a treadmill, elliptical or bike (assuming you’re using one and not working out outside)? I have read somewhere that those can be as much as 20% off. In other words, though a monitor will tell you that your heart rate is at 150, you might actually be at 120. I think it largely depends upon how you feel while you’re exercising. Are you able to talk at all while you’re working out? If not, you’re probably working too hard. The way it was explained to me was that when working out you should be able to carry on a conversation, but not an extended monologue.

When I run, I often just take my heart rate myself in the old way - by putting a couple of fingers on the artery in my neck and counting out how many times my pulse beats in 15 seconds, then multiplying by 60. The heart rate monitor on the treadmill, elliptical or bike consistently gives me a readout that’s higher than my actual heart rate. So if you’re using those monitors, that could be your problem.

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Naw, I’m using my mio for exercise heart rate. It’s supposed to be ECG accurate. I have manually taken my heart rate for comparison as well, and they seem to be in sync…

Thanks for responses so far!! Much-appreciated!

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Another thing, I don’t really understand how calipers can give an accurate measurement of fat if you only measure 1 site. For example, my abodomen has a lot more fat on it then my thighs…any thoughts about that?

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That’s why you measure more than one site. Four and seven are the standards.

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If you take some guy who wrote a bunch of successful books as an authority, the author of “The Ultimate Fit or Fat” says about 60% of people can monitor their progress by using their recommended heart rate, 20% it’s too slow for the numbers, 20% it’s too fast for the numbers. He says if you are in the 40%, don’t use the heart rate. Use perceived effort instead. Most people can give a fairly accurate perception on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 is sitting breathing, 2 is reading the Straight Dope, 3 is writing in to the Straight Dope, 5 is lol, 6 is rotflmao…) No, 6 to 7 is where you can still talk comfortably in short sentences, but not sing. 8, or 80% of maximum, feels hard, you know you can do it for five or ten minutes at a time, but not sustainable. 10 puts you collapsing over a stationary bike close to upchucking as you pay off your lactic acid debt.

Most coaches say you should regularly exercise at a perceived 6 to 7. You use 8 for speed training, and 9 to 10 for sprint training. You should not regularly exercise at a perceived effort of 8; it’s hard on you. A really long exercise may need to be held at 5 to 6. If you are going to do episodes of 8 or 9, you should make the session short.

When your heartrate is higher than they recommend, what would you say is your perceived effort, on a scale of 1 to 10?

You may be doing just right.

Is there a coach at your gym who can check you out just for one time, to verify your own feelngs of “this is about 6 to 7” and “this is 8”?

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I think I’m probably at a 7. It’s hard to talk to someone at the gym when you’re exercising, but maybe I’ll do an experiment at home and talk to the old man while I’m at 170 doing the bike. When I get to what I think might be an 8 (about 178-180, I think), that’s when I feel like I can’t do it for that long, and I usually try to lower the rate.

I’ve read some of Covert Baily’s books, and I do agree that there’s not a one-formula-fits-all. It is hard to ignore the “agreements” on target heart rates. I also read Kolata’s book, and while it agrees with CB on the variation thing, science doesn’t really seem to have an answer yet.

Maybe I need to get a max heart rate test done–now that scares me :slight_smile:

ultrafilter, I looked up the caliper thing you recommended and it said it takes one measurement, that’s why I said what I did. Would it include directions for doing multiple sites?

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Huh. To be honest, that set of calipers is on my Christmas list right now, so I haven’t actually checked them out. Now my curiosity’s piqued.

Anyway, standard calipers use a three, four, or seven site measure, but they don’t have the electronic bits, so there’s something this one can do that they can’t.

The reason I recommended the accumeasure was to get you thinking about body composition as an indicator of progress rather than weight, and I’ve yet to see any other product so highly recommended.

10

I see. I do have a Tanita body fat monitor and it keeps varying between 4 percent. It kind o’ frustrating because I have to wait for a long time to see a downward trend. Maybe I should get an underwater test just to get a baseline.

I think there was a digital version of those calipers and I didn’t check that, so maybe that’s one that measures multiple sites…

I probably just need to hang up all the monitors and if I lose weight, I lose weight. I know I am gaining strength and cardio endurance, and it has helped me with sleep and stress management. Shouldn’t that be enough?

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Don’t really have much to add that someone else hasn’t already said, but I have only heard bad things about the Tanita’s body fat measurments. They can vary by as much as 15%. You might be able to use that as a very basic guidline, but I wouldn’t take it literally.

12

Wowee wow wow on the tanita thing–now I don’t feel so bad about the fluctuations.

I’m going to get weighed underwater on Tuesday. I decided to try exercising at a slightly lower intensity, just for a little while (160-165BPM). Probably can’t hurt, certainly don’t think I’ll gain weight…

13

I’ve been wondering about the whole heart rate thing too.

I just started working out again and I use a heart rate monitor (the kind with the chest strap, so it’s accurate). I know from previous adventures that I can get my heart rate up to just over 200 while walking up very steep trails. This is what I call the “Gonna Puke” zone.

So, when calculating the various training zones that you read about, I usually use 200 or 205 as my max heart rate. Normally it’s suggested that you train around 70%-80% of your max heart rate. For me that would be around 145 - 165 bpm.

I can do 165 for quite a while with no effort (40 mins or more). Sometimes it’s go up to about 175 or so if I’m not paying attention. 175 bpm feels more like exercise to me. 180 - 190 I can only keep up for about 10 mins or so. 190+ I can only do for a few minutes. (195 is when my scalp starts to crawl and I feel like my heart will burst).

Obviously, my heart rate is higher than it should be based on my perceived effort. I just assumed that my out of shape heart was just not up to the task and it needed to train a bit to catch up to the rest of me. I this thinking totally wrong? Should I be working out harder even though my heart rate is pretty high?

I’ve always wondered what a doctor would think about a 30 something, out of shap gal working out at such a high heart rate all the time.

14

You need to get some good books on proper workouts and nutrition. As to your heart rate, look on line and find a “resting heart rate” worksheet.

You can figure out what your “target rates” should be with this. My resting heart rate is pretty high. I’m not sure why. Part of it is likely that I love good coffee. And the other part, maybe I’m just naturally high strung.

If you yo-yo dieted and slammed yourself with too much and then too little and the “wrong” sorts of exercises it’s possible you’ve messed up your metabolism. The yo-yo dieting will do that to you.

For women, we lose about a half a pound of muscle a year once we hit 25. That’s significant because muscle is where the fat is burned. Fewer pounds of muscle means the fewer pounds of fat you’ll burn.

And starvation dieting burns muscle before it burns fat. For 10 pounds lost on a typical “starvation” type diet. About 5-7 pounds of that is muscle, another 1-2 pounds is just plain water weight, and maybe a pound will be fat.

The bad thing is, you’ve just lost 5-7 pounds of fat burning potential, which means that now, you can eat the same amount of food as you did before your “diet” and still gain weight. Sucky deal huh?

A very good “starter program” with user friendly terms and one that is laid out in a way everyone can understand, is the “Body for Life” program.

Leanness Lifestyle is another really good (though more restrictive) program. Even Doc Phil’s “Ultimate Weight Challenge” though I disagree with some of the food suggestions, is a good starter.

If you’re not into reading? Getting a personal trainer to start you off (say 5 or so sessions until you’ve got it down, and then once a month or so to keep you on track?) is another way to go.

15

Ah, I forgot something, a “quick and dirty” am I working at the right intensity (for aerobics, not weight training) is the “Talk can’t sing” method. If you can still talk without gasping too much, but you can’t sing, then you can be said to be working out at a moderate to medium rate.

Of course, IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with hitting the TUZ (throw-up zone :D) from time to time also.

16

I don’t know…personally, if I don’t stop at the end of my run, and am dripping, and out of breath, then I wasn’t working hard enough. I’m not saying you should be collapsing, but you should definatly be working hard. And tired. I see a lot of people that read books, magazines, or hold extended conversations while on the stationary bikes. And if all you’re looking for is to keep in some sort of shape, I suppose that’s fine. But if you’re looking to improve your physical abilities, then you have to push your body…have to make it work.

I can’t help you on the target heart rate question. I’ve always, always registered above what the charts said my ‘target’ should be. Even when I was 22, enlisted, and running 5 miles a day. So take those with a grain of salt. Do as Theios said, and go by how hard you feel you’re working yourself.

Oh, and one more comment from personal expierience. I found that when I went on my diet, I lost a good amount at first, then tapered off. But once I upped the milage and duration of my runs, I started dropping the pounds again. So you might look at upping your workout a bit. I run 5 days a week now, but as soon as I get my base back a bit ( I took 4 months off this summer), I’ll be back to running 6 days a week. Not because I like it, but because I burn so many more calories, that it really helps the weight come off.

Good Luck, and be safe, but tired at the end of your workout.