Upon the cross trainer at the gym yesterday I had an epiphany. Fact #1- I can get on it for 15 minutes and burn 250 calories. Fact #2- A pound of fat has around 3500 calories.
Assuming I could get on it 14 times a day would it be possible for me to burn a literal pound of fat each day? If not why?
No, you cannot lose a pound a day; not of fat, at least. Firtly, your body is designed to hold onto fat, in the event of starvation or extreme need.
Putting your body in a situation where there is a caloric deficit of 3500 cals per day would qualify as "extreme need." One of the body's defense mechanisms in that case would be to slow down the rate at which it uses fat for energy.
To begin with, your overall metabolic rate would decrease, meaning that while you may have used 250 kcal your first time out on the Cross Trainer (which I don't believe, as I think a number given like that is arbitrary, as it doesn't seem to have taken into account your age, weight, LBM and fat mass, etc, and is really just a cookie cutter number.)...even if it were the case that you used 250 kcal on the first go, you would use less as you went on. Then, of course there is the fact that your body would attempt to hold onto fat and would have no choice but to eat away at muscle to sustain that kind of activity.
Obviously this is a very rudamentary description of the situation, but I think that essentially, no, assuming you were not using anything to preserve lean body mass, you would have no chance of losing a pound of fat per day.
the one thing to understand is that cardio does not burn fat,now stay with me.cardio increases your metabolism which inturn makes u burn more calories.so killing yourself on the cardio machines for a long time will just wear u out,i suggest very high intensity cardio such as stationary bike for no more that 16-20 mins.believe me when i say if u can go longer than this flat out u never went hard enough in the first place.
you’ll also burn muscle, and plenty of it. If cardio only burned fat, everybody would be 2% bodyfat.
I think you’d be catabolizing muscle as well.
Be prepared to feel like shit and lose a lot of muscle. Only go for it if you have just roll after endless roll of fat to lose. You’ll be so burnt out by it though. I was doing cardio 2x a day in addition to lifting regularily and eating 1400 cals a day at one time (on Mag-10) and got drained after a few days and decided to bulk instead. Good luck, watch for flames.
My guess is no, you wouldnt mate. I would say that you would just burn so many calories it would start to eat away at your muscles, Make you feel lethargic and you would probabbly end up passing out, due to lack of energy and avalible calories for maintanance.
Your body would react to that as if you’d been hit by a truck! Look at marathon runners who do pretty much what you’re suggesting – most couldn’t do 20 pushups to save their lives.
Beware of the “calorie” feature on cardio equipment. They are there for generalization in terms of accuracy. Your personal metabolism and BM dictates your caloric expenditure.
Alright a big 10-4 on that. Seemed like a good idea for someone who wanted to get the whole fat loss thing over quickly. Anyway thanks!
Where would you get the freakin’ time to do 14 15minute sessions a day?
it was a hypothetical question
I think you probably could do this but the thing is a lb. of fat contains 3500 calories while a lb. of muscle i believe only contains around 700 calories so in this case it is a whole lot easier for your body to burn off muscle while holding onto the fat. If you attempted to create a 3500 + calorie deficit per day you would likely find yourself losing more than a lb. per day but the majority of this would be muscle loss.