It does not appear to be possible to increment the progress bar without a relatively slow system-call to get the time. This happens even when the progress bar does not require accessing the current time. For more often increments, these system-calls add up to a significant amount of time (granted this is for a very high number of increments).
Possibly there should be a way to increment the bar without causing a tick, or a separate bar that does not make calls to get the time and is only incremented manually (does not allow attaching timers).