You burned 463 calories. You burned 641 calories.
You look so handsome. Yes, you, you sexy beast.
That beard is ravishing. What the fuck?
So, I got some bad news for you. This machine right here
is lying to you. But it's not just this one, so is this one and this one and even this one.
See guys is you re using a treadmill or any cardio machine right now to determine the amount
of calories you re burning to help you in your goal to lose more weight, you're not getting the
right math. You're being lied to. The number of calories that you're burning are just not
accurate. Today I'm going to show you not only the worst of the worst, but also I'm going to tell you
the machines that are maybe better worth your time than others. It's time for the truth.
But the first truth that needs to be told is if you're using your cardio
as a way to create your caloric deficit, to lose weight, you're making a big mistake.
Because you're never going to be able to outrun a bad diet, we talk about it all the time. Even
just one slip up in a meal is enough to race an hour's worth of effort at the gym. You need to
make sure that when you're trying to lose weight, your efforts are focused first and foremost
on cleaning up the foods that you're eating right now. Make your caloric cuts there and use
the additional cardio to supplement those efforts. And that's where the real results will happen.
So, the first thing you have to be on the lookout for is how these things are actually asking you
for the information, because if they're not asking for your weight directly, then they're not giving
you an accurate result. Because we know that cardio machines need to know how much you weigh.
A heavier person has to work harder to move their body through space and therefore can burn more
calories. Whereas somebody that's lighter is going to burn less calories for the same activity.
Well, what happens with these cardio machines is they calculate that calorie burn based off of
something called a MET M-E-T which is a metabolic equivalent. And essentially one MET is the value
of you sitting on the couch doing nothing. The calories that you would burn by literally just
sitting down watching TV. And anything you did that increased your activity beyond that
is going to be some multiple of that number. So, if you went for a jog, you could have, let's say,
a three or four MET burn, which is three or four times harder than sitting on your ass.
That being said, it's always calculated by one bodyweight number, usually 154 pounds.
So, if you don't weigh 154 pounds, you're not getting an accurate calorie output read back to
you. If you weigh less than that, then you're actually overestimating how many calories you
burn and if you weigh more than that, you're actually maybe underestimating by a little bit.
But don't worry, there's a lot of other ways that these machines are screwing you.
I'm going to show you those, too. Wait, isn't this your towel?
Oh, that's disgusting. And one of them is by actually maybe
fudging the math intentionally. You see, a lot of times the number that you read in terms of
the caloric burn is based on including something called the REE or the Resting Energy Expenditure,
the calories that you would burn normally at rest. So, let's say you're on the treadmill and it tells
you that you burned 420 calories. Well, what if it's also including the fact that you would have
burned 100 calories if you did nothing at all? Well, that's just inflating the overall number.
You only burn 320 extra calories. You're already likely using that number in your base calculation
to determine how many calories you need to burn during the day. It's just not fair.
So, you might be asking yourself, why would they do such a thing? Well, maybe to make you think
this machine is amazing. And I would love to do all my workouts on this machine. In a matter of
fact, I might want to buy one of these and put it in my house because it makes me feel good about
the number of calories I'm burning. Just throwing it out there. But let's not just blame the
machines entirely, because if you're doing what I'm doing right now, you're screwing yourself.
If you've ever ridden a bike leaning this way, your posture is creating less caloric burn. How?
Because you're doing less work. Leaning on the machine, on weighting some of your body weight
is costing yourself some calories. Amazingly so up to 50% less than what you thought you
were burning and that causes problems. You can do it even on a treadmill. You've
probably seen it a million times or done it yourself. You hold on with your hands or worse,
you lean forward. Or even on a Stairmaster any attempt at all to try to weight any of your body
weight is a good indication that you're actually looking for a way out. If you're going to do
your cardio, make sure you stand up straight and do so with good posture, you're going to
get a lot closer to the number that you actually thought you were burning in terms of calories.
Can I ask you a question? If you're going do bicep curl, do you think you get better results doing
this or actually taking it through a full range of motion all the way down and all the way up? Well,
it should come as no surprise the full range of motion is better. But then why are you doing
this when you're doing cardio, you're cutting your range of motion short often. For instance,
if you use a Stairmaster, or in this case, a Step Mill, a lot of us take the option of taking short,
choppy steps. We don't drive the step all the way down through full hip extension. What that means
is less work being done. And for you, let's work means less calories and less calories
means less weight loss. And look at even your choices,
like the elliptical machine. It's locking you into an abbreviated range of motion. You can't extend
your leg for the back even if you wanted to. And then even this, I'm sure you've seen people
who stand up while they're pedaling on a bike. Now, this is not just some fancy peloton trick,
it's increasing the range of motion. You're getting more hip extension also on unweighting
your body. Remember the more of your body weight that you're bearing during the exercise. You're
doing, the more calories you're burning and therefore getting better bang for your buck.
So, remember, if it feels easier, it is easier. Instead, look to make it harder,
increase that range of motion. And with that increased range of motion and work done,
you're going to find better overall success from your time spent in the gym. All right, so if all
these cardio machines are lying to you, are there at least some that are lying to you less? And the
answer is yes. And it starts with the stationary bike. It's the most accurate overestimating
by only about 7%. And the reason for this is oftentimes the way that we calculate the calories
burned here is through mathematical formulations and based off of power output. In other words,
watts. And when we do that and we combine it with our body weight, which most of these machines will
ask for, we get a much more accurate judgment. However, next up on the list is going to be
the Stairmaster. Here we're looking at about a 12% overestimation on the number of calories
that you burn. But you've got to make sure, once again, that you're not leaning on that machine,
like I said, and that you're taking those nice, long, full range of motion steps. The next one up
down the list in terms of accuracy is going to be the treadmill, which really isn't such good
news because so many people use this machine. And the problem here is twofold. Number one,
the accuracy is now off by 13% to up to 20%. And even if you do what I told you and keep your hands
off the handrails, sometimes you're still fighting a losing battle here. Because the calibration of
the machine is a requirement to maintain its accuracy and most gyms just don't calibrate the
machines often enough. So that's something you can't even do anything about. And then finally,
the most inaccurate of them all is the elliptical machine, sometimes off by as much as 42%,
mostly due to the fact that the range of motion varies greatly between even different models.
Now, to put this all into real world perspective, imagine this
if you spent 30 minutes on an elliptical machine, you might be overestimating the number of calories
burned by 130. Now, think about that. If you're trying to create your overall deficit for the day
and you think you've burned 130 calories more than you did, therefore you could eat more food,
you're kind of setting yourself up for disaster. Extrapolate this out for the entire year,
if you were to take 130 calories in extra over your baseline rate every single day, that's a
14-pound weight gain by the end of the year. Let's face it, we need to figure this out.
Or do we really? Because there's a few things you could do right now that are actually going to just
nullify the inaccuracy of these machines and still help you to get back on track in terms of
your weight loss. And the first thing is just to choose a different machine because there are some
that are just way better at burning a lot more calories. So even if they're off, you're still
burning a lot more than you are right now. And the main key here is to integrate one that has
working arm movement, not just going along for the ride, like on the elliptical, but actually working
and working hard. And one of the easiest ways to do this is with an air bike, you could burn
about 20 to 25 calories for every single minute that you're on this. The other option is to
use a rowing machine again, resisted upper body movement as well as lower body movement here.
Obviously, when you use these guys, you know how much more difficult they are. The difficulty
is going to be a dead giveaway in terms of the effectiveness of the exercise. And finally, you
could use something like this ski ergometer or the ski erg. The point is you have alternatives to the
standard cardio options that are ultimately going to do a better job of helping you burn calories.
Yeah, I know they're not the most pleasant, but at the end of the day, what matters is the work
that you do. And the more work you do, the more calories you burn and ultimately, the more weight
you'll lose, so you got to consider it. But even if you decide that you just want to stick to the
machine you're using right now, you want to find ways to make it more accurate. What can you do?
Well, the first thing, as I mentioned, is to try to find one at least allows you to input your body
weight. Because when you do, you're going to have an infinitely closer accuracy when it comes to the
number of calories burned. But the other thing I like to just recommend is throw a towel over
it and stop looking at the calories. Instead go off of your respiratory rate. The more difficult
it is for you to carry on a conversation during exercise, the more indicative it is
of the amount of effort you're putting forth. So, aim for more breathlessness. In other words,
whatever cardio machine you're using right now, if you're more breathless, the next time you use it,
you're likely working harder and therefore increasing your calorie burn. Or make it easy for
yourself and do what I advise my athletes to do. Simply take the output that the machine gives you
and divide it in half and use that to calculate your intake amounts for the day. Oh, and by the
way, don't rely on the wearable devices to try to improve your reporting on your calorie output.
They're actually not much more helpful. As a matter of fact, the best of them has shown
only a 20% inaccuracy, with the worst one being actually 96% inaccurate. Yeah,
even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. So, remember, if you're looking to lose
weight and cardio is part of your equation here, at least make sure you're getting the
right numbers back. In the meantime, if you're looking for more proof that trying to outrun
a bad diet is a bad idea, you're going to want to watch this video right here.
No, not that video. That video right there.
Oh, man. If you're looking for a complete program,
you can find it over at athleanxcom. If you haven't done so, click subscribe,
turn on your notifications so you're never miss a new video when we put one out.
Oh, Jeff, can I tell you a lie? Sure.
You're the best boss ever. You're so funny, Jesse. I think I love you.