Skiing and Calorie burn

Feb 01, 2011 18:30

This past weekend I did some cross country skiing and some snowboarding while wearing my trusty armband.   Interesting results.. not quite what I expected.


I cross-country skied for a total of 3.5 hours.   Looks like I burned around 1017 calories (counting the drive back to the cabin but not counting the drive to the resort plus renting n'stuff).  I was pretty done after 3.5 hours of cross country skiing.  I didn't push myself SUPER hard and there were a lot of uphills and downhills and rests.  It felt like a full-body workout (my back was actually the most tired thing at the end of the day).  Total for the whole day was 2588 calories.



Monday I went snowboarding.   We were on the mountain from around 9:15 through around 3:30ish, so a much longer day, but with a couple good breaks.  The total calories, including drive home but not including getting to the resort, was 1475.  If I include carrying my snowboard out to the car, standing in line for tickets, and just maneuvering in those lovely heavy snowboard boots, it adds another 100 calories.  I was pretty beat at the end of the day here too, but it was a comparable amount of tiredness.  Maybe I was a little more tired but this was also the second day in a row in the snow.   Total number of calories burned was almost 300 calories higher than the cross-country day.





Almost 2900 calories?!?!  I don't think I ate enough yesterday.  I could've had the rest of the box of those fudge striped cookies.  ;)

I love this second chart.  I can count how many runs I did!  Looks like either 29 or 30.  (paid $59 for the lift ticket, which makes each run $2, yes I am a geek).  I think the fact that I was outside in the cold simply trying to keep myself warm upped my underlying burn too.  It slowed way down as soon as I went inside.

The lesson here:  duration is more important than effort when it comes to straight-up calorie counts.  Also, using BIG muscles burns more calories than using little muscles.. the cross-country day I used a lot of arms and back and my legs didn't get too tired, but my legs and butt took all the punishment while snowboarding.  Larger muscles require more calories to work.

Snowboarding Wins!!!  Not that I don't love cross-country too...but... SNOWBOARDING!!!  When's the next trip???

calories, snowboarding, cross country skiing, fitness

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