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Two 30 minute runs or one 60 minute jog?

Old 12-03-2010, 01:25 PM
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Default Two 30 minute runs or one 60 minute jog?

*One 60+ minute run or two 30 minute runs?
*Fat burned from exercise stored fat or fat recently consumed?
*As described from my jog below, if I'm not hurting/tired, is it ineffective?


For the last month and a half, almost every day I've been spot jogging for at least an hour; up to an hour and fifteen minutes. Today, I had a 30 minute spot jog around lunch time, and I suppose I'll put in my last half hour minimum a couple of hours before I go to sleep.

I've heard differing accounts, and the one which was explained best to me went something like in the first 10-45 minutes (differing accounts account for the 35 minute range) of cardio, your body is burning things other than fat, and then after that mark, you then start burning body fat. Therefore, it would make more sense for me to do the one run of at least an hour. (Side Q: is the body fat I'm burning from the jog stored body fat, or fat from food I've recently consumed? Estimated 15% body fat if it helps [155# male])

However, one might also assume that it's a good idea to base your exercise around your meals. I typically have a 300-500 calorie meal in the evening, wait an hour or two, and then I do my cardio exercise. Then I have a light snack after my cardio then hit the sheets a little while after that. Would it be more effective if I exercised for half of the amount of time after two meals, or should I stick with what I have been doing and git 'r done all at once?



Also, when I do my one hour of spot jogging, one would think that would be enough to tire someone out. When I first started I'd get tired around 30 minutes, but these days it just seems to... go by. It's a very consistent effort of about 4 steps on the spot per second throughout too, by no means am I "dogging" it. Honestly, I'd feel better if my legs hurt like hell in the morning, but I already burn about 500-600 calories a night from my spot jog according to Fitday (not sure exactly how accurate that really is...) and if I upped it to two hours, I know that I'd be at too much of a deficit. For the latter half of my spot jog I'm definitely sweating even though I'm under considerably cold circumstances, but if I'm not "feeling the burn" or I'm not huffing and puffing, should I be deeming my efforts ineffective?

About a month ago I incorporated my Xbox 360 and NHL 11 into my spot jogging so that I look forward to it, it's entertaining, and it makes the minutes absolutely fly by. This has hindered the extra workout I get from engaging my arms, so to make it up, for every goal I score (and boy, do I score) I try to at least double my pace, and mock-celebrate my goal with fist pumps and cheers and whatnot for the next minute (yeah... I probably look ridiculous. I don't think this has anything to do with it because besides the arm-movement, the consistency of my spot jog remains... consistent. But just thought I'd throw that into consideration...

Thanks for reading!


***EDIT*** In case it confused anyone, my title probably would have better read "Two 30 minute jogs or one 60 minute jog?"

Last edited by Scottmor; 12-03-2010 at 01:31 PM.
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Old 12-03-2010, 06:00 PM
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Everyone is different so as long as you are getting the results you want I wouldn't worry too much.

I exercise whenever I want for however long I want. Sometimes I just do 15 minute mini workouts a few times a day that include lifting, sit ups, push ups, etc. Sometimes I do full RT 2 a days, sometimes I run 2 or 3 times a day, sometimes I don't do any!

I also eat whenever I want. I am not a morning person and only want coffee so I usually eat pretty late at night to meet my macros. I ate a veggie burger on WW bread plus 5 veggie hot wings around midnight tonight and I am eating vegetarian "ham" right now.

It works for me so I go with it.

If you are looking for different results I would suggest checking out some of the structured programs.
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Old 12-03-2010, 06:21 PM
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Hi Scott,

I'll address your points in sort of reverse order. First of all, if you have lately not felt any sort of tiredness or soreness from your hour spot jogging, your body has probably completely adapted to that type of training and you are not deriving the same benefit from it that you used to, aside from burning more fat than at rest. It still counts for fat burning, but perhaps not as much as it once did. From that standpoint, it stands to reason that you could stop doing your spot jogging entirely and replace it with two 30-minute jump roping interval sessions, perhaps one at midday and one in the evening, or one in the evening and one later at night. I think you will see a lot more fat come off once you start that. And in the interest of recovery, resist the urge to do your spot jogging on top of the intervals.

Regarding the source of fat burning: it doesn't really matter whether it comes from stored body fat or consumed fat because ultimately all fat that's going to be used as fuel has to end up in the bloodstream. Either its going to get there through intestinal absorption, or its going to get mobilized from your fat stores and absorbed into your bloodstream. You can't really control where it comes from. Here's the kicker though: if you get enough fat in your diet, you can convince your body to more readily mobilize fat stores at rest, since the body usually stores fat as an emergency response to when exogenous fat sources are scarce, i.e., famine conditions.

The reality of fat burning is that fat is actually being burned continuously by the body. It's a slow burning, yet reliable source of continuous energy (think candle) so the body can use it to power most mundane activities. As activity intensity goes up, the body starts burning a higher proportion of faster fuel like glucose (think newspaper). So what happens when you go from standing to walking to jogging to sprinting is the overall rate of calorie burning goes up, while the proportion of fat burning goes down.

To give a (extremely) simplified numerical example, at standing you could be burning 20kcal/hour, but 90% fat for 18kcal fat/hour. At walking, it might be 100 kcal/hour at 75% fat for 75 kcal fat/hour. While jogging, you may burn 300 kcal/hour but only 50% fat for 150kcal fat/hour. At a full sprint, you might burn 800 kcal/hour but only 10% fat for 80 kcal fat/hour. However, sprinting also causes a lot of muscle micro-tearing that needs to be repaired, so after doing a few rounds of sprints your standing metabolism might be elevated to 40 kcal/hour for up to 24-36 hours, still maintaining 90% fat proportion for 36 kcal/hour. As you can see, it really doesn't have much to do with how much time you spend training but rather the type of metabolic condition you create within your body, which might be a more accurate way of expressing it.

So long story short in my opinion it might be best for now to skip the spot jogging for 30 minute sessions of high intensity interval work. It will force your body to adapt to new training conditions, thereby spurring more fat loss, and in addition will raise your metabolic rate to consistently burn more fat at rest. I know I keep saying this, but if you go to this route you must be careful not to overtrain and get plenty of rest, but I strongly feel that this could be a serious fat buster for you.

Good luck!
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Old 12-04-2010, 12:51 PM
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vabeachgirl, I have certainly seen results that I do want... but not the end result and what has been working still works, but at a slower pace... just as tandoori is saying.

tandoori, thank you for this advice, and your previous advice. I do like to acknowledge everybody's input, but don't want to take up forum space! Anywho, I just finished your suggestion of HIIT for cardio. I must be the only bloke without a jump-rope in the garage, but I made do. I stuck with the spot jog, except a "HIIT-isized" it. I hope to grab a jump-rope from a pal tonight.

I did 1:3 spot-sprinting/jogging for 20 minutes, and I really pushed it for the spot-sprint. I still kept the spot-jog portion consistent, still no dogging it. I liked the feeling from this exercise- I definitely started to sweat more, right about after my second 30-second sprint. After my last sprint at 20 minutes, I had a sweat drop off the side of my face, and I deemed this a success. I would have tried for at least 30 minutes, but I'm the DD this Saturday night and I don't want to keep the chums waiting. I hope I feel a burn tomorrow. I think I'll aim for 30 minutes on my next session, and if I still don't feel it, I'll keep on upping it.

I'd say I'm developing into an obsessive logger when it comes to my food and fitness log. I was wondering if anybody had a suggestion for logging something like this (20 minute spot-sprint/jog at 1:3) or had a ballpark guess on how many calories are burned from this exercise.

Thanks for all the continued support!
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Old 12-06-2010, 05:54 AM
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Originally Posted by Scottmor
I was wondering if anybody had a suggestion for logging something like this (20 minute spot-sprint/jog at 1:3) or had a ballpark guess on how many calories are burned from this exercise.
When I do HIIT I log the activity as jogging for the average speed of the run. I believe this is accurate for the activity itself, although information I have read indicates that the 24 hour residual burn may double the calories burned during exercise. So calories burned may be understated and your results more noticeable.
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