Which level of effort do I put down in the MFP app for my exercise bike?

backupguy

Hey guys, I have a Pro Fitness folding exercise bike which I bought from Argos for £79.99. It has 8 levels of resistance and I use the hardest difficult which is level 8 of course.

I am 5ft 7in and currently weigh 12st 6.8lb. I cycled 27.33km today which took me an hour and that worked out to be about 16.98mph. I never get off the seat though.

I cannot figure out which effort level to put my exercise into the app under. The bike does not have the function for me to input any personal details such as height, age, weight, gender, but it says in that hour I burned 409 calories.

I feel like it is higher than light effort as I always strip down to my boxers and socks even when the house is freezing cold, and I always come off with a full body sweat (boxers and socks drenched). MFP says that under light effort I would have burned 436 and under moderate it says 555, so which is it?

Moderate effort of ordinary bicycling says between 12-14mph? a 60 minute session of it would burn 634 calories. Would that be equal to cycling nearly 17mph on an exercise bike (I know ordinary bicycling probably accounts for gradients or things like that)

Camo_xxx

If it was me I would figure I burnt about 300 calories an hour on my stationary bike at that pace. For an hour of the same on my road bike I figure about 445. 6'2" 220lbs

backupguy

well I don't think that would be correct as even light effort (the lowest) is over what the bike says which was 409. Surely that number is conservative more than anything since it must be based on an average weighted person? I have 18.5% body fat and would consider myself slightly overweight

ruqayyahsmum

calories burnt on the mfp database are often over estimated, the only accurate way to measure is to wear a heart rate monitor such as a garmin, polar etc

backupguy

I was under the impression MFP would be more more accurate since it knows my stats and the exercise bike doesn't? But a heart rate monitor would be good, would love to buy the new Fitbit Surge but at £199.99 it could be a while before I can afford that. Might do as you have said and get a heart rate monitor.

skullshank

a heart-rate monitor will give you a better estimate than mfp or the bike itself.
even then, it's just an estimate and likely inflated.

backupguy

I suppose the end result doesn't matter, it's the exercise itself that counts

mochapygmy

It matters if you plan on eating back exercise calories. Personally I estimate lower for my exercise calories and higher on my food intake to account for any overestimates in the database.

backupguy

I've calculated my intake to make sure I eat enough, but I do not eat back calories from exercise, except for the occasional treat day.