Who else burns basically 0 calories walking? anyone else worse at burning calories?

Former Member over 6 years ago

This is more of just a humorous frustration but curious if anyone else basically burns ZERO calories walking and is frustrated that they are so well conditioned it's basically impossible to burn more than 400 Active calories in an hour (with external HR monitor garmin Run)

Background info:

34 year old male, typical resting HR 35, max HR 155. 6% body fat about 133 pounds and 5 foot 8. Typically do the stair master 4 to 6 hours per day and do a 2-hour plank 5 days per week. If I push myself to near death on the stair master I can barely burn more than 400 active calories per hour which is stupid and annoying haha

It's totally embarrassing and frustrating that if I walk a mile I burn maybe 20-30 Active calories! What is the point of even trying lol? Does anyone else have similar results? What is your typical heart rate when walking? Walking is a "NO ZONE" HR zone for me, my HR is usually between 60 and 70 during a moderate pace walk, even if uphill.

I'm sure there are many other people with better conditioning than me who suffer the same issues lol. curious to hear who else struggles to basically burn any meaningful active calories.

0 ScottSoapbox2 over 6 years ago

Typically do the stair master 4 to 6 hours per day and do a 2-hour plank 5 days per week.

Respectfully, why in the world would you do stair master 4-6 hours per day (28-42 hrs/wk!)??? Is there some professional stair master sport I am unaware of?

Similarly, one might consider alternative ab exercises around the 15 min plank mark, but the stair master time is even more extreme.

0 nmyeti over 6 years ago

Was thinking, if you want to burn calories, go for a run or swim.

0 mcalista over 6 years ago

One common cause of incorrect calories is incorrect body weight - I am going to assume this is entered correctly into Garmin Connect (and your watch), but worth checking anyway.

35 RHR and 155 MaxHR are unusual figures (but certainly feasible). With these numbers, you are going to have to enter these directly into GC as the default settings will provide a misleading estimate of calories burned . In your situation, I'd recommend using the Heart Rate Reserve method for calculating your zones.

With high levels of fitness, you are going to be burning more calories at a given heart rate than a less fit person. Garmin uses VO2Max to factor fitness into the calorie burn estimate. But generating VO2Max requires running outside, or cycling with a power meter. If the stairmaster is all you do, then the watch has no objective basis for estimating your fitness, and will use a fairly conservative default. I think it takes 2 rides/runs in a week to generate a VO2Max estimate - but once you have generated a VO2Max estimate, it will use this figure to estimate calories burned without the need for additional rides/runs. Also you must already have entered an accurate MaxHR figure into the watch, as this will impact the accuracy of the VO2Max estimate.