Cardio Machine Trap

Wow, it happens to all of us.  We think we work hard and should be able to reward ourselves for that hard work.  There is only one problem, How hard did we really work?  Not such an easy thing to find out is it...

UNLESS: We're at the gym or have a big fancy machine at home.  I'm talking about those big, bulky, floor space robbing Cardio machines that come in many flavors.  Elliptical Trainers, Stair Climbers, Exercise Bikes.  The nice ones all have a great tool to calculate exactly how many calories are burned during a given workout.

These sofisticated cardio machines are great (if you like acting like a hamster), and they even let me know exactly when I can have that extra order of fries, or piece of pie after dinner.  If I'm working out with a partner, I can even use them to compete and determine who worked out harder and with more "Intensity".

Now for the Problem...

Those Calorie Counters are WRONG !!!!!!!!!!

As reported by ABC as study performed at the University of California San Francisco determined that the Calorie counters overestimated Calories burned by an average of 20%. This means that extra food we just ate, didn't really get burned off while we were at the gym, and it truly will go directly to our Guts.

Don't fall into the Numbers Trap:

The reality is, we tend to put to much emphasis on the Numbers game.  We put a lot of faith in people and machines to tell us what we want to hear, when we should be putting our faith in ourselves to be honest.  We usually know if we eat to much, or if we didn't really put in a good workout (at least I know).. If we just put in the work and make it a good workout, we shouldn't need a fake counter to tell us when we can quit.

Now, I'm not saying Don't use the Cardio machines.  However, I do feel there are often times better ways to workout.  Each machine has a purpose and one of those purposes is to burn calories.  If burning calories is one of your main goals though, I can think of several ways to burn calories faster, which might actually keep metabolism up longer which would promote an even greater amount of calorie use.