Trying to understand calorie burned

[salty]

Rowing is what I want to do and get better at, so I'll see about slowing down. It's just this feeling, it feels like I have to go hard for it to have an effect. But yeah, I'll do some longer and slower sessions and see how that goes. There gotta be a sweep spot there somewhere, where it's possible to do everyday without getting too exhausted.

Thanks again!

Very easy mistake to make, 'harder has to be better'. Over the years I have tried all sorts of strategies, and I can say I have found significant weight loss , and PBs, have both come from mainly doing long and slow distances, along with occasional short and sharp sessions.

Going hard all of the time just left me drained, and stagnated my progress. It's just your ego talking when you decide to do it, as there's nothing to boast about when you go slow.

Indeed! I guess I just got excited about finally having found something I could do as well, and wanted to do, and so went "all in" all the time. At 45 I have never in my life exercised on a regular basis, so all the time I've spent on the rower already is in any case huge for me!
But yeah, I am mixing it up now with hard and easy days and some more rest than when I started. That the temperatures have finally dropped to where they suit me better probably also helps with my exhaustion.

[salty]

As well as the above, you need to think what else is happening to your body. Walking every day will help, but you culd still be losing muscle. I had several years off rowing, but walked an hour a day fairly briskly. My weight increased about 6%. At the end I restarted rowing and lost about 10% of my original weight, I had lost at least 4% of my original weight in muscle and replaced it with fat so things were much worse than I thought! Rowing helps to stimulate most of the larger muscle groups. If you do some harder rows then this can reduce or even reverse the muscle loss. The regained muscle will take much more energy to grow. You will also add some extra blood, caplliaries etc. that will further increase your lean mass as it is not the weight that matters but excess fat over the lean mass.

Finally, any measure of calories will exclude the calories burned repairing muscles so harder workouts burn significantly more than measured. That said, the difference of adding 50% to the time rowed will exceed the calories of rowing faster, hence the advice to row slower longer & more often. Also do what you find is most satiffying at least some of the time as anything is better than the nothing you will do if you give up!

Hope it goes well

Iain

Thank you! I'm still here and keeping it up, so I think it's going well. I've had some longer breaks, but I keep getting back to it so that's promising I think. I focus on keep starting.

I get what you say about increasing time so I have been working on that. It feels nice in a way, because when I work hard I have to focus hard on the effort, and if someone simply talks to me it feels as if I get weaker and lose effort, but at a slower pace I can keep up a conversation as well.

What I find a little frustrating is that I don't really have any way to measure if what I am doing is working, but simply have to trust that it will, in the long term. I mean, a weight loss might mean muscle loss, which isn't what I want.

[mict450]

What I find a little frustrating is that I don't really have any way to measure if what I am doing is working, but simply have to trust that it will, in the long term. I mean, a weight loss might mean muscle loss, which isn't what I want.

It is inevitable to lose some muscle when cutting. A very simple way to monitor fat loss is measuring your waist with a tape measure. This won't give you an absolute fat %, but you can monitor the trend, as a smaller waist is almost totally due to fat loss.

For a specific value, use the US Navy calculator, using weight, collar size & waist. The trend is the most important thing to track.

DIY caliper method using an Accumeasure 3000, is a very easy way to self-measure the suprailiac skin fold. Again the trend is the most important to follow. BTW, I have no commercial interest in the Accumeasure.

[salty]

What I find a little frustrating is that I don't really have any way to measure if what I am doing is working, but simply have to trust that it will, in the long term. I mean, a weight loss might mean muscle loss, which isn't what I want.

It is inevitable to lose some muscle when cutting. A very simple way to monitor fat loss is measuring your waist with a tape measure. This won't give you an absolute fat %, but you can monitor the trend, as a smaller waist is almost totally due to fat loss.

For a specific value, use the US Navy calculator, using weight, collar size & waist. The trend is the most important thing to track.

DIY caliper method using an Accumeasure 3000, is a very easy way to self-measure the suprailiac skin fold. Again the trend is the most important to follow. BTW, I have no commercial interest in the Accumeasure.

Thanks.

If it isn't evident, I'm a little impatient. Yes I do measure my weight and waist in the morning at irregular intervals, and while it varies, it seems to be trending down. I guess I should start noting it down so I can really see how it's going, it's kinda easy to forget where I was, I just focus on where I want to be and that seems so far away.