Fat Burning Zone Calculator

- how many calories do we really burn when we're out riding our bikes? well we know it's a greatway of losing weight, so the short answer is,probably quite a lot. but how do we really calculate it?

Fat Burning Zone Calculator, how do we know how manycarbs we need to consume while out riding, so wedon't run out of energy, and hit the wall? - yeah. put simply, acalorie is a unit of energy.

so the more calories in the piece of food, the more energy that it contains. and to put simply again, we can work out exactly how much energy it takes to ride at a certain pace. (funky music) - pedalling a bike requires power. which is measured in watts. you can roughly assume thatproducing one watt of power

for an hour will burn four calories. it doesn't sound like much, but so, if you get 10 milesper hour on a flat road, requires about 40 watts. 15 mph about 100. and 20 mph on a flatroad, about 210 watts. so riding 10 miles in an hour requires 140 calories. 15 mph 350 calories,

and 20 mph about 700. knowing exactly how manycalories you're burning is going to require somefairly specific technology. which normally means a power meter, such as the one that matt andi are using on today's ride. however, they are quitea significant investment, so an alternative is to use a flat road to give you a roughidea of calories burned. however, as soon as you startgoing uphill or downhill,

or you have a big tail wind or head wind, that's going to vary quite considerably. instead then, you could get a rough idea from your heart rate. - yeah, that's a reallylong established method that takes into accountyour age, your weight, and how long you've actuallybeen exercising for. throw into the mixture average heart rate, and you can get a really good idea

of how many calories you've burned. - so, to give you an example, i am 36 years old, i weigh 70 kilogrammes, and to average around 20miles per hour or 210 watts on a pan flat road, it only requires an average heart rate for me personally of about 140 beats per minute. crunching those numbersin the calorie calculator,

and it comes out at 770 calories per hour. - so it's pretty clear then, there's some inaccuracy here. in fact, there's quite a lot of inaccuracy across the board withall of these methods. but, in particular, heart rate. take for example, comparingone person to the next. some people have a really low heart rate, compared somebody else,

but that would have no bearingon their fitness whatsoever. and then you've got to lookat your own heart rate. it could be changed alone depending on your level of fatigue, or even, the temperature of your body. but what about power? surely that is actuallymeasuring an output. well yes, it is, but in order to calculate calories from power,

there is an assumption aboutthe efficiency of your body. meaning, how many calories are wasted when producing that power. and the reason thatit's only an assumption, is because people's efficiency varies, by up to 30 percent. - to put that into context,that's the difference between needing 850 calories to cycle at 200 watts for an hour,

or just 600 calories. that's the differencein needing three extra of these energy gels, every hour. now there's one last elementto complicate things. you don't stop burning calories when you climb off your bike. you burn calories justto stay alive of course, but certain types of exercise raise your metabolic rate,

effectively making yourbody burn more calories, even when you're resting in bed. that's because high-intensity exercise causes muscle damage, andthat takes energy to repair. - so, whilst you might burn 700 calories by riding 20 miles in one hour, you might find that this effortmakes you burn more calories for the subsequent 24 hours as well. and if this is really what you want,

high intensity intervalsare what you need. if you ever want to measure exactly the amount of calories thatyou burn while cycling, you're gonna need to know the quantity and the types of gasesthat you breathe out, and the relationship betweenoxygen and carbon dioxide. and as you can imagine, that would take some pretty specialist type of equipment, most likely taken place in a lab.

and let's face it. do you really need to be that accurate? - probably not, but knowing roughly how many calories you'reexpending whilst you're out riding is going to allow you to knowhow much you need to eat, or how much energy drinkyou need to consume, in order not to run out of energy whilst you're out on your ride. and actually any ride over 90 minutes

is going to require some kindof carbohydrate consumption, even if your main aim is to lose weight. and if that's the case,it's restricting calories off the bike, that's goingto be more beneficial. - so you should go and have some cake? - yeah. anyway. - if you haven't already subscribed to global cycling network, please do so, then you won't miss anymore of our videos

and you can do that byclicking on the globe. - yeah, and if you would like to do some high-intensity indoors,on your indoor trainer, we've got the perfect videofor you just down there. on the other hand, if you'd like to know where is the best place to consume food whilst you're out on the bike, you can find that just down there. - and tip, it's probably a cafe.

- no, actually on the bike. - oh. - alright.

Tweet