The Hemp Connection:
target heart rate

For more information on calculating your target heart rate as I mention in the video, click here.

Normally I wouldn't promote a show like this on a blog like this, but a recent client shared that last season a woman was diagnosed with PCOS after competing. She happens to be someone who really struggled with weight loss during the competition. My client shared with me, that she remembered thinking when hearing about the PCOS diagnosis,"Wow, if a show of experts can't even help someone like me, I don't have much hope."

Until that conversation, I'd kept my thoughts about this show primarily to myself, but realizing it may be important to provide hope to a segment of the population for whom this show may not be entirely productive…I've decided to make it a regular blog entry throughout this season of Biggest Loser.

And, I have a team of experts to help! The contributors to this blog will be taking turns sharing their thoughts, expertise, and insights. We'll be so much better at this with all of these viewpoints than if it was just me. I hope you enjoy our little series.

Now, about Episode One.

I'm going to use my turn to talk about something that has bothered me since the show's inception--how"progress" is described. Weight loss is the only measurement used in this competition. And it is never mentioned, anywhere, anytime, that weight consists of several things: fat, muscle, water, glycogen (how carbohydrate is stored) and bone, primarily.

At one point in the show, Jillian was showing how the Body Bugg works. She stated that the calories burned in a typical day are about 3,000. One pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. So if we use her statement and calculate out a week, the average Biggest Loser contestant burns 21,000 calories in one week. That works out to about 6 pounds. Any loss over that is coming primarily from water and possibly even muscle.

In my exercise physiology program, we learned that different fuels are burned at different intensities. The more intense the exercise, the more likely it is that fat is not being burned. At high exercise intensities, the body switches to burning carbohydrate, which it gets from breaking down glycogen. Each gram of glycogen is stored with 3 grams of water. So at the intensities I saw in this episode (which involved working so hard that some people literally fell off of treadmills while others retreated to corners to vomit), my guess is that fat is not what was burned.

Remember, this is a commercial television show that depends on ratings. Higher weight losses draw in bigger audiences and more advertising dollars, so what are you going to do to get there if time only permits a"measly" 6 pounds a week of weight loss? You're going to do what it takes to purge as much water and glycogen out of the body as you possibly can. I realize purging is a bad pun given the fact that people were throwing up, but it leaves me wondering if the trainers are truly aiming for health, or if they are focused on goals outside of the welfare of the contestants.

It seems to me, especially since two contestants this season aren't even cleared to fully exercise because of medical risk, that there would be some sort of attention paid to calculating target heart rates and staying in the AEROBIC range in order to maximize loss of body FAT. But then my goal would be the long term health of the person I'm working with, not my professional reputation in a televised weight loss competition.

When working with women with PCOS, I always have to keep in mind that they hit the top of their aerobic range at lower levels of exercise intensity than other women. They tend to be those clients who exercise harder and longer than anyone else…only to gain weight. It is one of the hardest things I do in this kind of work, to convince my clients to trust that if they drop the intensity, it will help to facilitate the right kind of weight loss. Especially when competitions like this one push for the exact opposite mentality.

But the wall these contestants always hit a few weeks into the season? It's about having completely run out of glycogen to purge, muscle weight gain that is occurring at the same time fat is lost, and more rapidly if target exercise heart rates are not respected.

If the measurements used to calculate progress were a combination of weight AND a body fat measurement from which total muscle gained and total fat lost were factored in, you'd see very different results. You'd probably also see a lot higher self-esteem in the contestants and fewer contestants trying to throw the weigh-ins with water loading when they start to panic about whether or not their hard work will show up on the scale.

If you're one of those people who tends to lose weight slowly or even gain weight when you feel like you've really worked hard, try this.

1. Calculate your target heart rate as follows.
-Subtract your current age from 220. This is your maximum heart rate.
-Multiply your maximum heart rate by.6, and then by.8.
-The numbers you get when you do that are the lower and upper heart rates
you need to be in, in order to be most efficiently burning fat.

2. The next time you exercise, stop a few times and take your pulse. If your heart rate is exceeding the upper limit of your target heart range, you need to drop your exercise intensity.

Many women I've challenged to do this are very surprised at how less intensely they need to exercise. And how much more pleasant exercising can be when it doesn't have to entail losing your lunch in front of a crowd of people.

Thanks to all of you who wrote in response to the blog post on heart rate changes for women. When we get questions we know we're being read!

The most frequent question we got was whether or not the target heart rates would change depending on whether or not you are physically conditioned. The answer is no, and here is why.

Your heart is a muscle. Its job is to pump blood through your body. One of the reasons you should exercise is to make that muscle stronger. When your heart is strong, it can pump the same amount of blood with fewer beats. That is why, when you are in good physical shape, your resting heart rate usually drops…because your heart has become more efficient at doing its job.

Simply reducing your heart rate by one beat per minute saves you 525,600 heart beats per year!

Another really good sign that you're in good condition is that after you finish that exercise, your heart rate drops back to resting fairly quickly. In research times, you've improved your recovery rate. When you're out of shape and you start to exercise, you may find that you have an elevated heart rate long after your workout.

So if your heart is able to pump the same amount of blood with fewer beats when it is in good condition, it is going to be more difficult to get it to speed up its pace when you are exercising. The heart rate recommendations stay the same because your physical conditioning make it harder for you to stress your heart muscle.

One way you can challenge your heart is to switch out the kind of exercise you do, to use different muscle groups. Like your heart, other muscles can become accustomed to the workload and not have to work as hard to carry the same load.

The heart rate guidelines are a percentage of the maximum rate your heart rate should ever reach. So if you're having to work harder to max out your heart's capacity…you're in good shape.

The guidelines do NOT tell you what your maximum exercise rate should be. What they do indicate, is that if you are exceeding those guidelines, you're likely not burning fat and finding it harder to lose weight. You're also likely to be gaining weight in the form of muscle, glycogen, and water, to support that intensity of exercise.

You need to decide what your goal is. If you want to build muscle (and that's not a bad thing at all), then work out harder. If you want to burn fat, remember, more is not always better.

And keep that heart muscle pumping!

inCYSTer Christine Marquette tweeted this interesting press release from Northwestern University, describing a study in which the formula for calculating exercise heart rate for women has been adjusted. It's an important study, because the target rate using this formula is lower than the traditional formula lumping men and women together. If you've been aiming for that higher number, you've likely been overshooting your exercise intensity…and that keeps you from burning fat. It may also exacerbate carbohydrate cravings, since exercise above your target zone burns primarily carbohydrates. If you have PCOS, excessively intense exercising can provoke bulking up, which is more likely when you're going at it harder than you need to.

I went ahead and calculated the old versus new numbers at 80% of your age-based maximum heart rate, for all ages between 18 and 70, they're below for your reference.

Age Old Formula New Formula
18 162 134
19 161 133
20 160 132
21 159 132
22 158 131
23 157 130
24 157 130
25 156 129
26 155 128
27 154 127
28 154 127
29 153 126
30 152 125
31 151 125
32 150 124
33 150 123
34 149 122
35 148 122
36 147 121
37 146 120
38 146 120
39 145 119
40 144 118
41 143 118
42 142 117
43 142 116
44 141 115
45 140 115
46 139 114
47 138 113
48 138 113
49 137 112
50 136 111
51 135 111
52 134 110
53 134 109
54 133 108
55 132 108
56 131 107
57 130 106
58 129 106
59 129 105
60 128 104
61 127 103
62 126 103
63 126 102
64 125 101
65 124 101
66 123 100
67 122 99
68 122 99
69 121 98
70 120 97