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The Biggest (& Most Pleasurable) Fat Burner You May Be Neglecting

As any weight loss attempter might tell you the single biggest lever for fat loss (ergo: weight loss) is to be in a calorie deficit (i.e. you burn off more calories each day than you consume).

I use the Polar H10 heart-rate monitor to track the calories I burn when I train – this includes walks (which might be the single biggest tool in the fat-loss armoury – but that’s not the purpose of this post).

The Polar “nerdy strap” (as described by #superfitkid) then syncs with the My Fitness Pal app (I wrote in more details about both gadgets here earlier this year) that I use to record all of my meals (normally by scanning the barcode of what I’ve just eaten), giving me a fairly accurate appraisal of whether I’m in a calorie surplus or deficit each day.

Where trouble rolls into paradise is in the evening stint, where, if you’re like me, you can have a couple of knock-off beers, then share a bottle of wine, especially if you start the wine whilst cooking. Cooking without wine is a sort of sacrilege and I’d be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t do it (just like I’m suspicious of anyone who gets into a revolving door segment with another person – but this might speak more about me than anyone else so, again, let’s leave it there).

So a day that has been tracking just beautifully can suddenly resemble a dietary car-crash that sends you directly to calorie-surplus town.

But what, I pondered, what if there are other calorie burners that have been lurking in plain sight?

But that I haven’t recorded in My Fitness Pal because I haven’t been measuring them…

Where else have I been vigorously burning hitherto unaccounted for calories?

Hmmm?

Rumpy Pumpy

Yup, it turns out that sex is a pretty decent fat loss tool because of the calorie burn generated during a robust & enthusiastic bout.

But exactly how many calories are being burned during the coitus phase, and will this fat loss “hack” help get me back into a calorie deficit and enjoying my evening wine guilt-free?

Only one way to find out, I guess – and this blog is nothing if not a Public Service Announcement vessel.

Into The Breach – The Oura Ring

Immediately I hit a snag.

The nerdy-strap wasn’t going to cut it as an aphrodisiac.

“Won’t it dig into me and be painful?” was the not unreasonable question.

Damn – thwarted already.

But then I had a moment of inspiration.

The nerdy isn’t the only wearable device I use to measure my health; I’ve been using an Oura Ring to track my sleep and heart-rate variability for a couple of years, and the thing is a pistol.

One misstep or one (bottle of) wine too many and this device is onto you and making you feel guilty as hell the next morning as it delivers an appalling “sleep score” right to your phone, alongside a heavy dose of regret and self-loathing.

So with the Oura cavalry in tow I was back on track and ready to rumble, all in the name of biohacking and weight loss.

See you on the other side.

The Data 

And just like that the results are in. Here’s what we learned.

Activity: Errr…”Indoor Running”

Time: Yesterday 5:08pm

Duration: 33m

Active Calorie Burn: 362 Cal

Avg Heart Rate: 103 bpm

Heart Rate Summary: Most time in Zone 2

The results are in

This is interesting given that *most* data suggests that “most men” burn around 3-5 calories per minute of sex so the number should be closer to 150 calories.

“But I’m not most men,” is the collective carrion cry of all men across the globe.

“Of course you’re not, sweetheart, course you’re not,” goes the collective retort of all women across the globe.

But that aside there are some potential variables that need to be tweaked or re-examined.

The Oura Ring is just that: a ring. It lives on the finger of a hand. And I’m fairly sure it skews slightly towards, erm, hand movements (if you get my drift).

So there’s that.

There’s also the nature of the, ahem, activity and the, erm, vim & vigour one is exerting during the activity.

If you’re going at it hammer & tong like a proverbial frog in a sock, you’ll likely rack up more burned calories than if you giving it the old lazy starfish.

Another possible data variant to bear in mind if fat loss is your goal.

Conclusion

There’s no other conclusion: further experimentation is required to make this a statistically valid sample size, definitely using the Polar H-10 strap this time, nerdy or otherwise.

And I’m here for that

But, in the meantime, make no mistake, next time you’re woo-ing #superfitmum be sure to remember that minutes equals calories, and that we’re all in this together.

More to come.

SFD

 

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