March 25, 2006: Kicking off the kcal's

I forgot to bring my heart rate monitor, which also has a calorie counter to class, so I was disappointed that I couldn't measure how many calories class burns when we spar. So far the monitor measured the following (some of which I tried to measure more than once in my half-baked attempt to be scientific):

1. Cardio kickboxing class - about 400
2. 8 hours sleep - night after a kickboxing class - 700-800
2. TKD class w/o sparring, but about four 30 second rounds of going against the bags.- about 430
3. Advanced step class at Bally's - 364
4. Overnight with about 8 hours sleep on a day when I haven't exercised - 200-300

Here's the amazing thing, the calorie burn on Thursday night, which I measured as soon as I woke up on Friday morning was...drum roll please...1,125 calories!!!

That's almost 1/2 pound burned off in my sleep. I had read about the "afterburner" effect from doing cardio, and that it can last up to 48 hours, but to see it firsthand was an incredible feeling. I kept checking the monitor to see if I read the screen correctly. I had measured the afterburn the morning after kickboxing class, but I hadn't expected sparring to surpass it. However, to discover that TKD class, with 10-15 mintues of sparring burned that much long after the gear was off was amazing. I didn't exercise on Friday (shame on me), but burned 800 calories in my sleep...so I assume the afterburn was still going pretty strong. As Sabumnim prepares us for the Red Tiger Cup, there will be lots more sparring to come...calories beware!