I have taken cycle and fitness classes now for over two years and I still do not see any results. I am still overweight and my heart rate monitor shows that I still only burn a couple of hundred calories each time. I am ready to just give up and am beginning to think exercise just doesn’t work for me. What should I do?

When we expend (put out) more calories than we ingest, we lose weight. We can do that by reducing our caloric intake, increasing our activity level or doing a combination of both of these. 

To improve performance, it is important that you workout with intensity and that you become fairly uncomfortable at times. You need to get hot, sweaty and really feel like you are overextended. For cycle classes that means making sure you have enough resistance on the wheel of the spin bike. If you can bike sitting up and can carry on a conversation with the person next to you, you are not working out with enough intensity and will not make progress. When in a fitness class, you will also need to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Make sure and try to use heavier weights and find your limits. Try to get to a place where you can’t quite complete the set that the instructor is doing. If you push your limits and get uncomfortable, you will make progress. If you give yourself a pass and take it easy, you will continue to be frustrated. Working it without enough intensity is one of the most common mistakes that many of us make when we work out.